Poison Island Part 21

"You haven't done so badly, Jack," Miss Belcher allowed. "If the man hasn't given us the slip at Plymouth you have struck a first-cla.s.s scent. Only I doubt 'tis a cold one. You sent word at once?"

"By express rider, and with orders to leave a description of the man at all the ferries. But there's more to come. The man, that had seemed at first in a desperate hurry, was no sooner in Bogue's clothes than he took a seat, made Bogue fetch another gla.s.s of grog and drink it with him, and asked him a score of questions about the best road eastward. It struck Bogue that, for a man whose home was Saltash, he knew very little about his native county. All this while he appeared to have forgotten his hurry, and Bogue was thinking to make him an excuse to go off and attend to other customers, when of a sudden he ups and shakes hands, says good night, and marches out of the house. Bogue told me all this in the very room where it happened. It opens out on the pa.s.sage leading from the taproom to the front door. I asked Bogue if he could remember at what time Coffin left the house, and by what door; also, if the prisoner-fellow heard him leave; but at first he couldn't tell me anything for certain except that Coffin went out by the front door--he remembered hearing him go tapping down the pa.s.sage. The old man, it seems, had a curious way of tapping with his stick."

Here Mr. Rogers looked at me, and I nodded.

"Where was the landlord when he heard this?" asked Miss Belcher.

"That, my dear Lydia, was naturally the next question I put to him.

'Why, in this very room,' said he, 'now I come to think of it.'

'Well, then,' said I, 'how long did you stay in this room after the prisoner (as we'll call him) had taken his leave?' 'Not a minute,'

said he; 'no, nor half a minute. Indeed, I believe we walked out into the pa.s.sage together, and then parted, he going out to the door, and I up the pa.s.sage to the taproom.' 'Was Coffin in the taproom when you reached it?' I asked. 'No,' says Bogue; 'to be sure he wasn't.' 'Why, then, you thickhead,' says I, 'he must have left while you were talking with the prisoner; and since you heard him go, the odds are the prisoner heard him, too.' That's the way to get at evidence, Lydia."

"My dear Jack," said Miss Belcher, "you're an Argus!"

"Well, I flatter myself it was pretty neat," resumed Mr. Rogers, speaking with his mouth full; "but, as it happens, we don't need it.

For when, as I've told you, we drove around to the ferry at Percuil, and the ferryman described Coffin and how he'd put him across, the first question I asked was 'Did you put any one else across that night?' He said, 'Yes; and not twenty minutes later.' 'Man or woman?' I asked. 'Man,' said he, 'and a d--d drunk one'--saving your presence, ladies. I p.r.i.c.ked up my ears. 'Drunk?' I asked. How drunk?' 'Drunk enough to near-upon drown himself,' said the ferryman. 'It was this way, sir: I'd scarcely finished mooring the boat again, and was turning to go indoors, when I heard a splash, t'other side of the creek, where; the path comes down under the loom of the trees, and, next moment, a voice as if some person was drowning and guggling for help. So I fit and unmoored again, and pushed across for dear life, just in time to see a man scrambling ash.o.r.e. He was as drunk as a fly, sir, even after his wetting.

Said he was a retired seaman living at Penzance, had come round to Falmouth on a lime-barge bound for the Truro river, and must get along to St. Austell in time to attend his sister's wedding there next morning. Told me his sister's name, but I forget it. Said he'd fallen in with some brave fellows at Falmouth just returned from the French war-prisons, and had taken a gla.s.s or two. Gave me half a crown when I brought him over and landed him,' said the ferryman, 'and too far gone in liquor to understand the mistake if I'd explained it to him, which I didn't.' He was dressed in what appeared to be a dark cloth jacket, duck trousers of sea-going cut, and a tarpaulin hat. 'There was just moon enough,' said the ferry-man, 'to let a man take notice of his trousers, they being white; and maybe I took particular notice of his legs, because they were dripping wet. As for his face, by the glimpse I had of it he was a middle-aged man that had seen trouble.' I asked if he would know the man again. He said, 'Yes,' he was pretty sure he would.

So there, Lydia, you have the villain d.o.g.g.i.ng Coffin, tracking him to Percuil, and shamming drunk to get carried over the ferry in pursuit.

On Bogue's testimony he was as sober as a judge at St. Mawes, and drank but one gla.s.s of grog there, and from St. Mawes to Percuil is but a step, mainly by footpath over the fields, with no public-house on the way."

"H'm," said Miss Belcher; "and yet he couldn't have been following the man to murder him, or he must have taken more care to cover up his traces. All his concern seems to have been to follow Coffin without being seen by him. Is that all?"

