Howard Pyle's Book of pirates : fiction, fact & fancy concerning the buccaneers & marooners of the Spanish Main
never would have occurred. "Look, sir," he said, as he struck the sand
from it, "it hath writing on it."
"Let me see it," said Parson Jones. He adjusted the spectacles a
little more firmly astride of his nose as he took the paper in his
hand and began conning it. "What's all this?" he said; "a whole lot of
figures and nothing else." And then he read aloud, "'Mark--S. S. W. S.
by S.' What d'ye suppose that means, Tom?"
"I don't know, sir," said Tom. "But maybe we can understand it better
if you read on."
"'Tis all a great lot of figures," said Parson Jones, "without a grain
of meaning in them so far as I can see, unless they be sailing
directions." And then he began reading again: "'Mark--S. S. W. by S.
40, 72, 91, 130, 151, 177, 202, 232, 256, 271'--d'ye see, it must be
sailing directions--'299, 335, 362, 386, 415, 446, 469, 491, 522, 544,
571, 598'--what a lot of them there be--'626, 652, 676, 695, 724, 851,
876, 905, 940, 967. Peg. S. E. by E. 269 foot. Peg. S. S. W. by S. 427
foot. Peg. Dig to the west of this six foot.'"
"What's that about a peg?" exclaimed Tom. "What's that about a peg?
And then there's something about digging, too!" It was as though a
sudden light began shining into his brain. He felt himself growing
quickly very excited. "Read that over again, sir," he cried. "Why,
sir, you remember I told you they drove a peg into the sand. And don't
they say to dig close to it? Read it over again, sir--read it over
again!"
"Peg?" said the good gentleman. "To be sure it was about a peg. Let's
look again. Yes, here it is. 'Peg S. E. by E. 269 foot.'"
"Aye!" cried out Tom Chist again, in great excitement. "Don't you
remember what I told you, sir, 269 foot? Sure that must be what I saw
'em measuring with the line."
Parson Jones had now caught the flame of excitement that was blazing
up so strongly in Tom's breast. He felt as though some wonderful thing
was about to happen to them. "To be sure, to be sure!" he called out,
in a great big voice. "And then they measured out 427 foot
south-southwest by south, and they then drove another peg, and then
they buried the box six foot to the west of it. Why, Tom--why, Tom
Chist! if we've read this aright, thy fortune is made."
Tom Chist stood staring straight at the old gentleman's excited face,
and seeing nothing but it in all the bright infinity of sunshine. Were
they, indeed, about to find the treasure chest? He felt the sun very
hot upon his shoulders, and he heard the harsh, insistent jarring of a
tern that hovered and circled with forked tail and sharp white wings
in the sunlight just above their heads; but all the time he stood
staring into the good old gentleman's face.
It was Parson Jones who first spoke. "But what do all these figures
mean?" And Tom observed how the paper shook and rustled in the tremor
of excitement that shook his hand. He raised the paper to the focus of
his spectacles and began to read again. "'Mark 40, 72, 91--'"
"Mark?" cried out Tom, almost screaming. "Why, that must mean the
stake yonder; that must be the mark." And he pointed to the oaken
stick with its red tip blazing against the white shimmer of sand
behind it.
"And the 40 and 72 and 91," cried the old gentleman, in a voice
equally shrill--"why, that must mean the number of steps the pirate
was counting when you heard him."
"To be sure that's what they mean!" cried Tom Chist. "That is it, and
it can be nothing else. Oh, come, sir--come, sir; let us make haste
and find it!"
"Stay! stay!" said the good gentleman, holding up his hand; and again
Tom Chist noticed how it trembled and shook. His voice was steady
enough, though very hoarse, but his hand shook and trembled as though
with a palsy. "Stay! stay! First of all, we must follow these
measurements. And 'tis a marvelous thing," he croaked, after a little
pause, "how this paper ever came to be here."
"Maybe it was blown here by the storm," suggested Tom Chist.
"Like enough; like enough," said Parson Jones. "Like enough, after the
wretches had buried the chest and killed the poor black man, they were
so buffeted and bowsed about by the storm that it was shook out of the
man's pocket, and thus blew away from him without his knowing aught of
it."
"But let us find the box!" cried out Tom Chist, flaming with his
excitement.
"Aye, aye," said the good man; "only stay a little, my boy, until we
make sure what we're about. I've got my pocket compass here, but we
must have something to measure off the feet when we have found the
peg. You run across to Tom Brooke's house and fetch that measuring rod
he used to lay out his new byre. While you're gone I'll pace off the
distance marked on the paper with my pocket compass here."
VI
Tom Chist was gone for almost an hour, though he ran nearly all the
way and back, upborne as on the wings of the wind. When he returned,
panting, Parson Jones was nowhere to be seen, but Tom saw his
footsteps leading away inland, and he followed the scuffling marks in
the smooth surface across the sand humps and down into the hollows,
and by and by found the good gentleman in a spot he at once knew as
soon as he laid his eyes upon it.
It was the open space where the pirates had driven their first peg,
and where Tom Chist had afterward seen them kill the poor black man.
Tom Chist gazed around as though expecting to see some sign of the
tragedy, but the space was as smooth and as undisturbed as a floor,
excepting where, midway across it, Parson Jones, who was now stooping
over something on the ground, had trampled it all around about.
