Atlantic Narratives Part 14

The next day was Sunday.

As we sat at dinner with Mrs. Handsomebody after Morning Service, we were scarcely conscious of the large white dumplings, that bulged before us, with a delicious sticky, sweet sauce trickling down their dropsical sides. We plied our spoons with languid interest around their outer edges, as calves nibble around a straw stack. Our vagrant minds scoured the Spanish Main with Captain Pegg.

Suddenly The Seraph spoke in that c.o.c.ksure way of his.

'There's a piwate at Pegg's.'

Mrs. Handsomebody looked at him sharply.

'What's that?' she demanded.

At the same instant Angel and I kicked him under cover of the dining-table.

'What did you say?' repeated Mrs. Handsomebody, sternly.

'Funny ole gennelman at the Cwibbage Peggs',' replied The Seraph with his mouth full.

Mrs. Handsomebody greatly respected Mr. and Mrs. Mortimer Pegg, and this play of words on the name incensed her.

'Am I to understand, Alexander,' she gobbled, 'that you are making _game_ of the Mortimer Peggs?'

'Yes,' giggled the wretched Seraph, 'it's a cwibbage game. You play it wiv Peggs.'

'Leave the table instantly!' ordered Mrs. Handsomebody. 'You are becoming unbearable.'

The Seraph cast one anguished look at his dumpling and burst into tears.

We could hear his wails growing ever fainter as he plodded up the stairs.

'Mary Ellen, remove that dumpling!' commanded Mrs. Handsomebody.

Angel and I began to eat very fast. There was a short silence; then Mrs.

Handsomebody said didactically,--

'The elder Mr. Pegg is a much traveled gentleman, and one of the most noted archaeologists of the day. A trifle eccentric in his manner, perhaps, but a deep thinker. David, can you tell me what an archaeologist is?'

'Something you pretend you are,' said Angel, 'and you ain't.'

'Nonsense!' snapped Mrs. Handsomebody. 'Look it up in your Johnson's when you go upstairs, and let me know the result. I will excuse you now.'

We found The Seraph lounging in a chair in the schoolroom.

'Too bad about the dumpling, old boy,' I said consolingly.

'Oh, not too bad,' he replied. 'Mary Ellen fetched it up the back stairs to me. I'm vewy full.'

That afternoon we saw Captain Pegg go for a walk with his son and daughter-in-law. He looked quite altered in a long gray coat and tall hat. Mr. and Mrs. Mortimer Pegg seemed proud to walk with him.

The following day was warm and sunny. When lessons were over we rushed to our bedroom window, and to our joy we found that the window opposite was wide open, the wicker cage on the sill, with the starling inside swelling up and preening himself in the suns.h.i.+ne, while just beyond sat Captain Pegg smoking a long pipe.

He seemed delighted to see us.

'Avast, my hearties!' he cried. 'It's glorious sailing weather, but I've just been lying at anchor here, on the chance of sighting you. It does my heart good, y' see, to talk with some of my own kind, and leave off pretending to be an archaeologist--to stretch my mental legs, as it were.

Well--have you taken your bearings this morning?'

'Captain Pegg,' I broke out with my heart tripping against my blouse, 'you said something the other day about buried treasure. Did you really find some? And would you mind telling us how you set about it?'

'Yes,' he replied meditatively, 'many a sack of treasure trove I've unearthed. But the most curious find of all, I got without searching and without blood being spilt. I was lying quiet those days, about forty years ago, off the north of the Orkney Islands. Well, one morning I took a fancy to explore some of the outlying rocks and little islands dotted here and there. So I started off in a yawl with four seamen to row me; and not seeing much but barren rocks and stunted shrubs about, I bent over the stern and stared into the sea. It was as clear as crystal.

'As we were pa.s.sing through a narrow channel between two rocky islands, I bade the men rest on their oars, for something strange below had arrested my attention. I now could see plainly, in the green depths, a Spanish galleon, standing upright, held as in a vice by the grip of the two great rocks. She must have gone down with all hands, when the greater part of the Spanish Armada was wrecked on the sh.o.r.es of Britain.

