The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" Part 12

But of what avail was it all? Even while working with the others at the boat I never for an instant lost sight of the maniac swimmer. I noted the splash of his plunge into the water, and saw the white swirl raised by the startled sharks as he precipitated himself into their midst; I saw, too, the vigour with which he swam, and my ears tingled with the wild, horrible cry he uttered at every stroke. For a brief s.p.a.ce, perhaps ten or fifteen seconds, not a solitary shark's fin was to be seen; the surface of the water was unbroken, save by the madman's long and eager strokes. Then, all round about him the golden sheen was darkened into blue and churned to hissing white by the simultaneous rush of that horde of sea-tigers, and, with a single faint, hoa.r.s.e, bubbling cry, the swimmer was gone!

"Too late! too late! hold on with the boat," I cried. "The poor wretch is gone; torn to pieces by the sharks! Now let us see if there is anybody else--faugh! What on earth is the meaning of this?"

The exclamation was forced from me by an overpowering effluvium that at the moment swept on board us from the drifting boat, which was now on our weather-bow, and close aboard of us. As she dropped alongside, in the wake of the fore chains, all hands crowded to the rail to look down into her; while one smart fellow, with a rope's-end in his hand, was already over the side, clinging to a channel-iron, with one foot upon its bolt-head, ready to drop into her and make fast. But the odour that arose from the little craft and a.s.sailed our nostrils was so unendurable, and the sight that her interior revealed was so dreadful and revolting, that we recoiled as one man, and allowed the boat with her awful freight to sc.r.a.pe slowly along the ship's side from the fore chains to the taffrail, without an effort to secure her. To do so would indeed have been utterly useless, for that first glance down into her amply sufficed to a.s.sure us all that the forms lying p.r.o.ne there were dead and rotting corpses. They were those of two men, a lad of sixteen or seventeen, a woman, and a child of some eight or ten years old; the clothing of the two last mentioned being of so fine a texture and make as to suggest that the wearers must have been people of some consequence.

A small breaker, with the bung out, and obviously empty, stood at the foot of the mast, with a tin dipper beside it; while the lower half of a sailor's sea boot, with the sole only of its fellow, lying in the stern-sheets, in company with a sailor's sheath-knife, told only too plainly of the terrible straits to which the poor creatures had been driven to quell the craving torments of hunger. The words "_La Belle Amelie_, Ma.r.s.eille," deeply carved in the transom, gave us the name and nationality of the ship to which this dreadful waif had once belonged, and completed the details of the entry which I that same evening made in my official log-book.

The barque still having way upon her, the boat slowly sc.r.a.ped along our side until she reached our starboard quarter; and there--the halliard of the sail, which served also as a mast shroud, fouling our main-brace b.u.mpkin--she hung, and refused to drag clear. Seeing this, and anxious to rid the ship of such hideous companionship, the mate whipped out his knife and, getting down upon the b.u.mpkin, cut through the halliard, thus releasing the boat and, at the same time, letting the sail down by the run and sending the extremity of the yard crashing through her bottom.

She now drifted clear; and, our mainyard being at the same time filled and the helm put hard up, we paid off and began to draw away from her, noting, meanwhile, that she was gradually filling with water. The sharks still stuck pertinaciously to her; and as she settled lower in the water it was horrible to see with what increasing eagerness and determination they crowded round and strove to overturn her. At length, when her gunwale was almost flush with the water's edge, they apparently succeeded; for we saw her mast begin to rock and sway, and then, while the blue of the water all about her with the surge of their struggling bodies was frothed into creamy white and spurting spray by their fierce plunges, the spar heeled suddenly over and disappeared. Happily we were by this time too far away to note the details in this final scene of the ghastly drama; but, taking a last look through the telescope, a few minutes later, I was able to make out the hull of the boat floating bottom up. The swarm of sharks had vanished.

On the fifth day following, we arrived, without further incident, in the Canton river; and Sir Edgar and his party went ash.o.r.e and took up their quarters in the best hotel in Hong Kong, while we went to work with all expedition to discharge our cargo.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

THE SOLUTION OF THE CRYPTOGRAM.

