Chapter VIII: A Wicked Old Man’s Dream

My great-uncle sank into his chair with a gesture of disgust and poured three fingers of brandy into a wine-glass.

“Phaugh!” he exclaimed. “At times I am nauseated by the company perforce I keep.”

He rang the silver bell.

“Gunn,” he said as the steward sidled in, “we are awaiting the food I ordered. But stay! Open a window before you go. This place reeks with the stench of decayed honor.”

I laughed, and he put the glass from his lips, peering at me across its rim as if surprized.

“You find occasion for mirth in my remark, Robert?”

“I find myself in extraordinary agreement with you for the nonce,” I returned. “You are correct. This place doth reek of ‘decayed honor.’”

“Ah!”

He finished his drink, wiped his mouth carefully and set down the glass.

“You are, I suspect, attempting sarcasm,” he continued. “’Tis a diversion frequently favored by the young.”

“No,” I said; “I am only expressing to you my feeling that you have as little claim to possession of a sense of honor as the man who was just here.”

Gunn unbolted one of the stern windows, and a fine breath of salty air was blown in our faces. Murray inhaled it deeply, and Peter, whose face had become leaden in the cabin’s close atmosphere, regained a touch of color and edged forward in his seat. My great-uncle turned to him courteously, ignoring me for the moment.

“I fear you have been suffering from my thoughtlessness, friend Peter. Let me recommend a draft of this aqua vitae. ’Tis excellent for settling the stomach.”

“_Ja_,” nodded Peter.

“We shall presently have a chicken broiled over a slow fire,” pursued Murray. “A few slices of the breast should be easy for your digestion and assist in the filling of the void which our rough fare on the brig was unable to satisfy.

“But Robert and I were discussing a question of honor. Pardon me if I return to it.”

His large face, with its powerful, craggy features, glowed with the radiance of an intense personal conviction.

“What is honor? Or dishonor? Certes, here we have a call for close reasoning. No hasty generalities can dismiss so vexed a problem, which hath consumed the attention of gentlemen since gentility’s institution.”

“I should call it dishonorable to assure your grandnephew that you had kidnaped him for desire of his aid and to make his fortune, when actually you intended only to employ him as a hostage to further your personal schemes,” I said deliberately.

And if I spoke restrainedly ’twas by no mean effort, for inwardly I seethed with resentment.

“The situation is susceptible to the interpretation which you place upon it,” he admitted evenly. “Yet a reasonable temperament must concede ’twas necessary for me to place the consummation of my project before the claims of kinship. And though you appear not to be disposed to accept my assertions for fact, I will say once and for all that my intentions toward you are benevolent and affectionate--and this despite the contumely you have heaped upon me with no regard for the disparity of our ages.”

I was nonplussed, but dissatisfied.

“If that were my only count against your honor--if, indeed, a pirate can have honor----”

“And why not?” says he sharply. “I conceive of honor as the quality of being faithful to oneself, to the ethical standard one has established for this life we pass through so precariously.”

“So that if a man practices dishonesty toward all save himself he preserves his honor!” I protested.

“Now do you twist my thoughts,” replied my great-uncle. “And in the same breath you raise a complementary question: What is dishonesty--or honesty? As I have told you before, I take from those who have much, those who prey upon others. I am no more dishonest than that William of Normandy, who seized upon England and farmed it out to his barons in payment for their assistance.”

“You are clever with words,” I sneered; “but I’ll not be fooled. What have you to say of your craft in deluding O’Donnell into risking his daughter aboard this treasure-ship? Do you call it honorable to persuade a foolish unbalanced fellow to take an innocent young girl out of a convent, carry her half across the world, and then, to cloak a miserable conspiracy, plunge her into the society of such scoundrels as Flint and yourself?”

Instead of losing his temper, as I had expected, my great-uncle stared at me very earnestly throughout this tongue-lashing. A speculative look came into his eyes.

“You have seen this maid, I believe,” he said.

“I met her by accident. ’Twas I saved her from walking into the Whale’s Head after her father.”

“You did well,” he approved warmly. “And you spoke to her? Prithee, Robert, what manner of maid is she?”

“Oh, fair enough,” I answered, wondering what he was driving at.

“And well-spoken?” he pressed. “I have never encountered her.”

