Chapter VII: Murray’s Plan

Murray led us to a door in the break of the poop which was opened for us by a stalwart black in a red livery coat, who ushered us along a companionway lined with stateroom doors into a spacious state cabin stretching the width of the stern. The walls were paneled in mahogany; silver sconces were fastened at intervals, and a wondrous luster chandelier was pendant from the ceiling, itself uncommonly lofty for shipboard; several paintings in the French school hung at the sides; and there were trophies of peculiar arms and armor. Underfoot were Eastern rugs, thick-piled and soft of hue. The furniture was of mahogany, and a service of massy plate appeared upon the table that was set under the range of windows which formed the rear wall of the room.

My great-uncle surveyed this magnificence with pardonable pride. ’Twas evident it meant something to him.

“Diomede,” he said to the negro, “where is Master Gunn?”

A high, piping voice answered him from the companionway.

“Coming, worshipful sir. Ben Gunn’s a-coming. I jest stopped by the galley to fetch up your chocolate, a-sayin’ to myself as the captain would be sharp-set account o’ early business in the morning.”

The man who followed the voice trotted in bearing a silver pitcher of steaming chocolate, Murray’s favorite drink; aye, and food. He was a slender fellow, with a simple, open face, clad in plain black as became an upper servant. He stopped dead at sight of us.

“Set your tray on the table, Gunn,” instructed my great-uncle. “This is my grandnephew, Master Ormerod, and his friend, Master Corlaer. They are to sail with us a while.”

Gunn pulled his forelock and ducked.

“Sarvant, gentlemen,” he acknowledged. “Allus glad to please, is Ben Gunn. Bound to oblige ye, gentlemen. You jest name your drinks, and I’ll fetch ’em up from the wine-bins.”

“Food as well, Gunn,” said Murray. “And Captain Flint is coming aboard.”

Ben Gunn cocked his head on one side.

“That means rum,” he commented. “Plenty o’ rum, says you. Jest leave it to Ben, captain.”

He ducked and scraped again and skipped off into the companionway with a kind of wiggle like a self-conscious child.

“My steward,” remarked my relative. “He will be at your disposal for anything you require, Robert--yours, too, friend Peter. You will find the negroes equally anxious to please.”

“The man is a half-wit, is he not?” I asked.

“A natural, yes,” assented Murray, tasting the chocolate.

“I should think it would be dangerous to have one so simple in such close proximity to you.”

My great-uncle smiled.

“You are quite, quite wrong, my boy. It is for the very reason that the man is incapable of spying that I use him. He is more valuable for my purposes than the most intelligent member of the crew.”

He broke off.

“This chocolate is by no means so well brewed as Silver’s. An extraordinary fellow, that, monstrously clever--exactly the sort of man, Robert, I never permit to remain near me. Indeed, if you possess the patience and the interest to analyze the composition of my officers and crew you will observe, I believe, that there is not an independently clever man amongst them. Aye, and if you find me a clever man aboard the _Royal James_--yourself and friend Peter excepted, of course--I will thank you to point him out to me, and I will straightway make a present of him to Flint, who must have half a dozen of the _Walrus’_ crew who esteem themselves equally capable with him of commanding her.”

“Yet the _James_ was able to get along without you for several days,” I remarked.

“Ah! A shrewd thrust! I am bound to admit, my dear Robert, that I regarded my recently concluded expedition as a dubious experiment. ’Twas in the light of reflections identical with those you have just detailed that I spoke of it as a problem in human equations. I was reasonably convinced that I could depend upon my men, but I should not have been greatly surprized had they abandoned me.

“I am not--by necessity I am not--regarded with affection by my followers. And on the whole, I think, I have gotten along better by means of fear than I might have by means of affection. Fear is a natural element in a pirate’s career. What place has he in his life for affections?

“But we are faring far afield, Robert, into realms of philosophy in no way affiliated with our problems of the immediate moment. Hark! Do I not hear something?”

He did beyond question--an uproar of curses and shouts upon the deck outside.

“Perhaps your crew have decided to spring their revolt after your return, instead of during your absence,” I suggested.

He shook his head, smiling.

“No, no. It is only that Captain Flint has come aboard. Pray take your seats. I promise you an interesting episode.”