I was at this time no nearer to the unriddling of Richard Saint Leger's cryptogram than I had been at the moment when I held it in my hand for the first time; but now that I was so far on my way toward the spot where the treasure was supposed to still lie hidden, I resolved that I would not return until I had succeeded in deciphering the doc.u.ment and testing the truth of whatever statement it might be found to contain. I had a shrewd suspicion that the hiding-place of the treasure would prove to be in one of the thousand islets of the vast Pacific; and I accordingly determined to confine my operations to those waters until I had some good reason for going elsewhere. Our hatches were consequently no sooner off than I set about inquiring for freights to one or another of the Pacific ports. I speedily discovered that the most advantageous freights offering were for Australia; and, it having leaked out that the little _Esmeralda_ was something of a clipper, I succeeded, ere we had been in the river a week, in obtaining an excellent freight for Sydney, with the promise of quick despatch.

This matter arranged to my satisfaction, I had a little leisure on my hands; and the first use I made of it was to call upon the Desmonds at their hotel, in fulfilment of a promise extracted from me by them when they were leaving the ship. I found them just about to sit down to luncheon, at which meal they insisted that I should join them; and we had no sooner settled ourselves at the table than I was pelted with questions as to what I had been doing with myself since our parting; why had I not called before? had I decided upon my future movements?

etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. I replied by enumerating a few of the infinitude of business matters that a shipmaster usually has to attend to immediately upon his arrival in port--especially if that port be a foreign one--and, in conclusion, told them that, having resolved to remain in Eastern waters until I should have either discovered the interpretation of my ancestor's cryptogram, or should be driven to abandon all hope of ever solving the riddle, I had accepted a freight for Sydney, New South Wales; jestingly adding that they had better make up their minds to take pa.s.sage with me.

As I said this I observed a quick interchange of glances between Sir Edgar, his wife, and Miss Merrivale; and then the former remarked--

"Well now, captain, it is very singular, but it is nevertheless a fact, that no longer ago than this morning at breakfast we practically made up our minds that, before returning home, we would go on to Australia, and see something of that wonderful country. An old friend and college chum of mine has settled there and gone in for sheep-farming upon a large scale, and, our conversation happening to turn upon him a few days ago, my wife made the curious discovery that he is the man who married the bosom friend and companion of her boarding-school days; the result being that a half jocular proposal of mine that we should extend our wanderings to Australia and beat up the quarters of these good folk has crystallised into the serious resolution to do so, provided that suitable pa.s.senger accommodation to take us there can be met with. This accident of your having accepted a freight for Sydney settles that part of the question, of course, for we will go with you--that is, if you are willing to have us again."

I protested, heartily and truthfully, that no proposal could give me greater pleasure. Whereupon it was then and there arranged that the party should have the whole of the saloon accommodation as before; and ere I left them that afternoon, Sir Edgar--asking me to roughly calculate for him the probable date of our arrival--sat down and wrote to his friend, apprising him of the determination arrived at, and naming the approximate date at which the party might be looked for.

This arrangement was a most agreeable, as well as a most advantageous one for me; for it at once insured me the disposal of all my saloon accommodation for the pa.s.sage, and, at the same time, the continued society of those who had already not only proved themselves to be most agreeable, companionable people, but whom I had by this time learned to regard as staunch personal friends.

Nothing worthy of mention occurred to mark our sojourn in the Canton river; I need, therefore, only state that, having duly discharged our inward cargo, and received our outward freight, we sailed for Sydney on the day three weeks following the date of the arrangement come to by Sir Edgar and his party to take pa.s.sage in the _Esmeralda_.

The pa.s.sage proved as uneventful as the previous one had been the reverse; only two incidents occurring during its progress of sufficient moment to demand especial mention. At the time of their occurrence I considered only one of them worth the distinction of an entry in my diary; but subsequent events proved that they were both destined to exercise almost equally important influences upon my fortunes and those of my friends the Desmond party.

