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CHAPTER XXIX.
DRAWING NEAR

"The Virgin Isles," exclaimed one of these acquaintances as he spat on the ground after swallowing his cocktail at a gulp, "the Virgin Isles! Why, darn the Virgin Isles! What can you do there, young fellow, 'cept go fishing? That is, unless you are a Dane or else a Dutchman " – by which he meant a German-"then you might trade a bit."

But here Mr. Juby, who didn't quite approve of his new client being called "young fellow," explained that he was a gentleman who had neither come to settle nor travel, but only to see the place generally. Also, he informed him, as if the whole thing was settled-which it wasn't-that Mr. Crafer had hired the late Sir Barnaby Briggs's yacht from him and was going to make some tours in it.

"Oh!" said the other, scraping the frozen sugar off the rim of his empty glass as he spoke, and sucking it off his finger-"Oh! if that's all, he's welcome enough to go to the Virgin Isles if he wants to. I thought he wanted to shove some dollars into coco-growing or Liberian coffee. A tourist, eh?"

"That's all," said Reginald, "only a tourist."

"Well! there's good enough sailing round the Virgin Isles or any others in these parts, if you want to sail; but I thought Mr. Juby said you were a sailor. Now, if you are, what do you want to go sailin' about for? Isn't dry land good enough for a sailor off duty?"

"Do you know the Virgin Islands?" asked Reginald, not caring to notice the man's cantankerous disposition.

"Know 'em! I guess I do know 'em! all the lot. And not one worth a red. Which do you particular want to see?"

"All of them," replied Reginald. "Perhaps Tortola in particular."

"Tortola! the rottenest of the lot, except, perhaps, Anegada. Or, p'raps I'd best say Coffin Island. That is about the-there! well! – I'll be-"

"Coffin Island!" exclaimed Reginald, now very wary. "That's a sweet name! What sort of a place is that?"

"Kinder place fit to go and die in, to just roll yourself up in and kick. Kind of a dog's hole, covered with palm trees, gros-gros, moriches and all, Spanish baggonets and sich like. A place as is all yellow and voylet and pink and crimson with flowers, and smells like a gal's boodwar," (this was an awful mouthful for him, but he got it out safely), "though I don't know much about gals' boodwars neither. My daughters ain't got none."

"It must be lovely," Reginald said quietly.

"Love-ly!" the man echoed. "Love-ly! Bah! there ain't five pounds' trade in it a year. The oranges and guavas ain't worth fetching when you can get 'em in the other places without half the trouble, nor more ain't the nutmegs. Likewise, it's chock-a-block full of tarantula spiders and centipides."

"In such a case I suppose it is uninhabited," Reginald hazarded.

"Well, no it ain't, not altogether," the other replied. "Leastways, that's to say partly. There's a fisher fellow lives there when he ain't nowheres else, and he's got a son and a darter. They've been a living there for over a cent'ry, I've heard tell."

"What!" exclaimed Reginald and Juby together while others round who had been listening to the discourse burst out laughing.

"For over a cent'ry and more," the man went on, "this fellow Bridges' family have been living there-"

"Only," chimed in another man, "that ain't the name. It ain't Bridges at all. It's Aldridge."

"No," said still a third, "it isn't Aldridge neither, though something like it."

"Are you telling the story or am I?" exclaimed the first. "And darn the name! What do names matter?" Here he was appeased by the thoughtfulness of Reginald, who suggested some more cocktails round, after which he went on-

"More than a cent'ry, I've heard they've been there. You see, this family is a bit wrong in their heads, and they've got into those heads the idea that somewhere in that darned Coffin Island there's a mort of treasure buried-"

Reginald was sipping his cocktail as the man arrived at this point, and his teeth clicked involuntarily against the glass as the latter uttered the last words; but, beyond this, he did not betray himself Yet it seemed to him that his heart beat quicker than before. "And, therefore, if it's to be found," the man continued, "they mean to find it. Yet no one as I ever heard of, or knew, believes it's there. If it was to be got, they'd have got it before. They do say they've dug up half the island looking for it. But there, I don't know, I've never been ashore in Coffin Island myself."