The door to the deck banged open, and a harsh, domineering voice bellowed in the companionway.

“---- me, Martin, what the ---- ---- ---- ---- d’ye think ye are? By the ---- ---- ---- ----, ye lousy, slack-bellied swab, ye made us----”

“Stow that, ye ---- ---- ---- apology for a ---- ---- ---- ----,” interrupted Martin mildly from the deck. “Why, any ---- ---- would ha’ had more sense than you!”

“Like ----! I’m my own master, I am. I----”

“Ye may be when ye stand on the _Walrus’_ deck, but here you’re only another ---- as doesn’t know better’n to veer after----”

“Belay for a ---- ---- lackey, ye slab-faced chunk o’ rotted sea-horse! I’ll talk to your master!”

Slam went the door, and a mutter of curses rumbled from the companionway, preceding a tall, blue-jowled man in a flaming red coat all cobwebbed over with gold lace. He halted in the cabin entrance, hands on his hips, feet planted wide, close-set green eyes flickering balefully on either side of a long nose that seemed to poke out from a tangle of lank, black hair.

“Back, eh, Murray?” he snarled. “Two men the richer for your effort. Gut me, ’twas a fool’s errand!”

“Pardon me,” objected Murray, “but I am considerably more than ‘two men the richer’ in consequence of my run ashore--although I would not appear by these words to deprecate the importance to be attached to the acquisition of my grandnephew and Master Corlaer. Permit me, Captain Flint! Master Ormerod, my grandnephew, and Peter Corlaer.”

And to me, aside:

“I fear these introductions must become boring. We shall require no more.”

Flint scowled at us, flinging himself into a chair at the opposite end of the table from my great-uncle.

“A youth and a fat man!” he ejaculated. “And unwilling at that, so Bones tells me.”

“Master Bones was correct in that statement,” my great-uncle assented cheerfully; “but I fancy he neglected to add that the ‘fat man’ took his knife away from him and must have hanged him had I not intervened.”

An appreciable degree of respect dawned in Flint’s eyes.

“He is no butter-tub if he bested Bill,” conceded the _Walrus’_ captain. “Curse me, though, if I see why you should add a cub to your crew.”

“Tut, tut, captain,” remonstrated Murray. “‘A cub!’ Think again. The boy is my heir.”

“All he’ll fall heir to will be the rope that hung you,” returned Flint. “But I’ll own I did you wrong when I accused you of being but two men the better by your shore expedition. I was forgetting the red-headed mascot John Silver fetched aboard. ’Tis the first promise o’ luck we ha’ had! I’d never have lost that Philadelphia packet t’ other day with him aboard.”

“I believe I overheard something of a dispute with Martin on that point,” commented my great-uncle dryly. “He obeyed my orders in calling you off, and you broke our agreement when you would have given chase.”

“And why not?” roared Flint. “A ---- ---- fool agreement, if you broach it now! A ---- ---- of a ---- ---- piece of ---- ---- ---- idiocy! Curse me for a lubber if I see the sense in letting a fat prize slip through our fingers. And so I told Martin. Let me have him on my deck, and I’d use my hanger to him.”

My uncle took snuff with much delicacy and rang a silver bell in front of him.

“Gunn is late with the liquor. I must ask your indulgence, captain, for compelling you to talk dry. But as to Martin and the prize. Indeed, you wrong the good fellow. As I have already said, he did no more than carry out my orders, and while you may experience difficulty in comprehending my reasons for stipulating that no prizes were to be taken in my absence, I am so vain as to suppose that a few moments’ conversation will clear all doubts from your mind.”

Ben Gunn bustled into the cabin in the course of this harangue and deposited a trayful of decanters, bottles and flasks before us. Captain Flint, without awaiting an invitation, seized upon an earthen receptacle labeled “Gedney’s Jamaican Rum,” pried out the cork with the point of a knife, tilted it to his mouth and drained a mighty dram. Then he set it down beside him, wiped his mouth on his coat-cuff and cleared his throat.

“Humph,” he growled. “I’m listening.”

My uncle looked distressed.

“Gunn,” he said, “how often have I asked you to supply Captain Flint with a goblet, beaker or some other drinking-utensil?”