"My dear Lydia, consider the amount of time I've had! Almost before I'd finished with Bogue, and certainly before the filly was well rested, Mr. Goodfellow here had crossed to Falmouth and was back again, bringing the cupboard--"

"Yes, Jack; you have done very well--surprisingly well. But I'll not hand over my guinea until we've examined the cupboard. Here, Mr.

Goodfellow"--she cleared a s.p.a.ce amid the breakfast things--"be so good as to lift it on to the table. Harry, where's the key?"

I produced it.

"A nice bit of work--and Dutch, by the look of it," she commented, pausing to admire the inlaid pattern as she inserted the key.

She turned it, and the door fell back, askew on its broken hinges.

Mr. Goodfellow had carried the cupboard with infinite care, but the contents, I need not say, had mixed themselves up in wild disorder, though nothing was broken--not even the pot of guava-jelly.

They included a superannuated watch in a loose silver case, a medal (in bronze) struck to commemorate Lord Howe's famous victory of the First of June, two pieces-of-eight and a spade guinea (much clipped); a small china mug painted with libellous portraits of King George III. and his consort; a printed pamphlet on Admiral Byng; two strings of sh.e.l.ls; a mourning-ring with a lock of hair set between two pearls under gla.s.s; another ring with a tiny picture of a fountain and urn, and a weeping willow; a paper containing a baby's caul and a sampler worked with the A.B.C. and the Lord's Prayer and signed "A.C., 1785;" a gourd, a few gla.s.s beads, and a Chinese opium-pipe; and lastly, a thick paper roll bound in yellow-stained parchment.

The roll was tied about with string, and the string was sealed, in coa.r.s.e wax without imprint.

Miss Belcher dived a hand into a fold of her skirt, and drew forth a most unladylike clasp-knife.

"Now for it!" said Miss Belcher.

CHAPTER XIX.

CAPTAIN COFFIN'S LOG.

As she severed the string the roll fell open and disclosed itself as a book of small quarto shape, bound in limp parchment, with strings to tie the covers together. Its pages, measuring 9 and 3/4 by 8 in., were 64, and numbered throughout; but a bare third of them were written on, and these in an unformed hand which yet was eloquent of much. A paragraph would start with every letter drawn as carefully as in a child's copy-book; would gradually straggle and let its words fall about, as though fainting by the way; and so would tail into incoherence, to be picked up--next day, no doubt--by a new effort, which, after marching for half a dozen lines, in its turn collapsed.

There were lacunae, too, when the shaking hand had achieved but a few weak zigzags before it desisted. The two last pages were scribbled over with sums--or, to speak more correctly, with combinations of figures resembling sums. Here is a single example--

Ode to W. Bate

To bacca 9 and 1/2d Haircutt 1s Bliddin[1] ...... 18d.

To more bacca Oct. 10th do.

Ditto and shave ditto ditto ----------------- Mem. do. to him 2s. 6d.

The fly-leaf started bravely with "D. Coffin, His Book." After this the captain had fallen to practising his signature by way of start.

"D. Coffin," "Danl. Coffin," "Danyel Coffin," over and over, and once "D. Coffin, Esq.," followed by "Steal not this Book for fear of shame."

Danl. Coffin is my name England is my nation Falmth ditto ditto dwelling-place And hopes to see Salvation.

After these exercises came a blank page, and then, halfway down the next, abruptly, without t.i.tle, began the ma.n.u.script which I will call Captain Coffin's statement.

"Pa.s.s it to Lydia," said Mr. Rogers. "She reads like a parson."

"Better than most, I hope," said Miss Belcher, taking the book; and this--I omit the faults of spelling--is what she read aloud--

Mem. Began this August 15th, 1812.

Mem. Am going to tell about the treasure, and what happened. But it will be no use without the map. If any one tries to bring up trouble, this is the truth and nothing else. Amen. So be it.

Signed, D. Coffin.

My father followed the sea, and bred me to it. He came from Devons.h.i.+re, near Exmouth. N.B.--He used to say the Coffins were a great family in Devons.h.i.+re, and as old as any; but it never did him no good. He was an only son, and so was I, but I had an older sister, now dead. She grew up and married a poultryman in Quay Street, Bristol. I remember the wedding. Died in childbed a year later, me being at that time on my first voyage.

We lived at Bristol, at the foot of Christmas Stairs, left-hand side going up, two doors from the bottom. My mother from Stonehouse, Gloster, where they make cloth, specially red cloth for soldiers'

coats. Her maiden name Daniels. She was a religious woman, and taught me the Bible. My father was lost at sea, being knocked overboard by the boom in half a gale, two miles S.W. of Lundy.

I was sixteen at the time, and apprentice as cabin-boy on board the same s.h.i.+p, the _Caroline_, bound from Hayle to Cardiff with copper ore. I went home and broke the news to my mother, and she told me then what I didn't know before, that she was very poorly provided for. I will say this, that I made her a good son; and likewise, that I never had no luck till I struck the Treasure.