“She has the Irish way of speech.”

“But is she nice in her ways? A lady?”

“Yes.”

Ben Gunn fetched in the chicken upon a salver, and my great-uncle busied himself in carving. ’Twas comical to see how Peter’s stolid face lighted up. As he carved Murray talked.

“She should be an exquisite chit, Robert. She has good blood in her. Her mother was a younger sister of the Duke of Leitrim, and her father’s father was a younger son of Lord Donegal. She will be much to the fore when King James returns to Whitehall.”

“If he does!” I jeered. “I marvel that you should use so hardly a maid of such birth.”

“Hardly?” He looked up from his carving. “Why do you say that?”

“Oh, an end to your shabby deceits and subterfuge!” I shouted. “I ha’ told you already I know she is to be dragged aboard your ship when you take the _Santissima Trinidad_. What good will the Duke of Leitrim and Lord Donegal and Jamey Stuart and all their string of Popish knaves be to her then? Bah! I could stomach your treatment of me, Murray. But to expose a slip of a girl, scarce more than a child, to life on this floating hell and the attentions of Flint and his lambs!”

My great-uncle pursed his lips.

“What a vehement youth! Friend Peter, I trust that chicken is done to your taste?”

“_Ja_,” grunted Peter, plying a ready knife and fork.

“Will a thigh be satisfactory, Robert? This dish contains potatoes which were fresh when we started our voyage and should be so still. Serve Master Ormerod, Gunn. So! We will resume our debate.

“As to the maid’s inclusion in our scheme, ’twas manifestly of the chiefest importance that Colonel O’Donnell’s connection with me be not suspected. And the best way to cloak that was to have his daughter accompany him. Not even a Spanish official--than which there is no more suspicious breed--can carp at O’Donnell’s movements whilst she is with him.”

“But why?” I persisted. “Why all this devious deceit? Why mix a young maid in an unsavory intrigue? Why make her father disloyal to his master?”

Murray flushed crimson.

“He is not disloyal to his master,” he replied with his first show of anger. “Colonel O’Donnell’s master, my master--aye, your master--is King James! What doth O’Donnell care for the paltry Spaniard who sits in the palace at Madrid? What do any of us care for the Spaniards, who have not been men enough to live up to their declarations of support of the Stuarts? Why, this girl you mouth about would cheerfully suffer death, dishonor, any torment, to win for her king the means of power we shall afford him. And this treasure, which the Spaniards have wrung from the lands they stole from the poor Indians, we wring from them as remorselessly that we may apply it to a purpose infinitely higher than the placating of royal favorites and mistresses, which is the way ’twould go in Madrid. An unsavory business, forsooth! Boy, are you a fool?”

There was that about his rage which benumbed my own and awakened again the reluctant admiration which puzzled and embarrassed me. What was it my father had said of him?

“He is sincere in a queer, twisted way.”

Past doubt, he was. I sensed a warped nobility of mind which stirred me to sympathy and pity. I felt of a sudden as if our places had been reversed, as if his white hairs were mine, and his my unlined face.

“Perhaps I am a fool,” I said. “Yet if I know nothing of your plan and so am inclined to misconstrue it, whose fault is that?”

He dropped knife and fork and fixed me with his eyes, so marvelously alive and bright in their setting of crow’s feet and wrinkles, so luminous with youth.

“Those are the first words you have spoken which have had any tinge of kindness to them,” he answered.

“I am not kind,” I denied; “but curious. You have torn me out of my natural course and thrown me into a network of intrigue of which I know nothing. You would have me think well of you and work with you, but you have not taken the ordinary pains to acquaint me with your purposes and the part you have designed for me.”

Peter sat back with a sigh of content, his plate empty.

“_Ja_, Murray, you don’t say much,” he said in his squeaky voice. “You don’t tell dot feller Flint so much as wouldt gife him der trail.”

I had not observed this, and I felt secretly ashamed. My great-uncle smiled.

“Stap me, but I might ha’ known you would see it, Peter!” he exclaimed. “Now, tell me: Why did not Flint ask me the treasure-ship’s course and port o’ sailing? Did he not think to in his fuddlement with the rum? Or did he know I would not tell him and reckon to save his tongue?”