The first--and what seemed to me infinitely the most important--of these was nothing less than my discovery of the long-sought key to Richard Saint Leger's secret cipher; and it was brought about in a manner so singular and unexpected that I must leave the explanation of the matter to the psychological student, it being altogether beyond the comprehension of such a simple, matter-of-fact, unlearned seaman as myself.

It happened thus. I fully realised that it would be impossible for me to continue cruising to and fro in those Eastern waters for an indefinite period; I knew that a moment must sooner or later arrive when the force of circ.u.mstances would compel me to shape a course once more for England; and it already appeared to me highly probable that the arrival of that moment would prove to be coincident with that of the arrival of the ship in Sydney Harbour. I consequently became increasingly anxious to discover the interpretation of the cryptogram before the conclusion of the pa.s.sage upon which we were then engaged.

No sooner, therefore, were we fairly at sea than I devoted myself in grim and serious earnest to my quest for the key that was to unlock the secrets of the exasperating cipher. The doc.u.ment consisted, as the reader will remember, entirely of long, unbroken rows of figures--with the exception of a rather singular sketch in the midst of the text, which I took to be a representation of the island whereon the treasure was said to have been secreted, as viewed from certain bearings--and I knew that these figures must stand in lieu of a certain arrangement of the letters of the alphabet, forming words. I had early noted the somewhat curious fact that there was but one solitary nought throughout the doc.u.ment; but that only helped me so far as to render me morally certain that the letters of the text could scarcely be represented by units; and, taking this as my initial theory, I attempted every other combination of numbers that either my ingenuity or my fancy could suggest. In vain; I could hit upon no arrangement of numbers that, when transposed into letters, would give me a single intelligible word, either in English or any other language with which I had the slightest acquaintance. I at length grew so thoroughly worried over the matter that my nerves became sensibly affected; I turned irritable, and began to suffer from repeated attacks of extreme anxiety and depression; my appet.i.te failed me, and I became a victim to the torment of insomnia.

In this condition of mind and body I one night retired to my cabin after a day of petty worries, in which everything and everybody seemed to have been at cross-purposes with me, and--utterly worn out with the prolonged tension upon my nerves--ultimately subsided into a fitful, restless, nightmare kind of slumber, during which I continued in my dreams the researches upon which my thoughts had now been for nearly three weeks concentrated. Over and over again did I seem to arrange upon paper an experimental system of numbering the alphabet, in the hope of obtaining some intelligible result; and at length, to my great astonishment and inexpressible delight, methought I found one. In feverish haste I-- still in my dream--set to work upon the translation of the doc.u.ment, and was progressing swimmingly, when a sharp rapping upon my state-room door, and the steward's voice announcing, "Six bells, sir," (the time at which I was regularly called every morning), awoke me; and in that same instant I lost all recollection of every particular of my dream, remembering only that in it I really seemed to have at last found the solution of the hitherto inexplicable enigma.

Seriously annoyed at so inopportune an interruption to a dream that I quite regarded as a revelation, and vexed at my inability to recollect any more of the process of translation which I had followed than that it was an entirely novel one, I took my usual salt-water bath, dressed, and in due course sat down to breakfast, all the while striving desperately but unsuccessfully to recall the lost clue. My pa.s.sengers observed my preoccupation, and endeavoured--for some time unavailingly--to withdraw me from it; at length, however, the consciousness dawned upon me that my peculiar behaviour must appear to them decidedly discourteous. I therefore aroused myself, threw off my abstraction, and apologised; explaining that I had been endeavouring to recall the details of a dream in which I seemed to have discovered the long-sought key to the secret of my hidden treasure.

"A dream!" exclaimed Miss Merrivale, delighted. "Oh, captain, _pray_ tell us all about it; it may help you to remember."

I had no such hope, having already racked my brain until it seemed to reel, and all to no purpose; but it would have been childish to have refused the request. I therefore began by telling them how that I had retired on the preceding night with my mind full of the subject; how I had lain tossing restlessly, hour after hour, striving to think out some arrangement or system that I had not yet tried; and how eventually I had sunk into a feverish, nightmare slumber in which my brain continued its arduous, painful search for the key of the problem.