"But," said Reginald, "you said just now that the man only lived there when he did not live somewhere else. Does he leave his island sometimes, then?"

"He does and so does the son. You see, mister, up that way the people are sailors-like yourself! – just because they can't be much else. And good sailors they are, too, as well as fishermen, so when they've got no turtle nor fish to take, as happens in some times of the year, they go off as sailors in any ship in these parts as wants hands. Now, some of 'em goes down Aspinwall and Colon way-that there once-supposed-to-be-going-to-be-made Panama Canal took a lot of men down there-and some goes to the other Islands, even up to Jamaiky and so on. Well, the old man and his son can't always just live on their stock-rearing and fishing and turtle-catching, and so off they goes too, to get a few more dollars to buy a cask of rum or something they want."

"But the daughter; she cannot go as a sailor too!"

"Oh, no! But she can stop at home and look after the shop. And they do say that she's quite able to do it. She's a caution, I've heard."

This was all the man knew, and, under the influence of the cocktails, he would have been very willing to go on telling more, had he had any further information. And, indeed, considering the distance of Antigua from Coffin Island, it was extraordinary that he should have been able to tell so much. Or, rather, it would have been extraordinary, were it not for the amount of intercourse and communication that takes place between all the numerous islands in the Antilles, and the gossip that is carried backwards and forwards, and is for ever floating about among the sparse population of these, now, much-neglected places.

By night Reginald had changed his plans; instead of going on to Tortola in the Tyne, he had decided to hire Sir Barnaby Briggs's yacht, the Pompeia, from Mr. Juby, and to finish his journey in her. To him it seemed the wisest thing he could do. He would attract less attention at Tortola as a man cruising about for a holiday in the region; and, by living on board, he would be exposed to little questioning. Moreover, so good a sailor as he wanted no assistance in managing such a craft as this; in calm weather he could go about where he liked, and in bad weather shelter could be run for and reached in almost half an hour among the continuous chain of islands hereabouts. And, finally, he could work his way up to Coffin Island, take some observations of the strange family dwelling thereon, and see if the Keys looked as if they too had been submitted to the searching process.

It was a tough job, however, to bring the astute Juby to terms, even over so trifling a thing as hiring the Pompeia. At first he would hardly name the sum he wanted, and then, when that was arranged at £20 a month-which, after all, was not out of the way-he made various other stipulations, more, as it seemed to Reginald, for the pleasure of so making them and fussing about, than for any wonderful advantage to himself.

"I must have a deposit," he said, adding cheerfully, "yachts do get sunk even here, and there's no telling what might happen, though I'm sure of one thing, sir, you wouldn't run away with her. Then she must be insured in the United States Governmental Insurance Company for the other half, and-"

But, to cut Mr. Juby short, Reginald, who had brought a very comfortable little sheaf of Bank of England notes wherewith to prosecute his search, consented to his terms, and became the tenant of the lamented Sir Barnaby's yacht. She proved, when he went down to see her before finally concluding negotiations, a very serviceable-looking little cutter, strongly built, having a good inventory, her ballast all lead, copper all new, a full outfit, and a double-purchase capstan. And she bore on her the name of a well-known Barbadoes builder, of whom, probably, the late baronet had purchased her new.

"I don't mind taking that nigger as far as Tortola," said Reginald, pointing out a man loafing about St. John's harbour, "if he wants a job as he says he does, but he'll have to go ashore there. I'm fond of sailing by myself and shan't employ him regularly, at any rate."

And in this way he set off upon his journey once more, sailing the Pompeia himself, and letting the negro potter about, cook a meal or two, and gossip a little on subjects of interest in the islands, but of none at all to him. And at Tortola-to which the man belonged-he sent him ashore, telling him that whenever the cutter came in and out he could come and see if he was wanted, and perhaps earn a shilling or two. The weather was everything that could be desired, and, had Reginald been the most Cockney yachtsman that ever kept a yacht in the Thames, instead of a skilful sailor, he would have found it all he wished, while the cruise past the intermediate islands was charming even to him, who had seen so much of the world.