“He knows you, _ja_,” answered Peter.

Murray nodded.

“Yes, that would be it, and it took you to see it. You have not lived with the red Indians for naught, Peter. But this doth not answer Nephew Robert’s question. ’Tis my fault you are so far ignorant, Robert, and I will endeavor to repair the error. I did not seek to delude you when I told you I carried you from New York because I needed your assistance, and that is so far true that I admit without hesitation I must have your help before I can achieve aught of my future plans for bettering your station in life. In fine, Robert, I need you at this time being more than you can need me; and your hostageship with Flint is but the least of the services I hope from you.”

“That is frank,” I replied. “And I will match it. I have told you I’ll not help in piracy; nor will I. The taking of this treasure-ship is----”

“Bide, bide,” he interrupted. “Before you commit yourself further let me tell my story. I ask only your promise to hold it secret from all men on these two ships.”

“I’ll promise that,” I said.

“_Ja_,” assented Peter.

“So be it.”

He left the table and took from a cupboard in the wall a rolled map which he spread upon the table between us, shoving aside the plates and glasses to make room for it. I saw at a glance ’twas a chart of the Caribbean Sea and the Spanish Main and the islands which stretched from the tip of the Floridas to the Brazils.

“This is for reference,” he remarked. “My story begins in Europe, and we require no map for that. Your father, Robert, was a stout Jacobite at your age. He has since changed his convictions; but we’ll say nothing on that score. I, on the contrary, was born a Jacobite and am one still, heart and soul. I shall never rest until the Hanoverian usurper has been displaced.

“I was on the other side of Africa when I first had word Prince Charles had raised the White Cockade in Scotland in the ’45. I sailed for home, as you have heard, and was many months too late to be of service. But I established touch with friends in France who work for the cause, and so learned that the good work was going merrily on. We all know now that Prince Charles might have remedied his plight after Culloden had he been more fortunate in his advisers. I will tell you beyond that that the disarming measures in the Highlands have been a failure and the clans have only turned sullen from the oppression they have received. All that is wanted for another rising is money--gold!”

His luminous, dark eyes looked from one to the other of us, and I thought the tawny flecks in the pupils increased in brilliancy as he cried out that last word on a rising note that thrilled and disturbed me.

“Gold!” he said over again. “Why, there is one little hoard of treasure Prince Charles had to leave behind him--the Loch Arkaig treasure they call it. Cluny MacPherson and Locheil’s brother have had the keeping of it, and you’d scarce believe the source of trouble it has been to the English! And it not more than forty thousand louis at the beginning, and dribbling fast before it was turned to account. It has set all the Highlands by the ears--forty thousand louis, spent by fives and tens, a good bit of it going to feed gillies in the heather or gambled away in some clachan of the Cameron country, if what I hear be right.

“Think what a real treasure would accomplish! Think what-- But I am going too fast.”

He paused, and a slow, strange smile shadowed his face as he drew a finger across the map upon the table.

“I said I would tell you a story,” he went on. “But after all ’tis only a dream--a wicked old man’s dream, Robert. ’Tis so you think of me, I know--and your father--and Peter there--and--I wonder what the little maid you spoke with would think! Or the poor, throneless old king who huddles over his brazier for warmth in the dreary palace in Rome that is all he has left of his majesty! Or Prince Charlie, who flits back and forth from France to the Low Countries, scheming and plotting and always curbed for lack of--gold!

“Gold! We stumble for lack of it in every enterprise. With sufficient of it you may upset kingdoms, buy pardons, obtain patents and honors and place. ’Tis a definite substance, mark you, hard and shining and heavy in the hand--not such thistle-down as dreams are made o’.

“But the virtue of dreams, Robert--” he addressed himself direct to me, seeming to forget that Peter was present--“is that they can be transmuted into that which is palpable and finite, aye, even into gold. And the dreams of a wicked old man may become as efficacious to right wrong or to throw down the mighty or to redeem the weak and the persecuted as the gold which Indian slaves mine under the whip of Spanish masters. For the dream may lead to the gold. What is the ancient saw? ‘First the thought, then the deed.’