"At length," continued I, "an idea came to me; and, taking a sheet of paper, I--I--Why, by all that is wonderful, _I have it again_!"

And, springing from my chair, to the no small consternation of my companions, who evidently thought I had suddenly gone demented, I rushed away to my state-room and, seizing a sheet of paper, jotted down the system that had just recurred to my memory. Then, heedless of my unfinished breakfast and everything else, I drew out the precious doc.u.ment itself, and, using the key that had come to me in such an extraordinary manner, soon discovered, to my inexpressible delight, that I really was at last upon the right track. I met with a few difficulties, it was true; but, braced-up and encouraged by what I had already achieved, I speedily surmounted them, and, after somewhat more than an hour's patient labour, succeeded in evolving the following:--

"Lat.i.tude 3 degrees 40 minutes South; longitude 139 degrees 18 minutes West. Approached from the south-west the island, at a distance of fifteen leagues, bears the exact likeness of the face of a man floating on the water. Steer for the hollow between mouth and chin, and ye shall find a river, which boldly enter, and sail up it a distance of three furlongs to the creek on starboard hand; pa.s.s into the creek and land on the island. The treasure lies buried at a spot one thousand feet due south from the base of the obelisk rock."

I was so elated at this discovery, the mental relief and exhilaration were so great that, in the exuberance of my delight, I felt constrained to acquaint my friends with my success; and rushing up on the p.o.o.p with the cryptogram and its rough translation in my hand, I sat down by the open skylight, close to which Sir Edgar and Lady Emily were seated, and presenting the baronet with the doc.u.ments, said--

"There, Sir Edgar, read that; and never hereafter dare to a.s.sert that there is nothing in dreams!"

"I do not remember that I have ever yet made the a.s.sertion," he retorted laughingly. "But do you really mean to say that you have at length mastered the secret of the cipher?" as he took the paper from me, and forthwith read it aloud for the benefit of his wife and Miss Merrivale, the latter having joined us at her sister's call.

"Well," exclaimed Lady Emily, when her husband had finished, "it is really wonderful! quite the kind of thing that one reads of in books but does not believe, because one seldom or never meets with anything like it in real life. But so many strange things have happened during this eventful voyage of ours, that I shall never again be incredulous of anything."

"Quite so, my dear," agreed Sir Edgar. "Never commit yourself to the statement that you disbelieve anything. To refuse credence simply because one cannot understand, or because to our limited understanding the occurrence seems unlikely or impossible, is an infallible indication of ignorance. The wider our experience, and the deeper our knowledge, the more ready are we to admit that there may be many wonders that have never come within the limits of our ken, and about which we know nothing. But, about the key to the cryptogram, what is it? You must tell us that, you know, Saint Leger, in consideration of our own unsuccessful efforts to help you. Besides, the knowledge of such a difficult cipher as that is really worth having; who can say how soon, or under what circ.u.mstances, it might be found useful for purposes of secret communication?"

"Oh, it is ridiculously simple, when you know it," said I. "All you have to do is to number each letter of the alphabet consecutively, beginning with A and calling it eleven. Then, with the cryptogram before you, you divide the figures into series of four, each four figures representing a letter. Subtract the first pair of figures from the second, and the remainder gives you the number of the letter as you have it in your key. For example: the first four figures in the doc.u.ment are 1133; that is to say, eleven and thirty-three. The difference between them is twenty-two, which, you see, represents the letter L in the key. Then take the next four figures, treating them in the same way, and so on throughout the doc.u.ment. One great advantage of such an arrangement appears to me to be that, however many times the same letter occurs in a doc.u.ment, it need never be represented twice in exactly the same way, which certainly must greatly tend to preserve the secrecy of the cipher. There are no s.p.a.ces, you observe, to mark the divisions between the several words; but that offers no difficulty whatever when one possesses the key; while--to my cost I know it--it adds tremendously to the difficulty when one does not. Then, again, the figures of the lat.i.tude and longitude are given just as they would be in an ordinary doc.u.ment, which brought me completely to a standstill for a little while, until I happily guessed at the explanation; but after pa.s.sing these stumbling-blocks, the rest was perfectly plain sailing."

