Spanish Gold/Chapter 6

ELDON woke early next morning. At six o'clock he plunged overboard and swam delightedly round the yacht. Treasure or no treasure, he intended to enjoy his holiday, and the June weather was as good as could be wished for—better than any reason- able man would dare to hope. Half an hour later he roused Major Kent, and then set to work to light the stove in the galley. Every now and then he poked his head up and shouted a remark to the Major, who was making his toilet on deck.

"We'll go ashore directly after breakfast and set to work. Have you any plan of operation in your mind?"

The Major stopped shaving and, razor in hand, looked over to the place from which the red head of the curate had already disappeared.

"I have not," he shouted. "I left that to you. I took it for granted that you would know the exact spot where the treasure lies, and that I would have nothing to do but walk there and put the gold into a hand-bag."

The Major, though not intellectually nimble, prided himself on his power of polished sarcasm. He was disappointed to find that his taunt had apparently failed to reach the curate. He received no reply; but a noise of frizzling and a pleasant smell of bacon melting on a frying-pan reached him from the fore hatch. Then Meldon's voice, this time without the appearance of his head, reached him again:—

"There are only six eggs. I suppose I may as well fry them all."

"Yes, and some ham along with them."

"It's bacon I have on the pan, but I'll do a slice or two of ham for you, if you like."

Half of Meldon's body emerged from the hatchway, and the shells of six eggs were pitched overboard.

"It was full tide at six this morning," he said, returning to the subject of the treasure hunt; "I expect by eight o'clock we ought to be able to make our way round the base of the cliffs on the west side of the island. We'll be all right there till one or two o'clock, any way. What do you say?"

The Major finished shaving and proceeded to fill a tin basin with water.

"What do you expect to take by doing that?" he said.

He got no answer for a time. The frying-pan demanded Meldon's whole attention. The noise of frizzling increased rapidly. The Major balanced his basin on the cabin skylight and scrubbed himself vigorously. On the deck beside him lay a cake of soap, a towel, and a small piece of pumice-stone. They who go down to the sea in ships are apt to get tarry substances stuck on their hands, and the Major was a man who liked to be clean once a day at least. Beside the basin on the skylight lay his tooth-brush and a box of carbolic powder, but he did not get a chance of enjoying these.

"Breakfast's ready," shouted Meldon. "Shall I drag it all up on deck? The air's pleasant."

"No, let's be as civilised as we can and eat in the cabin."

Realising that the curate's appetite would not endure much delay and that his own chance of securing a fair share of the six eggs depended on his promptitude, the Major slipped on the jacket of his pyjamas and went below. The eggs, bacon, and ham steamed together in a heap on a dish. Plates, knives, and forks were set out. The teapot and a tin of condensed milk stood at the end of the table.

"I call this jolly," said Meldon. "I only wish my little girl was here to take a share with us."

"God forbid!" said the Major, with pious gravity. "How can you wish for such a thing, J. J.? Just fancy a woman on a boat like this."

"You don't know her. She wouldn't mind a bit. In fact she'd enjoy roughing it. It would be the greatest fun out for her."

"Well, it wouldn't be any fun for me," said the Major. "But tell me, what's this plan of yours about scrambling about among the rocks?"

"I've given a lot of serious thought to the subject of the treasure," said Meldon. "I sat for nearly an hour on the top of this island yesterday afternoon and, as the hymn says, 'I viewed the landscape o'er,' The result is that I've picked out the scene of the shipwreck."

"Oh, have you? You're quite certain you're right, of course."

"Not quite certain tolerably certain. It's this way. The galleon"

"The what?"

"The galleon. I wish you'd try not to interrupt me so often. All Spanish ships were galleons if they were big and caraques if they were small. Our one was big, therefore she must have been a galleon. We may just as well call things by their right names and go to work in a business-like way. The galleon was wrecked. Very well. Where was she likely to be wrecked? On the west coast of the island."

"I don't see why."

"Because of course if she'd got to the east side she'd have been in calm water under the lee of the land, and she wouldn't have been wrecked."

"That doesn't follow. The wind might have been nor'-east."

"I'm pretty sure it wasn't," said Meldon, "because it hardly ever is. Even nowadays, with all the improvements there are in things, there's hardly ever a nor'-east wind on this coast, and in those days—two hundred years and more ago—I expect the wind just shifted about through three points of the compass, nor'-west, west, and sou'-west. However, if you like, I'll argue out the other possibilities afterwards. For the present we'll say the galleon was most likely wrecked on the west side of the island. Now, put yourself in the place of the Spanish captain."

"I've done that before," said the Major, "and it was no good."