“When was the thought born? I can not say. Flint and I had often sought the yearly treasure-ship, but never had sight of her. Then one day the idea came to me to utilize my Jacobite friends in France and Spain. They leaped at the suggestion, for to say truth, Robert, both Spaniards and Frenchmen have treated our party shabbily. An intrigue was set afoot through the medium of a cardinal who is partial to King James, and so we gained access to the Council of the Indies. A bribe, which I supplied, procured for O’Donnell, already an officer on the regular establishment of the Spanish forces, appointment as an Inspector of Fortifications of the ports on the Main. And with the prestige of this post and the assistance of our friend the cardinal ’twas easy for O’Donnell to secure complete information as to the Council’s plans for the dispatch of this year’s treasure-ship.”

His forefinger explored the chart before us and came to rest upon a dot on the flank of the narrow neck of land which joins the two Americas.

“There is Porto Bello, which was the port of the old treasure galleons and discarded as such by the Spaniards after Morgan sacked it. But later they restored and strengthened the fortifications, although in the late war our Admiral Vernon carried it by surprize. At that time Cartagena was the treasure center, and when Vernon attempted it he was repulsed with loss. Two years since the Council of the Indies decided to resume sailings from Porto Bello, which is the most advantageously situated of all ports on the Main for the collection of the treasure.

“See! ’Tis about midway betwixt Mexico and Peru, and the mines of Veragua are at its back door. The treasures of the South Sea islands can be fetched by sea to Panama and thence carried overland by the _recoes_, the royal mule-trains which are the link betwixt Panama and the West Coast and the cities of the Main. The Peruvian treasures come by the same route. Those from Mexico are fetched south from La Vera Cruz by a ship under escort of the Garda Costas and transferred at Porto Bello to the ship for Spain, which puts forth about the beginning or middle of September.

“This is a strong ship and well manned, but the Spaniards have been taught by centuries of experience to accept no risk for her. Her identity is never known in advance, even to her captain. He sails from Cadiz for the Main under sealed orders which he doth not open until mid-Atlantic is passed, and these orders do but carry him to Porto Bello. There a strict embargo is laid upon him and his crew, and the port is rigidly closed the while the assembling of the treasure is under way. So soon as that is accomplished ’tis laded aboard him, and he sails in the night, the hour known to no more than the Governor and higher officers; and to make assurance surer the port is kept closed for two weeks additional.”

“Then how shall you have word of her sailing?” I broke in, swept off my feet by the rush of this amazing narrative.

“That is O’Donnell’s task. He will reach Porto Bello during the Summer and be so concerned for the state of the fortifications that he’ll refuse to leave until he has put them in defensible condition.”

My great-uncle gave me a chiding smile.

“You ha’ been vastly concerned for the well-being of the maid his daughter, Robert--and I am bound to say your feeling is highly becoming--but you might better fret for her health in that ---- hole at the most pestilent time o’ year. I hope, for her sake, she will be sent away with the officers’ ladies into one of the mountain retreats the Spaniards have erected for their refreshment.”

“Better Porto Bello and pestilence than a pirate ship,” I muttered angrily.

“You will harp upon that word,” he answered sorrowfully. “I am yet far from converting you, I perceive. Well, well! To my story again.

“Whilst he is there he will receive dispatches from Spain summoning him home on urgent affairs. He will elect to embark upon the treasure-ship because she is large and commodious and likewise safe. And thanks to his position, he will have accurate knowledge some days in advance of her sailing-date. When he has obtained this fact he will convey it secretly to one Diego Salvez, an agent I maintain in that port, as I maintain others in almost every place of importance along the coast of the Main and in the islands. Diego, by O’Donnell’s help, will get out of the town and put to sea in a fast sloop he hath in a little river near where was the ancient town of Nombre de Dios, so that we shall have sure tidings of the _Santissima Trinidad’s_ coming and be prepared for her.”

“But what of her course?” I scrutinized the map. “There are three several exits from the Caribbean into the Atlantic.”

And I pointed them out in order: The Straits of Florida to the north of Cuba; the Windward Passage between Cuba and Hispaniola, with the great island of Jamaica lying to the westward of it; and last, the Mona Passage between Hispaniola and Porto Rico.

“She would never point up for the gaps between the lesser islands in the south,” I added.

My great-uncle chuckled with a keenness of relish that was new to him.