"Quite so," acquiesced Sir Edgar. "It is simple enough when it has been explained; but a sufficiently ingenious thing for all that, in proof of which we have the fact that it has completely puzzled us all for months; and I really believe, Saint Leger, that, but for your wonderful dream, it would have continued to puzzle you to the end of time. I congratulate you heartily upon your good fortune."

"And I;" "And I," simultaneously exclaimed Lady Emily and her sister.

"And now," continued the baronet, "what are your plans with regard to the matter? Will you still go on to Sydney, and discharge your cargo before attempting to secure your treasure, or will you make a detour, and prosecute your search for it forthwith?"

"Oh, of course I must fulfil my present obligations before I attempt to do anything toward recovering the treasure," said I. "When I have done that--when I have safely landed you all on the wharf at Sydney, and have discharged my cargo, I shall well ballast the ship and clear for the Pacific in search of a cargo of sandal-wood. I shall of course make it my first business to secure the treasure; but, in order to keep up appearances, I shall also collect what sandal-wood I can find without very much trouble, and proceed with it to China, from whence I shall take home a cargo of tea, if I can secure one."

"And how long do you expect to remain in Sydney?" inquired Sir Edgar.

"Oh, about a fortnight, or three weeks at the utmost," said I.

"Upon my word, I should very much like to go with you," remarked Sir Edgar, reflectively. "I confess I feel curious to see the end of your adventure; but if you are not likely to lie in port longer than the time you have named, I am afraid it can scarcely be managed. However, we shall see."

And with that the subject was dismissed for the moment, although it was afterwards frequently touched upon again before our arrival in Sydney.

The other affair, to which I have referred as ultimately proving to be intimately a.s.sociated with my fortunes and those of my friends the Desmonds, was one in which the ship's steward became the most conspicuous figure.

I had never liked the man, from the moment that I first came into contact with him upon the occasion of the crew signing articles. He had a sly, shifty expression of eye that aroused my instant antipathy; but he held such unexceptionable testimonials that I had no excuse for refusing to engage him, apart from the manifest injustice it would have been to deny him employment simply on account of a feeling of prejudice that, for aught I could tell, might disappear upon a further acquaintance. It did not, however; on the contrary, it rather increased, for he had not been with us long ere I discovered that he had a quiet, stealthy, cat-like way of moving about that would have been irreproachable had it not happened that frequently, when writing a letter, making up my accounts, or otherwise engaged upon work of a strictly private character, I was disconcerted to suddenly discover him behind my chair--without knowing how he came, or how long he had been there--in a position and att.i.tude that irresistibly suggested the idea that he had been peering over my shoulder. Or again, when conversing more or less confidentially with others, it was no uncommon thing to make, by the merest accident, the annoying discovery that the man had been well within earshot all the while. And it did not in the least lessen my annoyance that, on all such occasions, the fellow seemed to be exactly where he ought to be, and engaged in the performance of perfectly legitimate duties.

This, however, was the extent of his offence--if such it can be called-- until we were within twenty-four hours of arriving in Sydney Harbour, when he was detected in an act that all but resulted in the destruction of the ship, while it seriously imperilled the lives of all hands.

The ship's lazarette, or storeroom, was situated--as is usually the case--underneath the cabin. But whereas it is the fashion in most ships to have a small hatch in the cabin floor by which access is gained to the lazarette, in the _Esmeralda_ there was a much more convenient arrangement, consisting of a step-ladder leading down through a hatchway beneath the saloon staircase, whereby stores could be brought up for use without the necessity of shifting the saloon table and dragging everything through the saloon itself. The hatchway giving access to the lazarette was enclosed by a part.i.tion which formed quite a roomy little apartment, wherein the steward was wont to unpack the barrels and cases containing the cabin stores; the work being thus done in such complete seclusion that it could not possibly prove a source of annoyance to any one, however fastidious. This arrangement also enabled the steward to enter the lazarette at his own sweet will and without any one being the wiser--which const.i.tuted my sole objection to it.