The steward wiggled abjectly and pulled his forelock.

“Oft and often you has, captain, but ’taint no manner o’ use--leastways not the fust time. Captain Flint says as how he always has to take the flavor of a new flask straight from the neck.”

“And so I do,” agreed Flint. “Rum don’t taste the same in a cup. Ye drink coffee or tea in a cup--but rum! ---- my eyes if I ever see so much fuss over drink and victuals as you make. But anything to oblige, Murray. I don’t ha’ to eat with ye every day, thank God!”

Gunn produced a large silver goblet from a wall-cupboard, and Flint straightway filled it to the brim. I pushed a cut-glass carafe of water toward him, supposing he would wish some dilution, and he laughed jarringly.

“You ha’ much to learn, my lad,” he jeered. “We don’t spoil good rum wi’ water aboard the _Walrus_. There’s a cask broached this minute on the spar-deck, and all hands fillin’ their pannikins as fast as they can empty ’em, wi’ red-headed Darby astride the butt for luck.”

“Which means you will be in no condition to make sail a few hours hence,” deplored my great-uncle, wagging his head. “’Tis foolishness, Flint. This rum-swigging will yet prove the undoing of you and every man of your crew. I am no upholder of imaginary virtues, as you know, but unbridled indulgence must ultimately defeat its own ends.”

“Look to your ship, and I’ll look to mine,” snapped Flint, quaffing a wineglassful of the goblet’s contents.

My uncle stared him straight in the eye with a hard, direct thrust of power which stirred my unwilling admiration.

“To whom do you owe your present position?” he asked coldly.

Flint made a patent attempt to stare him down, but abandoned the effort and looked away.

“Some might say one thing and some another,” he muttered.

“To whom do you owe your present position, Flint?” repeated Murray.

“Oh, to you, most like,” admitted Flint. “Blast you!”

“Have I ever led you into difficulties?” continued my great-uncle.

“Not if----”

“Have I ever led you into difficulties?”

“No.”

“Have we failed in any important venture since our association began?”

“Not yet,” admitted Flint sourly.

“Very well. Now I ask you: When I promise a certain accomplishment am I to be relied upon?”

“You ha’ a head on your shoulders,” conceded Flint.

“And you have not,” amended Murray. “No, do not say any more. You are an excellent man to handle your ship, Flint, and as fearless as any of our ruffians; but you are no more capable of looking ahead a week or two than Ben Gunn.”

“I take much from ye, Murray,” snarled Flint, half-rising; “but think not ye can humble me before----”

“Sit down,” ordered Murray. “You’ll take what you deserve, which in this instance is a plain statement that you would ha’ made a fool of yourself by chasing the Philadelphia packet. I doubt if you could have taken her, for your bottom is foul; but if you had, her loss must have aroused comment, and with New York already apprised that we are in these seas we should ha’ had every frigate on the North American and West Indian stations a-hunting us. And what then?”

“We could lie up safe enough at the Rendeyvoo.”

“Spyglass Island? I dare say--although some day ’twill be blundered upon, if not discovered. But I ask you to recall that we take no prizes when we hole up. ’Tis a losing game.”

“Well, what would you?” Flint flung at him with an air of defiance, which Murray ignored.

“I would make the greatest coup we have attempted.”

Flint laughed disagreeably.

“So you said when you arranged to go into New York, but you have carried back no treasure with you.”

My uncle regarded him with what, under other circumstances, I should describe as honest indignation.

“You fool!” he said with a rasp in his voice--and I did not wonder that Flint pulled sidewise in his chair as if to avoid a stab. “Did you think I was to go into that huddle of a town, with its wealth in furs and groceries, and fetch out a treasure?”

“What, then?” demanded Flint, moistening his lips.

My uncle leaned forward across the table, lips drawn tight over his teeth. His eyes shot sparks.

“Knowledge, fool! Intelligence! That which wise men labor a lifetime to secure and the ignorant pass by in the gutter.”

“It may be knowledge to you,” protested Flint childishly; “but how’m I to know of it as never heard it?”