“You read the chart well for a landsman, boy,” he said. “What say you, Peter? Here is a stout sailor in the making.”

“_Neen_,” answered Peter earnestly. “You stick to der landt, Bob.”

And for the first time my great-uncle and I laughed together, so comical was the Dutchman’s repudiation of the sea and its folk.

“You have clapped on to the nub of our problem,” said Murray. “’Twas the piece of information I was at most pains to obtain. The _Santissima Trinidad_ will head for the Mona Passage. I will show you why. The first aim of the Spaniards is to conceal her voyage; she sails a course which keeps her as much as possible in open seas. And the best exit for that purpose is the opening between Hispaniola and Porto Rico. There are no islands in the Caribbean on that course, and once through the passage she fetches south and east of the Bahamas and so beats up for the Cape Verdes.

“My intent is that the _Royal James_ shall ply off the westerly mouth of the passage from about the end of August, avoiding all intercourse with shipping and keeping as far out to sea as is practicable. When Diego appears we will restrict the space of our beat, and ’twill be impossible for the treasure-ship to escape us. If she runs we can catch her, and at fighting I can take any don under a ship-o’-the-line.”

“So much I heard you declare to Colonel O’Donnell aboard the brig,” I said. “But what comes next? You take the _Santissima Trinidad_--and then?”

He moved his forefinger over the surface of the map and brought it to rest in front of a tiny outline sketched in ink on the expanse of sea east of Cuba and somewhat to the north of Hispaniola. Northward of this spot stretched the far-flung myriads of the Bahamas.

“That is what you have heard Flint and me refer to as the Rendezvous and Spygass Island,” he answered. “It has other names, I believe. Some have called it Treasure Island, although I know of no treasure upon it. In truth, its one value is that it doth not appear upon any map, and its comfortable isolation and sheltered havens supply an excellent resort for such outlaws as ourselves. ’Tis said that Kidd discovered it, and certes, others of the old-time buccaneers were wont to maintain themselves there. Flint had the secret of it from a tarry-breeks who claimed to have sailed on the _Adventure_ galley. We are bound thither now to refit and careen, and when we have the treasure safe under hatches we will return to the island to divide it and concert arrangements for delivering their share to Colonel O’Donnell’s friends.”

“What will Flint say to your fetching in strangers to your hiding-place?” I asked.

A furrow deepened betwixt my great-uncle’s lambent eyes.

“He’ll not like it, Robert,” he admitted. “I have O’Donnell’s word to betray none of our secrets, and indeed ’tis to his own interest to keep hidden his part in this affair; but Flint may well make trouble. ’Tis a determined dog, and a greedy. Look you, boy, will you stand by me in the affair? For the girl’s sake, if for no other reason?”

“Why not leave her aboard the treasure-ship?”

He regarded me askance.

“It may be we must sink----”

I started up.

“Now, that I’ll ha’ naught to do with! I ha’ told you I’d fight if you butchered the defenseless.”

He waved me back.

“Peace, peace! We can not carry off all the Spaniards in any case, and----”

He hesitated.

“--O’Donnell must be protected,” he concluded.

“Against what?”

“Wagging tongues. I tell you his part must never be known. The _Santissima Trinidad_ disappears, and with her the treasure and all her company. There’s no other way.”

“But if O’Donnell and his daughter survive to reach Europe there must be talk,” I pointed out.

“True,” he agreed; “but they will have their story ready. A shipwreck, perhaps, and they alone contriving to reach shore.”

“Who beliefes dot?” Peter interjected contemptuously.

“What else can we do?” countered Murray.

“Take the treasure, if you must,” I retorted; “but do not stain your hands with the blood of men who have not harmed you.”

“I must slay some of them in all probability,” returned my great-uncle. “What difference between that and slaying all?”

I remembered the thrill of reprobation with which even the most devoted adherents of King George had heard of the butchery of the Scots wounded after Culloden.

“’Tis not yourself alone must bear the disgrace of such a deed,” I tried again. “’Twill attach an irremovable stigma to your cause. No honest Jacobite can ever afterward call Cumberland butcher. Aye, and if I know aught of Mistress O’Donnell she will refuse to have anything to do with so horrible a crime. Be sure ’twill bring a trail of ill-luck will swamp the Pretender and all his train.”