The great peak of Nevis interested him by recalling the fact that it was in this island that Nelson found his wife, when, as captain of the Boreas, he brought his ship here after chasing the French fleet; while St. Kitt's, with its "Mount Misery," and its claims to be the Gibraltar of the West Indies, appealed also to his naval mind. And, when the scarlet-roofed houses of St. Thomas, surrounded by the glorious foliage of that fair island, hove into sight as the Pompeia left Santa Cruz on her port beam, he felt a thrill of satisfaction, mixed, perhaps, with excitement at the knowledge that Coffin Island was at hand. Another day or so would bring him to the place of which his relative had, in his quaint style, left so graphic a description; he would probably come into contact with the strange family that dwelt in Coffin Island; he would be near his inheritance.

"Yet," he said to himself, as he set the yacht's head a point further north, to run up what still retains its old name of "Sir Francis Drake's Passage" – "yet is it my inheritance? Or does it not by right belong to this poor family, who, it seems, have for over a hundred years been searching hopelessly for it? Is it theirs or mine? Theirs-who, by some strange fate, have come to the knowledge that treasure is buried here, perhaps was buried by their own ancestors, who left the story of it-or mine, who am only the kinsman of the man who lighted on that treasure, but could not take it away with him? Well! I shall see. Perhaps, when I have met these people who live in so primitive a state, I shall know better what to do-know whether it is best to get the treasure and go off with it, or do my duty, and, if it is rightly theirs, restore it to them."

So, you will perceive, not only was Reginald a romantic and adventurous young man, but also a very straightforward one!

CHAPTER XXX.
OUT OF THE DEPTHS OF A FAR DISTANT PAST

Two days after these reflections the Pompeia was making her entrance under very light sail into that river-spoken of variously by Nicholas as a canal, an inlet, and an outlet-in which the fight with the Etoyle had taken place. And it almost seemed to Reginald as if he must himself have been a partaker of that fight, so visibly did his predecessor's story rise before his mind now that he was in the very spot.

"It was here," he thought, as he lowered the last remaining yard of sail, "that the Etoyle was across the stream, there that the galliot lay before they went at them. Heavens and earth! why does not Nicholas rise up before my sight with his round face and light bob wig, as he appears in the little picture at home, and in his scarlet coat? – but-no, he would not have them on here. Those braveries were not for cruises such as he was upon."

Then he looked around again.

"Which, I wonder, was the spot where Alderly drew up the box from under the water, and where he murdered the diver? Which the spot where the path led up to the hut? Why does not some spirit rise to point these things out to me?"

All was very calm here now as the romantic young man indulged in these meditations. There was no sign of life about the island-of human life; it was as still as though it were uninhabited. Yet all the tropic life was there, all the gorgeous colouring of which the Yankee settler-if he were a Yankee-who told him the story of the place had spoken. The fan-palms, the moriches, and the gros-gros grew side by side; red poinsettias mingled with wild begonias, purple dracæna and yellow crotons; the rattans and orchids were tangled together in an indescribable confusion of beauty.

"It is the isle of Nicholas's description. No doubt about that!" said Reginald. "And," he continued, drawing his pipe from his pocket and lighting it, "I am here as once Nick was here. What a pity there is no one to represent the murdered diver and his assassin, the drunken, maddened pirate."

As he reflected thus he heard the bark of a dog a little distance off; a few moments later he heard another sound as though branches were being parted; presently a voice spoke to the dog, and then the foliage growing down to the river's bank was pushed aside, and a woman came out from that foliage and stood gazing at him.

"Who are you?" she asked. "And what do you want?"

From his cutter to the shore, thirty to forty feet off, he in return gazed upon her, though his surprise did not prevent his remembering he was a gentleman, and, from the distance, taking off his hat to her while he put away his pipe. She stood before him, surrounded by all that luxuriance of colour and tropical vegetation, a girl "something more than common tall," and of, perhaps, nearly twenty years of age. A girl dressed in a light cotton gown-a very West Indian robe, both in its plain quality and pattern-that hung loosely upon her, yet did not conceal the shapely form beneath. On her head she wore a large napping straw hat, but it was not at her hat, but at what was beneath it, that Reginald looked. Her features were beautiful-there is no other word but this simple one to describe them-her colouring that which is often found in these regions, but scarcely anywhere else; the eyes a dark, lustrous hazel, the eyebrows black, the hair, which hung down like a mane upon her back, golden, with a tinge of copper red in it.