Murray rose from the table and commenced to stroll the length of the cabin, hands clasped under the skirts of his coat. And as he strolled he talked. Flint followed his every move uneasily, with occasional drafts of rum. Peter and I watched the two of them, fascinated by this conflict of wills, which was to exert a vital influence upon our lives--yes, and upon those of hundreds of others.

“I must speak in simple terms, I perceive, Flint,” began my great-uncle.

The passion was out of his voice, and the sentences trickled from his lips slowly, with an air of detachment.

“And that I may speak simply and present adequately an important subject, I must ask you to indulge me at length.”

Flint nodded sullenly, seeing that an answer was required.

“We have frequently discussed the possibility of taking one of the Spanish treasure-ships,” continued Murray. “But we have never attempted the project because we could not discover the date of sailing or the port wherein the treasure was embarked. It hath been the custom of the Spaniards in recent years--in fact, since the depredations of Morgan and his brethren--to shift arbitrarily the port of embarkation from year to year, as likewise to change the date of sailing. One year the port would be Cartagena, the next Chagres, the next Porto Bello, the next even Vera Cruz. They have been known to ship the year’s produce of the mines around Cape Horn. And similarly the treasure ships, which used formerly to sail invariably in the Fall of the year, now depart whenever it pleases the fancy of the Council of the Indies to fix a date.”

He paused, and Flint rasped----

“So much is known to all of us.”

“I conceded as much,” answered Murray smoothly. “What follows you do not know. When we returned from Madagascar----”

“’Twas against my advice,” growled Flint. “Ye play too much wi’ politics.”

“With politics! Exactly,” agreed my great-uncle. “Well, perhaps I do. ’Tis true that so far I have obtained trifling advantage from the sport, excluding one substantial fortune, this vessel we are in and the information which makes it possible for me to take this year’s treasure-ship.”

Flint sat erect. I caught my breath. Peter, too, showed a gleam of excitement in his little eyes that twinkled from behind the ramparts of flesh that masked his solemn face.

“---- me, Murray!” swore Flint. “Do you say that in sober earnest?”

“I do. Do you remember that we cruised off the Spanish coast last Spring and Fall, and that two months since I sent a periague into the Havana? During our Spanish cruises I established connections with a group of Jacobite gentlemen who know me and placed before them the outline of a plan, the acceptance of which they communicated to me in dispatches the periague fetched to Spyglass Island. In those dispatches I was notified to meet my principal confederate in New York on a certain date. I met him. The necessary arrangements were consummated, and it simply remains for us to execute the plan.”

Flint clutched at his beaker of rum and emptied it shakily into his throat.

“How--how much?” he quavered.

“One million five hundred thousand pounds.”

There was a moment of silence. The clean, golden sunlight flooded through the stern windows and dappled the polished surface of the table with darting molts and beams. Flint’s jaw dropped on his chest. His green eyes glared. Peter and I were as dazed as himself. Only my great-uncle remained calm, pacing quietly up and down the carpeted deck, eyes fixed upon some vision of the future.

“All--that?” stammered Flint. “’Sdeath! ’T would be the greatest haul in our time, Murray.

“It is ours,” affirmed Murray. “Upon terms.”

“Terms?” echoed Flint. “What terms? Who can compel us to terms?”

My great-uncle came to a stop in front of him.

“My terms, let us say,” he answered.

“Oh, aye,” mumbled Flint. “But if ’tis there for the taking----”

“It will be there for the taking, as you put it, upon the terms I lay down,” stated my great-uncle.

“But if ye know of yourself where it can be taken why must we bother wi’ terms, Murray?” clamored Flint. “What’s riches for us can be pared down to short cuts if it must be shared out right and left.”

My great-uncle’s laughter was wholly contemptuous.

“Observe, Robert,” he appealed to me, “here was a man, who, a half-hour past, knew naught of this treasure we are discussing. It meant nothing to him. He never dreamed of obtaining it. And now that he has held out to him the possibility of looting a measure of it he waxes indignant lest that measure be too small!”

Flint refilled the beaker with rum.

The stuff seemed to heighten the uncanny blue pallor of his face, and the pupils of his eyes dwindled to pin-pricks, whether from the strong drink or excitement I can not say. But his manner was steadier than it had been.

“Why not?” he flared in reply to my relative’s mockery. “If we take it, why not take all?”