"I remember now; it wasn't. But anyhow we came to the conclusion that he stored his treasure in some hole in the rocks. Obviously, on account of the weight of the treasure and the difficulty of carrying large quantities of loose coin, he'd choose a hole as near the scene of the shipwreck as possible. Having fixed the scene of the shipwreck"

"You haven't explained how you fixed that."

"I can't either till I show you the place. Once you've seen it you'll admit that it is by far the likeliest place for a thing of the kind. In fact it's the only really suitable place I saw. What we've got to do is to search the rocks in the immediate neighbourhood for the hole that caught the eye of the Spanish captain."

"That's all well enough. But the treasure, if there ever was any treasure, was hidden more than two hundred years ago. The place must be entirely altered since then. I understand that the whole island is made up of pliocene clay."

"What's that got to do with it?"

"Of course," said the Major, "I don't know what pliocene clay is. But if it's like any other kind of clay it'll be soft stuff, and any hole there might have been two hundred years ago will be all washed away or covered up now."

"In the first place," said Meldon, "we've only got Higginbotham's word for it that the island is pliocene clay, and in the next place I don't believe pliocene clay is that kind of stuff at all. It stands to reason that it can't be. Why, man, if it was anything like common clay the whole island would be gone ages ago. You take my word for it, pliocene clay is some uncommonly hard substance that doesn't melt anything worth speaking of in a couple of centuries."

"Then why is it called pliocene clay?"

"Oh, that's the sort of way those scientific Johnnies talk. I believe they do it just to deceive the general public. You know they speak about lunacy, although they know jolly well it hasn't got anything to do with the moon. What they like is to get hold of a name which is sure to deceive plain, straightforward men like you and me, and then when we take it at its face value, put the obvious meaning on to one of their own words, they make us look like fools for not knowing any better. It's just the same with typhoid fever. I was talking to a doctor once, not a common castor-oil and linseed-poultice doctor, but one of the sort that runs to germs and microscopes and things, and he told me—I forget exactly how he put it, but it amounted to this: that any one who went by the name typhoid would get on a wrong track—altogether wouldn't, in fact, have proper typhoid but something else. I think he said he'd have something like typhus, which is an entirely different disease; beastly infectious, for one thing, whereas the real typhoid, the thing that the name doesn't mean, if you understand me, isn't catching at all. Which just shows how much trust you can put in scientific names. No, Major, you take my word for; it, pliocene clay is some jolly hard kind of rock—igneous, I expect—and this island is pretty much as old Don What's-his-name found it when he scrambled on shore out of that galleon."

"Very well," said the Major, "but I believe we're on a fool's errand. I doubt very much if there's any treasure there at all. And I'm sure we won't find it."

"Don't croke [sic]," said Meldon. "You get into your duds and light your pipe. I'll wash up and get out the punt. It's getting on for eight o'clock and we ought to be off."

An elderly man and five out of the nine children resident on the island stood on the end of the pier when Meldon and the Major landed. The man was clad in a very dirty white flannel jacket and a pair of yellowish flannel trousers, which hung in a tattered fringe round his naked feet and ankles. He had a long white beard and grey hair, long as a woman's, drawn straight back from his forehead. The hair and beard were both unkempt and matted. But the man held himself erect and looked straight at the strangers through great dark eyes. His hands, though battered and scarred with toil, were long and shapely. His face had a look of dignity, of a certain calm and satisfied superiority. Men of this kind are to be met with here and there among the Connacht peasantry. They are in reality children of a vanishing race, of a lost civilisation, a bygone culture. They watch the encroachments of another race and new ideas with a sort of sorrowful contempt. It is as if, understanding and despising what they see around them, they do not consider it worth while to try and explain themselves; as if, possessing a wisdom of their own, and æsthetic joy of which the modern world knows nothing, they are content to let both die with them rather than attempt to teach them to men of a wholly different outlook upon life.

"I shouldn't wonder," said Meldon to the Major, "if that was old Thomas O'Flaherty Pat himself. He has a royal look about him, hasn't he? But I can't say much for his robes of state. I wonder if he'd talk to us." He approached the old man. "Good-morning to you. Glorious weather we're having. Looks as if it meant to hold up too."

"Ni Beurla agam" ("I have no English"), said the old man.

"Come now," said Meldon cheerfully, "you needn't play that game off on me. I can understand your doing it to Higginbotham. He's a Government official, and naturally you distrust him; but I'm a private man, I don't want to turn you out of your house, and I won't give you away."

"Ni Beurla agam air bith. Ni aon focal" ("I have no English at all, not one word"), said the old man.

Meldon turned to the five children, and singled out a little girl who stood staring open-mouthed at him.

