"Ze mate vas shtrike me, but I vas not touch him meinselfs, I vas not lay von hand upon hims."
"Then what in thunder air becom" of him?"
"He wer gone a-ridin", cap," said the man who had previously spoken, proceeding to explain what had occurred. "He came down drunk out of the ship and went abusin" Mr Steenbock as never sed a word to him, and then struck him with a spade, nigh killing him. So we tumbles him over in the water theer to stop his doin" any more mischief, for he wer that mad as he looked to murder the lot of us."
"And then, boss," went on Jim Chowder, as he told up, taking up the story, "ez he were pretty well wet with his ducking, we lashed him on to the back of a tortoise ez come by, an" sent him up in the hills, fur to dry hisself, "ridin" a c.o.c.k horse to Banbury Cross" like!"
At this the hands laughed again, and the skipper, whom they now surmised must have been drinking again when away on his prospecting tour, became perfectly furious; for he turned quite white, while his billy-goat beard bristled up, as it always did when he was angry.
"This air rank mutiny!" he shouted, drawing his revolver and pointing it at Jim Chowder; "but I"ll soon teach ye a lesson, ye skunks. Hyar goes fur one o" ye!"
Jan Steenbock, as on a previous occasion, however, was too quick for him; for he knocked the weapon out of his fist, and then gripping him in a tight grasp, threw his arms round the captain"s body.
The skipper foamed at the mouth, and swore even worse than Mr Flinders had done just before; but, presently he calmed down a bit, and sat down on the ground--shaking all over, as soon as Jan had removed his grip, though keeping close to him, to be on the watch for his next move, as he expected him to have one of his old fits again.
But the convulsions seemed to pa.s.s off very quickly; and the captain, looking like himself again after a few moments, jumped to his feet.
He then stared round about him, as if searching for something or some one, evidently forgetting all that had just happened.
Suddenly his eyes brightened.
"Thaar he is!" he cried, "thaar he is!"
"Who, sir?" asked Jan, seeing his gaze fixed in the direction of the cactus grove, behind which the mate had vanished on his tortoise--"Mistaire Vlinders?"
"No, man, no," impatiently cried the skipper; "I wanted him to come with me, but ez he"s not hyar, ye"ll do ez wa-all, I reckon. It"s the black buccaneer cap"en I mean, thet I met jest now, over thaar in the vall"y."
"Ze boocaneer cap"en," repeated Jan, utterly flabbergasted--"ze boocaneer cap"en?"
"Aye, ye durned fule; don"t ye reck"lect the c.o.o.n ez ye told me ez burrit the treesure? Come on quick, or I guess we"ll lose him!"
"And yous have zeen hims?"
"Aye, I hev seed him, sure enuff," replied Captain Snaggs, seizing Jan, and trying to drag him with him; "an", what"s more, he an" I"ve been drinkin" together, me joker. We"ve hed a reg"ler high old time in the vall"y thaar, this arternoon, ye bet!"
"In ze valleys?"
"By thunder! ye"re that slow ye"d anger a saint, which I ain"t one,"
returned Captain Snaggs, indignantly. "I mean the vall"y whaar the skeletons is crawlin" about an" the skulls grinning--thet air one belongin" to the buccaneer cuss is a prime one, I ken tell ye. It beats creation, it dew, with the lizards a-creepin" through the sockets, an" a big snake in his teeth. Jeehosophat! how he did swaller down the licker!"
Up to now the men could not understand that anything out of the common was the matter with the skipper beyond being drunk, perhaps, and in a pa.s.sion--no, not even Jan; but, as soon as he got talking on this tack about snakes and skulls, then all saw what was the matter.
So, now, on his darting off towards the hills in his delirium, Jan Steenbock and Jim Chowder, with a couple of the other hands, quickly followed in pursuit of the demented man.
He had got a good minute"s start, however, before they recovered from their astonishment at his incoherent speech and were able to grasp the situation; so, he was almost out of sight by the time they went after him.