“Because,” retorted Murray with a burst of terrible energy, “I have passed my word as to the terms upon which the treasure is to be taken.”

“What’s your word?” rapped Flint.

For a moment I thought my great-uncle would strike him. He made to draw back his arm, and perspiration stood out in white beads upon his forehead. Flint feared it, too, but did not raise a hand to protect himself, charmed to immobility by the virulence of the basilisk’s stare which Murray directed at him.

“It is my word,” said Murray finally in a very soft voice. “No more, Flint. A poor thing, as the poet hath said, yet my own! Also--that I may chime in harmony with your mental processes--it happens that my personal interests are bound up with the observance of these terms.”

“I thought so,” sneered Flint.

“Ah! Did you?”

My great-uncle’s tones continued dulcet.

“It is a matter we will not discuss further, since it is beyond the range of your comprehension. I shall merely say that the terms are fixed, and that you will either accept or reject them.”

“What are they?”

“As to division of the spoils? One hundred thousand pounds to myself as author and architect of the plan; seven hundred thousand to our two ships; and seven hundred thousand to my friends who coöperated with me to make it possible.”

Flint brought his fist crashing down upon the table.

“I’ll be ---- if I accept!” he shouted. “What? Less than half to our company? And you sneaking off with a cool hundred thousand pounds in your pockets, and your friends, as like as not, splitting secretly with you!”

My great-uncle refreshed himself with snuff, contriving to invest the ceremony with an effect of distaste which I found amusing.

“Stap me, but you have a low mind!” he drawled. “Allow me to direct your attention to the fact that the plan amounts to my friends and I undertaking voluntarily to present you an opportunity to participate in the division of seven hundred thousand pounds, for which you will be called upon to do nothing except agree to follow out several stipulations I shall lay down.”

“Let’s hear ’em.”

My great-uncle ticked off the items upon his finger-tips.

“First, ’tis highly desirable that we should lie low during the ensuing months. Activities such as we usually conduct would tend to affright the Council of the Indies and bring about a change in plan for the treasure-ship’s sailing.”

“What shall we do, then?”

“My counsel is to bear up for Spyglass Island and careen there. Both ships are foul, and ’twill prove an excellent opportunity to make all clean and right.”

Flint nodded.

“We shall need our speed against the Spaniard,” he commented.

“_I_ shall,” returned my great-uncle with some emphasis. “This brings me to my second point. ’Tis advisable that we do not cruise in company for the treasure. I aim to intercept the _Santissima Trinidad_ before she passes from the Caribbean into the Atlantic, and to that end I shall hover on a particular meridian awaiting secret intelligence notifying me when she puts forth from her port.”

The blue look became intensified in Flint’s face.

“You’d leave the _Walrus_ behind?” he demanded.

“I must. Figure it for yourself,” argued my relative. “Two tall ships plying the narrow seas, within easy sail of Jamaica and the Havana and Martinico! We should have the frigates after us in no time. My plan is to masquerade as a King’s ship, running from any ugly customers who show themselves.”

“Aye,” said Flint. “And after you’d taken the treasure and stowed it all below hatches what thought would you give to us aboard the _Walrus_, eh? You’d be up and off, and we might whistle for our share.”

“You wrong me, Captain Flint,” replied my great-uncle simply.

But Flint gave an ugly laugh. It might be the rum or the stimulus of the debate or a gradual access of self-reliance; but he was no longer to be cowed by moral suasion. If I had doubted this, the suave diplomacy with which my great-uncle proceeded to treat him must have convinced me to the contrary.

“If I wrong you, Murray, ’twould be the first time without valid cause,” Flint rejoined. “Come, come! You must think of me better than that.”

“I have thought of the best terms possible,” answered Murray. “Mark me, ’twould be perfectly feasible for me to give you the slip any dark night, take the _Santissima Trinidad_ by my lone and never account to you for a doubloon. I do not for two reasons: First, I have a feeling of common loyalty to you and your men; we have worked and fought together in the past, and I would give them their share in this haul. Second, I wish to use the Rendezvous in connection with the coup, and if you choose to look at it so, you can set down your inclusion as payment for that, as well as for your sacrificing chances at other prizes by keeping under cover.”