"Who are you?" she asked again, though he noticed that her voice was not a harsh one, nor, in spite of the question, an angry one. "What do you require?"

"Pardon me," replied Reginald, still spellbound at her appearance. "Pardon me. I hope this is no intrusion. I am yachting in a small way about the islands here. And among other places that attracted my attention was this river. I trust my presence is not objectionable."

"No," the girl replied quietly. Then she said, "Do you belong to the islands, or are you English or American?"

"I am English," he answered. "A sailor in Her Majesty's service."

She paused a moment, as though, it seemed to him, scarce knowing what to say, then she spoke again.

"Are you going to land?"

"If I may do so. If it is permissible."

"Oh, yes," she said. "You may do so. Sometimes people land here."

He took her permission at once, and, dropping the cutter's anchor, drew up the dinghy that was aft of her, and, getting into it, stepped on shore close by her side. And, as he did so, he wondered, "Was it here that Nicholas landed?"

Then once more taking off his hat as he came near to her, he said:

"Why do people sometimes land here? Have you any particular object of interest in your island?" He would like to have added in a gallant fashion, and sailor-like, "besides yourself," but, on consideration, refrained from doing so.

The girl smiled, as he could see, while she bent down to quiet the dog that was jumping about Reginald as though welcoming a new acquaintance. Then she replied-

"No, not any particular object. Yet people come here because there is a history attached to my family, or, perhaps I should say, my family really has a history connected with this island-though I for one do not believe it."

"And that history is?" Reginald asked eagerly.

"An ancestor of mine was supposed to have buried a treasure, or to have found one, and never been able to remove it. Yet, since he lived a wild life-for I fear he was a pirate-he left with his wife, a mere girl, a full description of where it could be found should he at any time fail to return to her. He did fail at last to return, and the place which he had named was this island, the exact spot being a cellar under a hut." She paused a moment, then she added, "The hut was found and the cellar, but-the treasure was gone."

Whether the faintness which came over Reginald at this moment-a thing he had never experienced before-was caused by the change from the cool sea breezes to the warmth exhaled by the thick vegetation of the island and the rich odour sent forth by the flowers, he has never yet been able to tell. All he knows is that, at her words, the place where they were standing swam round him, the palms seemed to be dancing a stately measure with each other and the island spinning, too, while he heard the girl's voice exclaiming:

"You are not well. What has overcome you?"

"I do not know," he replied. "It must be the heat ashore; yet I am used to all kinds of heat. A little water would revive me. I will go back to the cutter."

"There is a rill close by," she said; "come and drink from that."

He went towards it, following the direction she indicated, his mind still confused, his brain whirling. "Where had he heard of a rill before in connection with the island?" he asked himself; yet as he did so he knew very well it was somewhere in Nicholas's narrative. And the hut and the cellar beneath! Above all, a girl whose red mane was thrown behind her! Where had he heard of one such as that?

He drank from the well and cooled his hands and face-still remembering that Nicholas had in some portion of his story described how he had done this same thing-and all the time the girl stood watching him.

"You will pardon me this exhibition of weakness, I hope," he said. "But I am all right now. And your story is so interesting, so much like a romance, that-if I may stay a little longer-I should like to hear some more of it. That is, if my curiosity is not offensive."

"No," the girl said simply, and her very ease before him and her lack of ceremony showed how much a stranger she was to any worldly conventionality. "I am very glad to have anyone to talk to. One gets tired of living always, or nearly always, alone."

"Alone! But surely you don't live alone in Coffin Island? I had heard there were at least two-two men here."

"There are sometimes-my father and brother; but they go away to sea for weeks together, especially since they have almost abandoned the thought of our finding the fabulous treasure. They are away now, though I expect them back soon."