"Molly O'Flaherty," he said, "come here."

The children, holding on to each other, edged away doubtfully.

"Bridgy O'Flaherty," said Meldon, "if you're not Molly I suppose you're sure to be Bridgy. Tell me what the old gentleman's name is."

He stepped forward suddenly and seized the child by the arm. She struggled for a minute and then began to cry.

"There now," said Meldon, soothingly, "don't cry; I'm not going to hurt you. Major, give me a penny. You haven't got one? Never mind, a sixpence will do quite as well. Here now, Nora Acushla, look at the pretty silver sixpence. That's for you. Stretch out your hand and take it, and I'll tell your mammy what a good girl you are."

The child seized the sixpence, stopped crying, and looked up timidly to Meldon's face.

"That's right," he said, patting her head. "Now we're friends again. Tell me now, Nora—is it Nora they call you?"

"It is not," said the child. "It's Mary Kate."

"There now. I might have guessed it. Sorra a prettier name there is in the whole province of Connacht than Mary Kate, nor a prettier little girl than yourself. I've a little girl of my own away in Dublin, and they call her Gladys Muriel, but I declare I think Mary Kate's a nicer name. Tell me now, Mary Kate, is Thomas O'Flaherty Pat the name they have on the old man there?"

"It might," said Mary Kate.

"Off with you then," said Meldon. "Have you got the sixpence safe? Take it up to the gentleman that lives in the new iron house, the gentleman from the Board—you know who I mean."

Mary Kate grinned.

"Is it the man that does be measuring out the land?"

"It is," said Meldon. "That exact man. Do you take your sixpence up to him and ask him to give you the worth of it in sugar candy. Don't be put off if he tells you he hasn't got any. He has sacks and sacks of it stored away there in the house, and he does be eating it himself whenever he thinks there's nobody looking at him."

"Do we go round the north or the south side of the island," said the Major, as he and Meldon left the pier, "to reach this treasure-cave of yours?"

"The scene of the shipwreck," said Meldon severely, "is about the middle of the west coast. We'd get to it just as quick one way as the other, but I think we'll go by the north. Higginbotham's house is to the south of us, and there is no use passing his door oftener than we can help; especially just now when Mary Kate is approaching him on the subject of sugar candy."

Walking in Inishgowlan is slow work because there are no regular roads, and because the whole island is laced with loose stone walls which have to be climbed. These are built not so much to separate the fields from each other, as with a view to collecting into manageable heaps the stones of which the walls consist. Originally the stones lay scattered over the grass; in such numbers that ploughing and even digging were difficult. Here and there, where it is evidently impossible to pile any more stones on the walls without making them dangerously top-heavy, cairns have been built in the middle of the fields and the superfluous metal got rid of in that way. This superabundance of stones was a serious trouble to Higginbotham. He had devised a plan for building a very high wall, a solid structure with mortar in its joints, along the western ridge of the island. He represented to his Board that such a wall would form a splendid shelter for the whole island from the westerly gales and would prevent careless sheep from falling over into the sea. The Board was still deliberating on the scheme.

Major Kent grumbled a good deal at having to climb so many walls; but Meldon, generally a field in front of him, encouraged him with false promises of easier walking further on. Thomas O'Flaherty Pat followed them at a distance. Meldon stopped to light his pipe, and allowed the Major to overtake him.

"I rather think," he said looking back, "that the old chappie in the ragged clothes is tracking us."

"Let him," said the Major, who was rather out of breath and disinclined for discussion. "He can't do us any harm."

"He might not, but all the same I'd like to know what he has in his mind. I wish now that I'd brought Mary Kate along with me. She'd have come for another sixpence, I expect."

"Another of my sixpences."

"Oh, well, you needn't grumble. What's sixpence here or there compared to the pile of gold that we're going to take home with us? Think of it, Major, great fat doubloons, no wretched little slips of coins like our modern sovereigns, but thick, round chunks, weighing, maybe, as much as an ounce or an ounce and a half each, solid gold! And very likely there'll be gems, golden goblets with precious stones stuck in them. Those Spaniards were awful dogs for luxury."

"You don't really expect to find diamonds and emeralds, do you, J. J.?"

"Of course I do. What else have I come for if it isn't to find every kind of treasure? But here we are, Major, at the other end of nowhere. We've got to scramble round now."

The cliffs on the western coast of Inishgowlan are not very lofty, nor, except in odd places, are they really precipitous. Here and there the sea at high tide washes against their bases. Elsewhere there are long shelves of rock which are never more than half-covered by the waves, and wildernesses of huge boulders, worn into all sorts of fantastic shapes, among which on calm days the sea winds itself into curiously fascinating pools and channels, where in storms there is a welter of foam and spray and angry water.