When Tom Chist saw him he was still bending over, scraping away from
something he had found.
It was the first peg!
Inside of half an hour they had found the second and third pegs, and
Tom Chist stripped off his coat, and began digging like mad down into
the sand, Parson Jones standing over him watching him. The sun was
sloping well toward the west when the blade of Tom Chist's spade
struck upon something hard.
If it had been his own heart that he had hit in the sand his breast
could hardly have thrilled more sharply.
It was the treasure box!
Parson Jones himself leaped down into the hole, and began scraping
away the sand with his hands as though he had gone crazy. At last,
with some difficulty, they tugged and hauled the chest up out of the
sand to the surface, where it lay covered all over with the grit that
clung to it.
It was securely locked and fastened with a padlock, and it took a good
many blows with the blade of the spade to burst the bolt. Parson Jones
himself lifted the lid.
Tom Chist leaned forward and gazed down into the open box. He would
not have been surprised to have seen it filled full of yellow gold and
bright jewels. It was filled half full of books and papers, and half
full of canvas bags tied safely and securely around and around with
cords of string.
Parson Jones lifted out one of the bags, and it jingled as he did so.
It was full of money.
He cut the string, and with trembling, shaking hands handed the bag to
Tom, who, in an ecstasy of wonder and dizzy with delight, poured out
with swimming sight upon the coat spread on the ground a cataract of
shining silver money that rang and twinkled and jingled as it fell in
a shining heap upon the coarse cloth.
Parson Jones held up both hands into the air, and Tom stared at what
he saw, wondering whether it was all so, and whether he was really
awake. It seemed to him as though he was in a dream.
There were two-and-twenty bags in all in the chest: ten of them full
of silver money, eight of them full of gold money, three of them full
of gold dust, and one small bag with jewels wrapped up in wad cotton
and paper.
"'Tis enough," cried out Parson Jones, "to make us both rich men as
long as we live."
The burning summer sun, though sloping in the sky, beat down upon them
as hot as fire; but neither of them noticed it. Neither did they
notice hunger nor thirst nor fatigue, but sat there as though in a
trance, with the bags of money scattered on the sand around them, a
great pile of money heaped upon the coat, and the open chest beside
them. It was an hour of sundown before Parson Jones had begun fairly
to examine the books and papers in the chest.
Of the three books, two were evidently log books of the pirates who
had been lying off the mouth of the Delaware Bay all this time. The
other book was written in Spanish, and was evidently the log book of
some captured prize.
It was then, sitting there upon the sand, the good old gentleman
reading in his high, cracking voice, that they first learned from the
bloody records in those two books who it was who had been lying inside
the Cape all this time, and that it was the famous Captain Kidd. Every
now and then the reverend gentleman would stop to exclaim, "Oh, the
bloody wretch!" or, "Oh, the desperate, cruel villains!" and then
would go on reading again a scrap here and a scrap there.
And all the while Tom Chist sat and listened, every now and then
reaching out furtively and touching the heap of money still lying upon
the coat.
One might be inclined to wonder why Captain Kidd had kept those bloody
records. He had probably laid them away because they so incriminated
many of the great people of the colony of New York that, with the
books in evidence, it would have been impossible to bring the pirate
to justice without dragging a dozen or more fine gentlemen into the
dock along with him. If he could have kept them in his own possession
they would doubtless have been a great weapon of defense to protect
him from the gallows. Indeed, when Captain Kidd was finally brought to
conviction and hung, he was not accused of his piracies, but of
striking a mutinous seaman upon the head with a bucket and
accidentally killing him. The authorities did not dare try him for
piracy. He was really hung because he was a pirate, and we know that
it was the log books that Tom Chist brought to New York that did the
business for him; he was accused and convicted of manslaughter for
killing of his own ship carpenter with a bucket.
So Parson Jones, sitting there in the slanting light, read through
these terrible records of piracy, and Tom, with the pile of gold and
silver money beside him, sat and listened to him.
What a spectacle, if anyone had come upon them! But they were alone,
with the vast arch of sky empty above them and the wide white stretch
of sand a desert around them. The sun sank lower and lower, until
there was only time to glance through the other papers in the chest.
They were nearly all goldsmiths' bills of exchange drawn in favor of
certain of the most prominent merchants of New York. Parson Jones, as
he read over the names, knew of nearly all the gentlemen by hearsay.
Aye, here was this gentleman; he thought that name would be among 'em.
What? Here is Mr. So-and-so. Well, if all they say is true, the
villain has robbed one of his own best friends. "I wonder," he said,
"why the wretch should have hidden these papers so carefully away with
the other treasures, for they could do him no good?" Then, answering
his own question: "Like enough because these will give him a hold over
the gentlemen to whom they are drawn so that he can make a good
bargain for his own neck before he gives the bills back to their
owners. I tell you what it is, Tom," he continued, "it is you yourself
shall go to New York and bargain for the return of these papers.
'Twill be as good as another fortune to you."
The majority of the bills were drawn in favor of one Richard
Chillingsworth, Esquire. "And he is," said Parson Jones, "one of the
richest men in the province of New York. You shall go to him with the
news of what we have found."
"When shall I go?" said Tom Chist.