I was born in the year 1750. My father's death happened 1766.

From that time till my twenty-seventh year, I supported my mother.

She died of a seizure in 1777, and is buried by St. Mary's Redclyf-- we having moved across the water to that parish. Married next year, Elizabeth Porter, in service with Soames Rennalls, Esquire, Alderman of the City. She had been brought up an orphan by the Colston Charity; a good pious woman, and bore me one child, a daughter, christened Ann--a dear little one. She lived and throve up to the year 1787, me all the time coming and going on voyages, mostly coasting, too numerous to mention. Then the small-pox carried her off with my affectionate wife, the both in one week. At which I cursed all things, and for several years ran riot, not caring what I said or did.

Was employed, from 1790 on, in the slave trade, by W. S., merchant of Bristol. Must have made as many as a dozen pa.s.sages before leaving him and s.h.i.+pping on the _Mary Pynsent_, Pink, Bristol-owned by a new company of adventurers. She was an old boat, and known to me, but not the whole story of her. I signed as mate. We were bound for the W. Coast, about 50 leagues E. of Cape Corse Castle, with gunpowder and old firearms for the natives, that were most always at war with one another. Ran coastwise and touched at three or four places on the way, and at each of them peddled powder and muskets, the muskets being most profitable, by reason the blacks have no notion of repairing a gun. So we, carrying a gunsmith on board, bought up at one place the guns that wanted repairs, and sold them at the next for new pieces. In this way we came to our destination, which was the mouth of a river full of slime and mosquitoes, and called the Popo River. There a whole tribe of n.i.g.g.e.rs put out to receive us.

They knew the _Mary Pynsent_, and worse luck. Her last trip, when owned by Mr. W. S., aforesaid, she had sold them 1500 kegs of sifted sea-coal dust, pa.s.sing it off for gunpowder, and had made off with 7000 pounds worth of gold dust, besides ivory, _white and black_, before they discovered the trick. We being without knowledge of what had happened, and having real gunpowder to sell, let the n.i.g.g.e.rs swarm on board, and welcome. Whereupon, in revenge for past usage, they attacked us on the spot and clubbed all the crew but me, that was getting out the boat under the seaward quarter and baling her, but dived as soon as the murder began, and swam to the sh.o.r.e.

The sh.o.r.e was mudbanks and reeds and mangroves, and all sweating with heat and mosquitoes. I spent that day in hiding. Towards sunset the savages rafted a good third of the cargo ash.o.r.e, and, having stacked the kegs and built a fire about them, started to dance, making a silly mock of the powder, till it blew up. Which it did, and must have killed hundreds.

I heard the noise of it at about two miles' distance, having crept out of my hiding when I saw them busy, and started to tramp it along sh.o.r.e to Cape Corse Castle. I had no food, and must have died but that next morning I fell in with a tribe that seemed pleased to see me; which was lucky, me having no strength left to run. They took me to their kraal, a mile inland, and to a hut where was a man lying in a fever. He was a man covered with dirt and vermin, but at first sight of his face I knew him to be a white man and English.

Ever since my first voyage to these parts I carried a small box in my pocket, filled with bark of Peru, which is the best cure for coast fever. I took out some of this bark and managed to make myself understood that I wanted a fire lit and some water fetched; boiled up the bark and made him drink it. After that I nursed him for three days before he died.

The second day he sits up and says in English: "Who are you?"

So I told him. Then he says: "Why are you doing this for me?

You wouldn't do it if you knew who I am." "I'd do it," I said, "if you were the devil." "I am next door to him," he says. "I am Melhuish, of the Poison Island Treasure." "I never heard of it,"

said I. "There's others call it the Priests' Treasure," says he; "and if you have never heard of it, you cannot have sailed anywhere near the Bay of Honduras." "Never in my life," I said. "My business has lain along the coast for years. But what of it?" "What of it?"

he says, sitting up, his eyes all s.h.i.+ning with the fever, "why, nothing, except that I am one of the richest men in the world."

I set this down to raving. "You don't believe me?" he asks after some time. "Why," I answers him, "this is a funny sort of place for a nabob, and that you must allow; not to mention," I adds, "that from here to Honduras is a long step." "You fool!" said he, "that is the very reason of it. I don't believe in a h.e.l.l on the t'other sh.o.r.e of this life, whatever your views may be. You go to sleep and have done with it--that's my belief. But I believe in h.e.l.l upon earth, because I have lived in it. And I believe in a devil upon earth, because I lived months in his company; but he can't be as clever as the priests make out, because I came here to hide from him, and hidden I have."