Meldon, keeping a few paces in front of the Major, scrambled along with the greatest activity. He scaled apparently impossible rocks, and seemed actually to enjoy slipping and stumbling among the pools. After an hour's hard work, with scratched hands and a large rent in the knee of his trousers, he reached the mouth of a little bay. There, seated on a large stone at the bottom of the cliff, was Thomas O'Flaherty Pat.

A few hundred yards from the north end of the island there is a break in the line of cliffs. A narrow path, very steep and rough, has been made from the top of the ridge to the beach below. It is used during the kelp-burning season by men and girls, who climb down it, gather sea wrack among the rocks, and toilsomely ascend again with dripping creels on their backs and soaked garments flapping round their legs. Old Thomas O'Flaherty Pat had used this path as a short-cut, and intercepted the men he was following.

Meldon waited for the Major, who was some distance behind.

"Look here," he said, "there's that old gentleman, Higginbotham's favourite enemy, waiting for us again. Now, what on earth does he want?"

"I don't know, and what's more, I don't care. But I see the path he came by, and I vote we take it as the shortest way home. I've had enough of this ridiculous expedition."

"Nonsense, Major. You can't go back now. We've hours before us still. But we'll recollect that path. It'll save us going the whole way back to the north point of the island when we've done. I wish I knew what T. O'Flaherty Pat supposes he's doing. It's perfectly ridiculous not being able to get him to talk. I can't imagine why he keeps up the pretence of not knowing English with me."

"Perhaps he doesn't know any."

"Rot! Excuse my putting it plainly, but that's simple rot. Of course he knows English. Everybody must know English."

"Well, there's no use standing here and staring at him. We shan't find out anything that way. Let's go on if you're bent on going."

"I shouldn't wonder," said Meldon, "if he had some kind of inkling of what we're after. Your great aunt said in her diary"

"My grandfather. I never had a great aunt that I know of."

"Well, your grandfather. It's all the same. He said anyhow that the natives here knew about the treasure in this day. Now that's just the kind of information that would be handed down from father to son, and old T. O. P. is just the sort of man"

"Who's T. O. P.?"

"T. O. P.? Oh, Thomas O'Flaherty Pat, of course. You can't expect me to say that whole name over again each time. Our friend Tommy is just the kind of elderly ass who'd be sure to remember the story even if everybody else had forgotten it. You back he's gone treasure-hunting on his own every fine day for the last fifty years, and now when he sees we're after it and going about the job in a jolly sight more intelligent way than ever he did, he thinks he's nothing to do but hang on to us till we find it, and then chip in and claim a share. I'll tell you what it is, Major. It's absolutely necessary to put him off the scent."

"How will you do that when you can't talk to him?"

"Oh, I'll manage. Mind you, he can understand every word we say. Come along, now. I'm going to pretend to be a bug hunter, an entomologist, one of the fellows who look for marine monsters of unusual kinds in little pools. I wish to goodness I'd thought of bringing a butterfly net with me; a nice green butterfly net would have completed the disguise. Come along, Major. Take my arm and try and look affectionate. Put on the sort of expression you'd wear if we were scientific pals out of the same laboratory in London. Do your best to display an intelligent interest in what I say."

Stumbling among the stones, but walking arm-in-arm, they approached Thomas O'Flaherty Pat.

"Major," whispered Meldon, "do you happen to recollect the name of any insect?"

"The flea," said the Major promptly.

"The scientific name," said Meldon. "What good are fleas? He knows what fleas are well enough, and is probably much better acquainted with their habits than we are. He knows that we wouldn't come here to look for fleas. Tell me a scientific name. I can't think of one myself, except 'fritillary.' Well never mind. If you can't, you can't. Now, listen."

In a clear, loud voice, calculated to carry some distance, he said

"I hope, Professor, that our long journey has not been in vain; I hope, I trust, not. This place, the rocks and pools beyond us, seems to me a likely habitat for the Athalonia miserabilis, the marvellous sea-beetle, found nowhere but on these western shores."

He cast a rapid glance at Thomas O'Flaherty Pat. The old man appeared wholly unimpressed, and sat gazing with wide, dreamy eyes past the strangers straight out to sea. But Meldon was not the man to be baffled by any affectation of indifference and inattention. Convinced that the old man understood English, and was keenly interested in what he heard, he took the Major slowly across the beach, climbed a neighbouring ledge of rock, and stooped down as if to make a minute examination of a weedy pool. Looking up, he was gratified to see the eyes of Thomas O'Flaherty Pat fixed on him.

