LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

was possibly an imprudent thing to do. Indeed it was followed by dreadful nausea. But this did not hinder me from taking another draught, almost as deep as the first.

      He who has not experienced real thirst can never know how delicious is pure, sweet water, taken when every fibre and pore of the body is suffering for it. Each capillary and duct seemed to expand, and the heart soon began to beat stronger and fuller as though under the lash of a stimulant. Though I had fancied food was what I needed most, it was really the water that my system demanded, and I felt at once so much stronger and better that a desire to sleep came upon me, the fever left my veins, and I felt as though I could wait until morning before breaking my fast.

      On the way back to the chest I picked up half a dozen shell-fish of some bivalve species, on the sands at the edge of the surf, and ate them. They tasted sweet as a nut to me, but were probably of little nutritious value, and possibly more or less indigestible. But they brought no harm, and seemed partly to fill what void the water had left.

      At the landing-place I drew and rolled the chest still farther up the beach, took off my wet clothing, spread it out to dry, and buried my body in the warm sand, putting the chest between me and the gentle wind which was breathing steadily and softly in from the sea. Exhausted as I was, the sense of bodily rest and warmth was delicious; but as is apt to be the case when one is over-fatigued, sleep did not come to my eyelids. I was free from pain with the exception of the smarting of the raw wounds on my hands and arms, and lay listening to the rustling of the breeze, the sound of the sea, and the lonesome call of a night bird or a small animal of some sort that occasionally broke the stillness.

      I thought over my desperate situation; of the disastrous ending of the voyage, from which I had hoped so much; how and when, if ever, I could get off the island and back to civilization to take a fresh start—for as to giving up the great object of the expedition, that thought was not once entertained either then or at any other time. But now without a boat or the many necessary appliances for carrying out my plans, I could not hope to accomplish that object, though I was upon the very island that I had travelled over a thousand miles to reach. It would be necessary to go back at least to Martinique, if not to New York, to obtain what I needed. Diving apparatus is not to be found everywhere. Besides the assistance of at least one person seemed absolutely necessary, and here I was alone. Yes, I must somehow go back and start over again—that seemed clear. But how, and when? These questions were not easy to answer. Should I be able even to obtain food while a prisoner here, waiting such deliverance as chance might bring?

      These and a thousand other thoughts passed through my mind while I lay looking at the stars as they paled before the silver shield of the moon. I thought of my plans so carefully laid, and now, at least for the time being, so utterly defeated. Thus I reviewed mentally the whole history of the enterprise I had undertaken. And perhaps this is a proper place to give the reader an account of what he will doubtless conceive to be the wildest scheme that ever was seriously contemplated. Listen, that you may judge.

      On my twenty-first birthday, now only a few weeks past, I sailed from New York in one of the steamers plying to the Windward Islands, bound for Martinique and thence by country sloop to Key Seven, for the purpose of finding a Spanish galleon that sank in the open sea near that island, July 9, 1665, after a bloody battle with two vessels commanded by the buccaneer Welshman, Captain Henry Morgan. This galleon contained pieces of eight, gold and silver in bars and plate, and jewels, to the value of over three hundred thousand dollars. It had lain thus at the bottom of the sea, as I believed, for more than two hundred years. To find this sunken wreck and secure the treasure was the object of my expedition. How I succeeded in such a wild undertaking will appear hereafter.

      Several years before, while I was at college, a desultory course of reading had awakened in me a deep interest in the early printed accounts of the lawless buccaneers and maroons who infested the waters and coasts of the Caribbean Sea, besieged and sacked the Spanish forts and cities, crossed the isthmus of Darien, and followed down the coast of South America, capturing the vessels and laying waste the towns of the Spaniards. Bartholomew Portuges, Brasiliano, John Davis, Francis Lolonois, and Henry Morgan, the brother of my ancestor, were noted leaders of these buccaneering crews and armies. Perhaps the last-named adventurer, who led the desperate expedition across the isthmus and captured the fortified city of Panama, was the most noted of all, as he was also not the least cruel, blood-thirsty, and avaricious. Fragmentary accounts by various authors, some of whom were actors in the scenes described, have been published in Dutch, French, Spanish, and English. So far as I could do so I had sought and studied these accounts. A translation into English, made more than a hundred years ago, of the most considerable Dutch and French accounts had enabled me to absorb them, and the numerous original reports of Spanish officials made to their government, and which are still preserved in the archives at Madrid, were rendered accessible to me by a fortunate circumstance.

      Many years ago most of the documents bearing upon the history of America, from the time of Columbus down to the present century, had been collected and transcribed through the efforts of an American author whose charming histories have delighted all English readers. This mass of material had since its transcription been made use of by many others, and being in the charge of the college librarian, I obtained access to it. My enthusiasm may be imagined, when I say that in order to consult these transcriptions I actually learned to read Spanish. It was in one of these papers that I found the report of Don Josef Isabel del Velo y Campo, admiral of the Spanish fleet and at the time in command of the Spanish galleon La Magdalen. The admiral gave a full account of the loss of this galleon, of the desperate battle, of the tremendous bravery of the Spaniards under his command, and of his own escape with two others by swimming to the island of Trebucino near by. The vessel sank about a mile from the northern extremity of the island, bearing a little east of north from the point of rocks. The report was accompanied by an account of the cargo on board, as nearly correct as his memory and knowledge could serve him to give, and by a like statement of the money and treasure lost, concluding with a pious congratulation that if lost to Spain it at least had not fallen into the hands of Morgan and his murderous hereticos.

      At the time of reading this report, it was to me a matter of idle wonder, to conjecture whether the noble galleon still held together at the bottom of the sea, and if the treasure was still there; to picture the many curious things that possibly lived and grew near the blackened and corroded silver and the untarnishable gold, the monsters of the sea that swam and crept over and about it, the seaweed, the sponge and the coral, the tides and the currents which swept by it, and the drowned sailors and cavaliers whose spirits possibly guarded it through the slow ages of decay and change.

      Although I had looked up the island of Trebucino on the old charts, and had identified it as the bit of land now marked “Key Seven” on modern maps, yet at that time I had no thought of the possibility of recovering the treasure, much less of engaging in such a hair-brained enterprise myself. It was not until long afterward that the idea entered my mind of seeking the treasure, and then it was suggested by a serious misfortune that befell me.

      Both my parents were dead, and I had no living relatives nearer than an uncle, my mother’s brother, who was my guardian, and who from time to time sent me money as I needed it. When my father died he left his estate, consisting of valuable farming lands in the beautiful Mohawk valley, heavily encumbered with debt. The money sent me for expenses at college came from a small property that had belonged to my mother. I had always looked forward to the day when, free from school life, I could undertake the management and control of my father’s farms, and return to live at the home farm, where I was born and where my early boyhood days were passed. The old Dutch-built brick house with its noble elms, the brook that ran through the meadow, so near that its murmur could be heard on still summer nights from my open bedroom window, the broad fields stretching up and down the valley as far as the eye could reach, the thousand acres under cultivation, and the thousand more of woodland and pasture, the sleek herds, the dairy, and all the joys of a farmer’s life, made up the picture which was ever in my mind. To live this life had been my ambition, and I had tolerated school only because I was told it would better fit me for the work.

      But all my hopes were suddenly dashed by a letter from my uncle advising me to be economical and saving with my money, as there was only seven hundred dollars left of the fund

Скачать книгу