It was a long chase, Jim said, for they went in and out between the th.o.r.n.y fleshy-handed cactus trees and over the lava field, tumbling into holes here and tearing themselves to pieces with the thorns there--the skipper all the while maintaining his lead in front and running along as freely and smoothly as if the track were an even path, instead of being through a desert waste like that they raced over.
After a bit, they pa.s.sed over all the intervening lava field and struck amongst the gra.s.s and trees; and then they came up to Mr Flinders, who was still lashed on the back of his tortoise, which had "brought up all standing" by the side of a little water-spring, and was greedily gulping down long draughts of the limpid stream that rippled through the glade beneath the shade of a number of dwarf oaks and zafrau trees which had orchilla moss growing in profusion on their trunks--some of these being nearly three feet in diameter, and bigger, Jim said, than any trees he had previously seen on the island.
Those in pursuit of the skipper thought he would have stopped on thus meeting the first-mate.
But, no. He did not halt for an instant.
"Come on, Flinders," he only called out. "Come on, Flinders, we air arter the buccaneer cap"en an" the treasure!"
Then, plunging down the side of the hill he made for a bare s.p.a.ce further down beyond the trees, waving his arms over his head and shouting and screaming at the pitch of his voice, like the raging madman that he had become.
Arrived at the bottom of the declivity, the captain abruptly paused; and Jim Chowder and Jan, who were close behind, came up with him.
There was no need to stop him; for the skipper flung himself on the ground at a spot where, to their wonder, they now observed three skeletons sitting up and arranged in a circle; while in the centre of the terrible group of bony figures was a cask on end, whose odour at once betrayed its contents.
Rum!
A pannikin was on the ground beside the hand of one of the remnants of mortality, and this the skipper took up, drawing a spigot from out of the cask and filling it.
"Hyar"s to ye, my brave buccaneers!" he cried, tossing it off as if it had been water. "Hyar"s to ye all an" the gold!"
He was going to fill another pannikin and drain that; but Jan Steenbock kicked over the cask, preventing him.
Captain Snaggs at once sprung to his feet again.
As before, he took no notice of Jan"s action.
It appeared as if his mind were suddenly bent on something else and that he now forgot everything anterior to the one thought that possessed him.
"Come on now, my brave buccaneers, an" show us the gold," he cried.
"Lead on, my beauties, an" I"ll foller, by thunder, to the devil himself!"
So saying, back he climbed up the hill, and down a little pathway along the top till he came to the entrance to the cave which Tom Bullover and Hiram and I had first discovered; and then, suddenly, before Jan Steenbock and Jim Chowder could see where he had gone, he disappeared within the opening.
Jan and Jim alone had continued the pursuit, the other hands having remained behind to release the first-mate from his uncomfortable billet on board the tortoise; and Jim Chowder giving up the hunt at this point, and returning to rejoin his comrades, Jan Steenbock only remained, the latter telling us later on, when we all compared notes, that, after looking for the skipper over the cliff, where he at first believed him to have fallen, he finally traced him into the cave.
CHAPTER NINETEEN.
A WARNING SHOCK.
"Wa-all, I"m jiggered!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Hiram, having recourse to his usual favourite expression when startled or surprised at anything, as the skipper, after evading Jan Steenbock"s pursuit, darted out of the cave and appeared on the scene, destroying the harmony of our happy meeting with Sam. "Keep yer haar on, cap, an" don"t make a muss about nuthin"!"
Captain Snaggs, in response to this, made a gesture as if he were going to strike him.
"Ye durned rep-tile!" he yelled out. "I"ll soon knock the sa.s.s out o"
ye; I will so, by thunder!"
"No, ye don"t, cap; no, ye don"t," said Hiram good-humouredly, putting up his fists to guard himself, but not doing so offensively. "I guess two ken play at thet game, I reckon, an" ye"d best let me bide; fur, I"m a quiet c.o.o.n when ye stroke me down the right way, but a reg"lar screamer when I"m riled, an" mighty risky to handle, sirree, ez ye ken bet yer bottom dollar!"
"Jee-rusalem--this air rank mutiny!" exclaimed the skipper, starting back. "Would ye hit me, yer own cap"en?"