"And you are not afraid to live here all by yourself?"

"Afraid! Why should I be? We cannot find the buried treasure, therefore it is not likely anyone else could do so. And there is nothing else here to tempt anyone."

"Was there not?" Reginald reflected. "Was there not?" Yet she seemed so innocent and simple that he could not tell her his thoughts. He could not tell her, as he might have told a more worldly girl, that to many men there was a greater temptation in that graceful form and those hazel eyes and tawny golden hair than in all the dross beneath the surface of the earth. So he only said-

"But if you found the treasure? What would you do then?"

"We should go away, I suppose-though I should be sorry to leave this island. We should go into the world then-perhaps to Antigua or Trinidad." Reginald here politely concealed a smile, and she went on, "But I hope we shall never find it. My father and brother are used to the life they lead here; I do not think the outer world would suit them."

"But they are sailors and have seen it, you say?"

"They are sailors, but not such as you. They are simple, rough men, scarcely able to read or to write. That was, I think, why they-why my father-sent me to school at Antigua."

"But how do you live while they are away?" he asked her now.

"Very well. I have the hut, and there is always plenty of dried meat and fresh fruit. And sometimes I fish, or shoot a bird. There are plenty here of both kinds." Then she stopped and, looking at him, said, "Would you like to see our home? It is not far."

The girl's naïveté won on him so that there was but one reply possible-an immediate and fervent assent to this invitation; and a few moments later they were treading a path through the wood.

"The path," Reginald said to himself, "that doubtless he walked, leading to the hut where he saw Alderly die. The same, yet all so different!"

"A little glade on which the moon did shine as though on a sweet English field at home," he remembered Nicholas had written-and, lo! they were in it now. "A little glade bordered on all sides by golden shaddocks, grapefruits, citrons and lime-trees, with, at their feet and trailing round them, the many-hued convolvuli of the tropics, passion-flowers and grandillos." Only, instead of seeking for a bloodstained sea-robber, Reginald was following in the footsteps of this woodland nymph-this girl whose beauty and innocence acted like a charm upon him.

Then, next, they entered the tangled forest that Nicholas had passed through, and here again all was as he had described it. The gleaming leaves of the star-apple shone side by side with the palms and cotton-trees; the fresh cool plantains and the cashews stopped their way sometimes; the avocados and yams and custard-apples were all around them. And turning a bend of the path they came upon the hut, even as, two centuries ago, Nicholas had come upon the hut where Alderly had played host to the spectres of his drunken imagination.

Of course it could not be the same; the old one must long ago have rotted away, even if not pulled down. This to which the girl led him was a large, substantial wooden building, painted white and green, with all around it-which made it appear even larger-a balcony, or piazza, and with jalousies thrown over the rails of the piazza from above the windowless frames. On the balcony were rude though comfortable chairs covered with striped Osnaburgh cloths; against the railing there stood a gun-it was hers! – and there were large calabashes standing about, some full of water and some empty, with smaller ones for drinking from.

"This is my home," the girl said. "And it is here that we have lived for nearly two hundred years, the house being rebuilt as it fell into disrepair from time to time. I pray you to be seated. Later, when you have rested, you shall see where the diggings have been made in the searches for the supposed treasure."

"And where," said Reginald, speaking as one in a stupor, "is the spot you told me of, the cellar where the treasure once had been?"

"It is below the floor of this verandah we are standing on. Why do you ask?"

"Your story interests me so," he replied. "It seems so like a dream. But," he continued, "later on, another day, perhaps you will tell me all of it. For instance, I should so much like to know how your ancestor, who at last never returned, came to possess the treasure and to leave it buried here."

"He found it here," she said, "by chance, and ever afterwards he made this island a resort of his. I have told you he was a bad man-I am afraid, a pirate."

Again there came a feeling into Reginald's mind that he was losing his senses, that he was going mad. And the next question he asked, with the answer he received, might, indeed, have justified him in so thinking.

"Will you tell me," he said, "to whom I owe this hospitable reception on Coffin Island? Will you tell me your name?"

"My name," she replied, "is Barbara Alderly."