Jethou Part 16

"What say you to a sail this evening, Crusoe?"

"Just the thing, Monday; it is such a glorious night, and the cool breeze will do us good. What do you say to a drag with the trawl?"

"The very thing; more fish are caught in one night than in two days, so let's set to at once, that is, after a good substantial tea."

The meal being finished, we soon got the trawl and gear aboard the "Anglo-Franc," and away we went in the lovely moonlight, scouring the bottom of the Perchee between the head of Jethou and the tail of Herm.

The latter island looked delightful in the pale greenish light of the moon, while Crevichon towering up against the sky, with the moon behind it, caused it to look like a silhouette cut out of black cardboard.

"Who would be stifled up in a town with wealth and its attending cares, in preference to this life of liberty I was leading?" I asked myself, and for answer gave, "While one is young, full of health, and with no enc.u.mbrances, a Bohemian life is all very well; but what when a wife and family are dependent on one? That puts a different complexion on the matter, for one can roam no more."

I recollect this night well, for I revelled in its very ant.i.thesis to life in England. Everything seemed so strange and quiet; the great black rocks casting their shadows over the phosph.o.r.escent waves; the star-studded sky, with the pale round moon, across which a gentle breeze wafted silvery gauze-like clouds; the feeling of motion, the sense of freedom, the love of labour to haul the net, the expectation of what would be our luck, the merry badinage between my comrade and me, our little songs between the hauls, and a score of other things cause me to look back upon this night (and many others) with the thought, "Shall I ever know such happiness again?"

Many persons, yes, most persons, must have recollections of past pure delights that steal across their memories of things which happened long years ago, and cause them to ask themselves the same question, "Shall I ever know such happiness again?"

Why not? It always seems to strike me that when we are supremely happy, we do not realise it at the time; but when the happy time has fled, and has become a memory, we long for its return in vain. We long in vain for that _particular_ pleasure, but there are present joys for us to which at the time we do not give heed enough, or instead of _bemoaning the past_ (which has flown) we should live and enjoy the _tangible present_.

From moralising to fis.h.i.+ng is a long jump, but we must take the leap and attend to our net again.

After two or three hauls we had almost enough fish, but Alec said, "One more for luck," and he being Skipper afloat, I Commandant ash.o.r.e, like a good A.B., I obeyed. We had caught several fair soles, but our last haul brought us up two of the largest it has been my lot to capture.

"They are two, but not a pair," remarked Alec.

Neither were they, for when they were measured one was nineteen and a half inches long, and the other exactly twenty-three inches. We christened them Adam and Eve, and like a couple of cannibals declared our intention of eating them for our supper when we got ash.o.r.e.

As we sailed slowly in against the tide, the question arose who should devour Adam and who Eve; so we agreed to guess the length of the trawl beam between the irons for choice of fish.

I guessed first: "Ten feet."

"There," said Monday, "you have nearly taken my guess out of my mouth, for I was going to say three metres, and that makes it about, let me see, nine feet ten inches."

"How much is a metre?" I asked eagerly.

"Why about thirty-nine inches and a quarter of your measure," was his ready reply.

"Then," I rejoined, bubbling over with excitement, "I've discovered the measurements in the doc.u.ment. Why Old Barbe Rouge was a Frenchman, and of course used French measure,--the metre! Hurrah!" and I made the rocks echo with my excited hurrahs and loud laughter.

Adam and Eve were duly cooked, but they were not half eaten, for either they were too large or our appet.i.tes too small by reason of our great excitement; anyhow, Adam would have sufficed for us both, and Eve would have made a capital breakfast for us in the morning. As it was, the mangled remains of the patriarchs remained for our dinner the next day, as breakfast was, under the circ.u.mstances of what happened next day, quite out of the question.

As we did not get to bed till four a.m. we were not up till ten; in fact, I slept but little, as dreams of treasure islands, fairy land, and wonderful nuggets of gold persistently kept me tossing about feverishly, till my comrade ran in and wanted to know if he was to dig the treasure up before I was out of bed.

I sprang out of bed and dressed, and in five minutes we were busy with paper and rule.