He took snuff with his accustomed fastidiousness.

“Your arguments carry weight, I am bound to admit,” he said, returning the box to his pocket. “What alternative have you to suggest?”

“Cripple the ship to give you time to escape.”

“That’s well enough,” he argued; “but you take no thought to Colonel O’Donnell’s plight. What will be said of him after he is brought aboard the _James_?”

The idea which came to me then I put away as distasteful, but rack my brain as I would I could produce no substitute for it.

“There’s but one thing to do,” I said. “You must make pretense of bearing off the daughter, and you can imprison the father, too, in order to silence his objections.”

“A fit rôle for a pirate captain,” mused my great-uncle. “_El capitán_ Rrrip-Rrrap and how he devoured the virgin! I can hear the stories that will be told in the Havana wine-shops. But I must have my price, Robert. If I spare such Spaniards as escape our great guns and the boarding-cutlasses, will you agree to stand back of me in the division of the spoils with Flint?”

“I’ll not become lieutenant in your piracies, if that be your meaning,” I returned.

“No; my meaning is plain, boy. I wish you and Peter to help me to get clear of Flint with the O’Donnells and their portion of the treasure.”

“But why return to the Rendezvous at all? Bear off with the O’Donnells, and land them and their treasure before you deliver Flint his share.”

My great-uncle shook his head.

“’Tis not so simple as all that. The action with the _Santissima Trinidad_ will require cannonading, and that will be heard. Probably we shall be seen sailing away. We may be pursued. The surviving Spaniards, whom you will have me spare, will speedily have out their frigates after us. We must remain under cover for a period. And finally, for various reasons too complex for discussion, I can not make delivery of the treasure to my friends in France before the Spring. Seven hundred thousand pounds in gold and silver bullion is no easy mass to handle. Preparations must be made for its landing and transportation.

“No, Robert, the Rendezvous is necessary to my plans. Furthermore, I am surprized that you, who prate so much of honor, should seek to encourage me to act dishonorably toward my associates by withholding from them, for however short a time, their just share of our spoils. You will grant me, I hope, the credit of being at least an honorable pirate.”

He spoke at the last with a kind of mincing solemnity which was vastly funny, and both Peter and I fell a-laughing for it. Read me for a fool or a knave if you will, but I protest I was conscious of a growing inclination for my relative. So whimsical a scoundrel could not be altogether without redeeming qualities; and sure, his courage and resource by themselves were sufficient to set him apart from ordinary men.

“Very well,” I said. “I will do what you ask for the maid’s sake--if Peter is willing.”

“_Ja_,” assented Peter.

Murray caught my hand in a quick, firm clasp.

“Good!” he cried. “’Twill be the first o’ many times we stand shoulder to shoulder. Ah, Robert, I ha’ dreamed a splendid dream, and any man who helps in its achievement will not have lived in vain. We’ll take this gold and build an avenue of victories for the king’s ride to Whitehall. What will we not do? We’ll rouse the claymores from the hills! We’ll carry the Irish Brigade to London town! We’ll fetch home the Wild Geese from their haunts of exile! We’ll ha’ the beacon fires ablaze from end to end of the Three Kingdoms! And the White Cockade over all!

“There’ll be no talk of pirates then! ’Twill be my Lord Duke of Jedburgh, Marquis of Cobbielaw and Earl and Baron Broomfield; aye, and an English peerage to boot. We’ll ride high, Robert--aye, with the highest!”

He broke off short, and the glow in his eyes charred out.

“’Tis not a bad vision for a wicked old man to dream; eh, boy? Remember it when you hear the crowds a-cheering us in the Strand.”

Almost he made me believe him, this outlaw of the sea. But Peter broke the spell.

“Me, I don’t beliefe in dreams,” yawned the Dutchman. “_Neen_.”

Murray glared at him.

“What you believe is of little account, Corlaer,” he said curtly, and strode from the cabin.

Peter took a sip of aqua vitae.

“He is a great dreamer, Murray,” he squeaked. “_Ja_, all der time he dreams. He dreamed when we fight wit’ him before, me andt your father, Bob. It is not goodt to dream too much, _neen_.”

He sighed.

“My stomach is better. We finish der chicken, _ja_?”