“It won’t wash,” denied Flint. “What you say sounds well enough. It may be true. But I couldn’t go back and report it to a fo’csle counsel on the _Walrus_ and expect to have it believed. I have to blink myself when I think of it. ----!” He grinned evilly. “I know what I’d do in your shoes.”

My great-uncle regarded him speculatively.

“What, then, is your answer?” Murray inquired.

“I don’t play on those terms,” returned Flint with decision. “Let me cruise with you, have a share in taking the prize, and I’ll talk differently.”

Murray shook his head.

“’Twould ruin the plan. I know you, Flint. ’Tis not in you to cruise for days and forego fat merchants that cross your bows, ripe to be plucked. The Philadelphia packet you were fuming over when you came in here is a case in point! Man, there’d be a dozen such chances while we awaited the Spaniard, and one of them you’d go for. No, I can’t risk it. Alone, I can contrive not to attract attention. In company, we should stir up a hornet’s nest.”

“Curse me for a canting mugger, then, if I’ll trade on it,” snarled Flint. “I’ll not trust you, Murray, and that’s flat.”

“Suppose that I gave you a hostage?” suggested my great-uncle tentatively.

“Hostage? Who could ye give me for hostage whose life would mean aught to you? No, no! Martin or any man you’d see with his throat cut, and never bat an eye.”

My esteemed relative’s shrug was as complete a repudiation of such a charge as might be desired. I enjoyed it with mixed feelings because I was beginning to see the writing on the wall.

“I had not Martin in mind,” he replied now; “but one whose life means to me more than my own.”

“The man does not live,” Flint swore roundly.

“He sits across the table,” returned Murray. “My grandnephew and heir. I will go so far as to assert that the only reason I concern myself with this exploit is that I may secure estate and preferment for him.”

Flint eyed him shrewdly, looked from him to me and from me to him.

“Your grandnephew, you say? Humph! Long John says you’re choice o’ him. Still-- No, I like not your terms, Murray. They offer too little.”

“They are the best I can offer,” answered Murray definitely. “I will add, that there may be no misunderstandings, Flint, that the odd seven hundred thousand pounds goes to promote the interest of a cause, and not to line the pockets of Spanish officials, as you may suspect; and it is highly probable that considerable of my share will follow it.”

The captain of the _Walrus_ wiped a rumspot from the table and tipped the earthen flask bottom up above his beaker.

“’Tis a heavy commission to pay,” he said. “Eight hundred thousand pounds out of a million and a half.”

“That or nothing,” declared Murray.

“And I must lose how many months’ cruising the while you wait for the treasure-ship?”

“Six or more.”

“Gut me, but ye bargain like a Jew, Murray!”

“And like a Jew I pay well and surely, offering good security.”

“I see it not,” fended Flint, and drained the last of his rum.

“I pay seven hundred thousand pounds, to be divided share and share by the two ships’ companies, and your company will incur no risk to win it.”

Flint rose and settled his belt.

“I accept, for that I can do no better,” he said. “But I must have the hostage. He’s the weak point of it all; but I must take some chance, and curse me if seven hundred thousand pounds be not worth the gamble.”

He snapped his finger toward me.

“Come on, my lad. We’ll show you the life of real gentlemen adventurers aboard the _Walrus_.”

“I’m no negro man to be bargained over and passed from owner to owner!” I exclaimed hotly. “You can make me go, but I’ll not step willingly.”

Flint was about to answer with a spurt of oaths when Murray interrupted.

“You anticipate matters,” he rebuked his associate. “There is no occasion for a hostage yet. We shall sail at once for the Rendezvous. It will be weeks, aye, months, before I am in shape to sail west under Hispaniola. Time enough then to talk of delivering your hostage.”

For an instant Flint appeared to be about to object to this view, but he evidently decided it was not worth another dispute.

“Let it go,” he assented gruffly. “We’ll settle the details at the island. ---- me--” this with a sudden revival of friendliness--“I knew we had not picked up that red-headed lad for nothing! ’Tis a sure sign o’ luck.”

And out he swaggered from the cabin, stamping and banging the door and sprinkling curses freely as he gained the deck and shouted for his boat’s crew to row him back to the _Walrus_.