Hurrah! with metres instead of yards the distances tallied within a few inches, so that near the centre of the garden we had a number of pegs stuck in the mould all round a currant bush, of perhaps three or four years' growth, which had thus accidentally marked the spot that was indicated by a skull on the paper.

Now came Alec's turn for excitement, and he was _intensely_ excited. I must say I liked my form of excitement best, for Monday seemed completely off his head, and was gesticulating like a monkey dancing a hornpipe on hot bricks; he was fairly beside himself. I took mine in a calmer manner, that is, although I was brimful and even bubbling over with it, I did not rave, but kept as cool as possible, and I remember at the time thinking it was due to our different nationalities, the excitable and phlegmatic temperaments predominating in the two individuals and giving character. Probably a stranger looking on would have thought us either a couple of fools or a pair of lunatics.

Off came our jackets, and our sleeves were quickly rolled above our elbows, displaying arms as brown as those of gypsies.

Monday took the pick and I the shovel, and to work we went.

I must not forget to mention that I had told Alec that whatever we found I should consider it my duty to give up to M. Oudin as the real proprietor of the island, and to this he readily a.s.sented, mentioning that he at all events could say nothing to my plans, as he was simply my a.s.sistant, my Monday.

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CHAPTER XVIII.

DIGGING FOR THE TREASURE--A NOONDAY REST--THE GHASTLY TENANT OF THE TREASURE HOUSE--WE FIND THE TREASURE--AN ACCOUNT OF WHAT WE DISCOVERED.

By noon we had a well-like hole about seven feet deep, and found as we dug that the soil became drier the lower we went, which was unusual, as generally it gets more moist, so that digging at length becomes very arduous.

Although not more than seven feet deep, the earth we had piled all round made the hole look at least ten feet to the bottom, and it had now become very difficult to throw the earth over the edge of the opening above.

It was a hot August day, and the sun poured its almost vertical rays upon us, so that the perspiration broke out at every pore, and bathed us in moisture; but still we toiled on, till, as I say, noon arrived, without our finding any token of treasure trove.

Then said Monday, "What say you now of your quest, Crusoe? Don't you think it's all moons.h.i.+ne, or rather (wiping the perspiration from his brow) suns.h.i.+ne and shadow?"

I was fain to confess that it did seem like it, but asked,

"Will you help me dig to a depth of ten feet from the surface? and if nothing gives indication of what we are in search, I will then give up."

"What, dig down ten feet, and be buried alive in this crumbling grave?

Just look at it, it is ready even now to tumble its sides in upon us."

"Well, but," persisted I, "let us sh.o.r.e it up as we go down."

"Very well then," he rejoined, "but I bargain for one hour's rest before we delve further, and here goes for a swim."

Then climbing up our improvised ladder away he went to the beach, whither "Begum" and I quickly followed, and in five minutes we, who had been so lately in a grave, were swimming about in the deliriously cool water, dog and men thoroughly enjoying the exhilarating reaction.

Our bathe being over, we strolled up to the house, and made another attack upon Adam and Eve, and this time finished them; they were delicious. As Monday would have his full sixty minutes' cessation, just as Shylock would have his pound of flesh, we smoked the rest of the time away, and then resumed our labours.

We first took the precaution to sh.o.r.e up the sides of our pit with stout pieces of wreckage and any other wood we could find, for fear of a landslip, which might have resulted in serious if not fatal consequences to us.

Before we had dug ten minutes my spade struck on something hard and hollow, which quite startled us; but clearing the mould away from the spot, I soon discovered the impediment to be a kind of wooden floor.

This we quickly cleared, and found it covered a s.p.a.ce about four feet by three. As we lifted the first piece with great expectancy, we found it was oak, about two inches thick, and very little the worse for its long burial, as the surrounding soil was dry.

We looked into the narrow aperture left by the taking out of the oaken plank, but could see nothing, as the depth of our pit made it somewhat dark at the bottom, so I knelt down, and thrust my hand through the opening and felt about. Presently I felt something hard, like a bundle of sticks, and with a tug drew them through the opening, only to drop them the next minute with a cry of horror, for it was a skeleton's hand that came to view in my grasp.

We looked at each other in dismay, as if to say,

"How awful! what shall we do now?"