"I thought I'd rouse him," he said to the Major. "Now I'll make him quite sure that I'm after nothing more thrilling than the corpse of an Athalonia miserabilis."

With every appearance of intense excitement, Meldon dropped on his knees beside the pool. He took off his coat and rolled up one of his shirt sleeves; he lay flat on his stomach; he plunged his bare arm deep into the water. Then he rose and looked round to see how Thomas O'Flaherty Pat was taking the performance. The old man had left the stone on which he sat, and was approaching the pool.

"I thought I'd draw him," said Meldon.

After examining minutely some shreds of green seaweed which he had dredged from the depths of the pool, he plunged his arm in again. Thomas O'Flaherty Pat came quite close, looked at the curate with an expression of some wonder, and passed on. Reaching the edge of the sea, he, too, lay flat down, bared his arm and plunged it into the water. Meldon, rising to his knees, looked at him.

"What's the old boy at now?" he said.

"Looks very much," said the Major, "as if he was trying to catch a Paphlagonia What's-its-name, too."

"Athalonia miserabilis," said Meldon. "Do try to get things right, Major. You set up to be a tidy man and take it on yourself to lecture me every now and then for getting things into wrong places, but you're the most untidy person I ever met in conversation. You never get a name right."

"Well, Athalonia whatever you like. Anyhow, he's trying to catch one."

"He can't be, can't possibly be. There's no such creature, so far as I know."

"Well, he's catching something, and what's more he's caught it and he's bringing it over to you."

Thomas O'Flaherty Pat came towards them, and certainly carried booty of some sort in his hand. With a dignified and gracious bow, he presented Meldon with a large red crab.

"Good Lord!" said Major Kent.

The curate took the creature carefully, and bowed politely in return.

"Thanks awfully," he said. "I mean to say, of course, merci beaucoup."

"Ni Beurla agam," said the old man.

"Oh, never mind about the Beurla. What I want you to know is this, I'm greatly obliged to you for the crab. So's the professor here. We weren't exactly looking for crabs. We were looking for an Athalonia miserabilis, but we're just as much pleased as if you brought us one. The fact is we're both passionately fond of crab, dressed with breadcrumbs and pepper, you know. And in London, where we come from, the chief city of the Sassenach—you know the place I mean—crabs are too expensive for poor men like us to buy. You can't pick them up there the way you do here. You'd hardly believe the price a fishmonger would charge for a crab like this."

Thomas O'Flaherty Pat shook his head solemnly.

"Ni Beurla agam air bith," he said.

"All right," said Meldon. "Goodbye for the present. So long, old boy. We oughtn't to be taking up your valuable time. I really believe he doesn't know a word I'm saying. Look here "

He seized the old man's hand and shook it heartily.

"Céud mile failte—there, that's all the Irish I know, and if that doesn't send you off home I can do no more."

This hearty welcome produced the effect intended. Thomas O'Flaherty Pat, after a courteous salutation turned and climbed slowly up the path which led to the top of the cliff.

"I hope," said the Major, "that that will be a lesson to you, J. J."

"A lesson about what?"

"About telling lies. You see the trouble they get you into."

"I see nothing of the sort. My lies, as you call them, got rid of that troublesome old fool, who might have gone on following us all day. Also they secured us this excellent crab, which I shall cook for supper to-night. And anyhow, they aren't lies. They are what is called diplomacy, and that's an art practised by the most honourable men—lords, and marquises, and kings, and people of that kind. Do you suppose that the Prime Minister, when he thinks he'll have to go to war with Germany, tells the literal truth? Does he go and ask to have the first battle put off for a week because he's short of cartridges? Of course he doesn't. He gives the Germans to understand that England is chock full of cartridges of all sizes. The fewer he really has the more he says he has. That's diplomacy, and it's reckoned to be a very noble line of life. Well, the principle applies to treasure-seeking just as much as to international politics. No treasure would ever have been found if the people who were on the track of it went telling all they knew to every chance acquaintance. They simply have to put the general public—people like Higginbotham and Thomas O'Flaherty Pat—off the scent, and there's no way of doing that except the one. Besides, it wouldn't be the slightest use telling the literal truth. People wouldn't believe you. Suppose I went up to Higginbotham and said that you and I were here on a treasure hunt. Do you think he'd believe it? Not he. He'd laugh. He hasn't got enough imagination to believe the truth if you hung it up before him. His mind isn't fit for it. If you knew any theology, Major, you'd understand that economy, as it's called, consists of dealing out to the average man just the amount of truth he's fit to receive, and no more. The Church has always gone on that principle, and I'm acting in the same way towards Higginbotham and Thomas O'Flaherty."