We were, as I have said, within twenty-four hours' sail of our port, the time being evening, about three bells in the first watch, when one of the nursemaids came rushing on deck with a scared face and the intelligence that there was a strong smell of burning in the saloon, which, moreover, was full of smoke. I of course sprang below at once, and found it to be indeed as the maid had stated; there was a most unmistakable smell of fire, and a haze of light-blue smoke in the cabin that seemed to have made its way there from the lazarette, for the companion-way and the s.p.a.ce between the foot of the companion-ladder and the saloon bulkhead was thick with it. Guessing at once that the fire was in the lazarette, I threw open the door leading to the hatchway, and found the latter open, with a cloud of bluish-white smoke issuing from it, through which I dimly caught the flicker of flames. To drop through the hatchway was the work of an instant, when I at once saw what was the matter. A large packing-case that had evidently been nearly full of straw was all in a blaze, and beside it, with an idiotic, drunken grin upon his face, stood the steward, unsteadily pointing with wavering finger to the open lazarette lantern, which could just be descried in the midst of the blazing ma.s.s. In his other hand the fellow held a filled but unlighted pipe, which, with a tumbler that still contained a small quant.i.ty of wine, and a half-empty bottle of the same generous stimulant, explained at a glance the whole history of the incident. The rascal had evidently gone down into the lazarette and helped himself to a bottle of wine, upon the contents of which he had become so nearly intoxicated that at length, forgetful or reckless of the extreme danger of such a proceeding where he was, he had determined to further solace himself with a smoke, and, opening the lantern in order to light his pipe at the candle, had dropped it into the packing-case and set its contents on fire. The fellow was too stupidly drunk even to raise an alarm, and in another five minutes the whole lazarette would have been in a blaze. As it happened, however, I arrived upon the scene just in the nick of time to prevent this by seizing the blazing case and dragging it and its contents bodily up on deck--at the expense of a pair of severely scorched hands--and heaving it overboard. I then went below again, and took an exhaustive look round to a.s.sure myself beyond all question that no smouldering spark had been left behind; and, having completely satisfied myself upon that point, wound up the affair by ordering the steward to be put in irons and locked up in the deck-house forward. We arrived at Sydney next day, and within half an hour of mooring the ship I paid the man his wages and turned him adrift.

The Desmond party got clear of the ship in time to dine ash.o.r.e that evening; and, on the day but one following our arrival, they started upon their up-country journey, after bidding me a most cordial farewell, accompanied by the hope that they might find me still in port upon their return. I felt exceedingly sorry to part with them, and told them so; adding that I could not entertain the hope of seeing them again, on that side of the world at least, since they expected to be absent from Sydney for at least a month, by the end of which time I hoped to be some distance on my way to the treasure island. But I gave them a faithful promise to write to them on my return to England, acquainting them with the issue of my adventure, even should I find myself unable to accept the pressing invitation they gave me to visit them at their place in Devonshire.

Sydney, as everybody knows, is a fairly busy port, and can always make a goodly display of shipping; at least, that is my experience of the place, and I had been there thrice prior to the period of this story; but, knowing--as I thought I did--something about the annual amount of tonnage using the harbour, I was astounded at the vast fleet of craft of all rigs and sizes that met my gaze when I beheld the n.o.ble city for the fourth time. The anchorage seemed literally packed with them; and it required some very delicate manoeuvring on the part of our pilot to take us to our berth without running foul of something. Fortunately for us-- and possibly also for some of the other craft--there was a nice working breeze blowing at the time; and, the _Esmeralda_ happening moreover to be an exceptionally smart and handy vessel under canvas, we managed to thread our way in and out among the fleet without hurting ourselves or anybody else. The pilot observed the wondering glances I cast around me as we made our way up the harbour, and remarked, with a smile, and in a semi-confidential tone of voice--

"Curious sight, isn't it, sir?"

"Very," I agreed. "And the most curious part of it, to my mind, is the _deserted_ look of the craft, everywhere. Most of them appear to be loaded and apparently ready for sea, yet in scarcely any of them is more than a single person to be seen; while many of them appear to have absolutely n.o.body at all on board."