"'s.h.i.+ver my timbers, lads!" I cried, "here 'll be treasure in earnest!

Back to the s.h.i.+p for our diving-suits! Booty for every one, and plum duff for dinner!"

'Well, to make a long story short, I and four of the trustiest of the crew put on our diving-suits, and soon we were walking the slippery decks once trodden by Spanish grandees and soldiers, and the scene of many a b.l.o.o.d.y fight, I'll be bound. Their skeletons lay about the deck, wrapped in sea-tangle, and from every crevice of the galleon tall red and green and yellow and purple weeds had sprung, that waved and s.h.i.+vered with the motion of the sea. Her decks were strewn with sh.e.l.ls and sand, and in and out of her rotted ribs frightened fish darted at our approach. It was a gruesome sight.

'Three weeks we worked, carrying the treasure to our own s.h.i.+p, and I began to feel as much at home under water as above it. At last we set sail without mishap, and every man on board had his share, and some of them gave up pirating and settled down as innkeepers and tradesmen.'

As the sound of his deep voice ceased, we three were silent also, gazing longingly into his eyes, that were so like the sea.

Then--'Captain Pegg,' said Angel, in a still small voice, 'I don't--s'pose--you'd know of any hidden treasure hereabouts? We'd most awfully like to find some. It'd be a jolly thing to write and tell father!'

A droll smile flickered over the bronzed features of Captain Pegg. He brought down his fist on the window-sill.

'Well, if you aren't chaps after my own heart!' he cried. 'Treasure about here? I was just coming to that--and a most curious happening it is! There was a cabin-boy,--name of Jenks,--a lad that I trusted and loved like my own son, who stole the greater part of my share of the treasure, and though I scoured the globe for him,'--the captain's eyes rolled fiercely,--'I found neither trace of him nor the treasure, till two years ago. It was in Madagascar that I received a message from a dying man, confessing that, shaken by remorse, he had brought what was left of the plunder and buried it in Mrs. Handsomebody's back yard.'

'Mrs. Handsomebody's back yard!' We chanted the words in utter amazement.

'Just that,' affirmed Captain Pegg solemnly. 'Jenks found out that I owned the house next door, but he dared not bury the treasure there because the yard was smoothly sodded, and would show up any disturbance; while Mrs. H.'s yard, being covered with planks, was just the thing. So he simply raised one of the planks, dug a hole, and deposited the sack containing the last of the treasure, and wrote me his confession. And there you are!'

He smiled benignly on us. I longed to hug him.

The wind swooped and whistled down the alley, and the starling gave little sharp twittering noises and c.o.c.ked his head.

'When, oh, when?' we burst out; 'to-night? May we search for it to-night, Captain Pegg?'

He reflected. 'No-o. Not to-night. Jenks, you see, sent me a plan of the yard, with a cross to mark where the treasure lies, and I'll have to hunt it up so as not to waste our time turning up the whole yard. But to-morrow night--yes, to-morrow at midnight we'll start the search!'

IV

At dinner that day the rice-pudding had the flavor of ambrosia. By night-fall preparations were already on foot.

First, the shovel had been smuggled from the coal-cellar and secreted in a corner of the yard behind the ash-barrel, together with an iron crowbar to use as a lever, and an empty sack to aid in the removal of the treasure.

I scarcely slept that night; and when I did, my mind was filled with wild imaginings. The next morning we were heedless scholars indeed, and at dinner I ate so little that Mrs. Handsomebody was moved to remark jocularly that somebody not a thousand miles away was shaping for a bilious bout.

At four o'clock Captain Pegg appeared at his window, looking the picture of cheerful confidence. He said it warmed his heart to be at his old profession again, and indeed I never saw a merrier twinkle in any one's eyes. He had found the plan of the yard sent by Jenks, and he had no doubt that we should soon be in possession of the Spanish treasure.

'But there's one thing, my lads,' he said solemnly: 'I make no claim whatever to any share in this booty. Let that be understood. Anything we find is to be yours entirely. If I were to take any such goods into my son's house, his wife would get suspicious, and uncomfortable questions would be asked, and it'd be all up with this archaeologist business.'