Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn. Harry Collingwood

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СКАЧАТЬ story ever so much better with that before me.” Whereupon the lad entered a state-room at the fore end of the main cabin, and presently returned with a chart of the Malay Archipelago, which he spread open on the table.

      “There,” he said, pointing with his finger, “that’s the place they called at — Waingapu, in Sumba Island; and this pencil-mark Mr Barber drew to show the track of the ship and the boat afterwards — as nearly as he could remember. After leaving Waingapu the ship sailed along this line,” — pointing with his finger — “through Maurissa Strait, up to here. And here Mr Barber and the Dutch captain had a terrible quarrel and a fight — I don’t know what about, because Mr Barber didn’t say, but it ended in Mr Barber being turned adrift by himself in a boat, with a small stock of provisions and one breaker of fresh water. The boat was an old one, very leaky, and she had no sail, so Mr Barber could do nothing but just let her drift, hoping every day that something would come along and pick him up. But nothing came, and five days later he found that his water was all gone, the breaker havin’ been leaky. The next thing that happened was that Mr Barker got light-headed with thirst; and it used to make me feel awfully uncomfortable to hear him tell about the things he thought he saw while he was that way. At last he got so thirsty that he couldn’t stand it any longer, and, bein’ mad, he filled the baler with water from over the side, and drank it. And then he found that the water was fresh, and he drank some more, and his senses came back to him, and, lookin’ round, he saw that there was land on both sides of the boat and that she was in a sort of wide river. But, although the land was so plain in sight, Mr Barber was so weak that he couldn’t do anything; for while he was light-headed he’d hove all his grub overboard and was now starving. So he just had to let the boat drift with the wind; and after a bit she drove ashore. But even then Mr Barber couldn’t do anything but just climb out of the boat and fling himself down upon the sand, where he slept until next morning.

      “When he woke up he felt a bit better, but awfully hungry, so he got up and, seeing a few trees not far off, he managed to crawl over to ’em, and was lucky enough to find some fruit on ’em. He said he didn’t know what the fruit was, and didn’t care, he was so awfully hungry that he’d have eaten it, even if he’d known it was poison. But it wasn’t; it was quite good; and after he had eaten he felt so much stronger that he went back to the beach and moored his boat to a big boulder, so that she wouldn’t drift away.

      “Now that Mr Barber had found food and water he set about taking care of himself, so that he might get strong again and be able to get away from where he was — because, of course, he didn’t want to spend the rest of his days there. But he wanted to find out as much as he could about the place; so as soon as he was strong enough he began to wander about a bit, explorin’, and in particular he wanted to have a look at something that he thought might be a house all overgrown with creepers. And when at last he was able to get to it he found that it was a very ancient ship, that he thought must have drove ashore during the height of a very heavy gale of wind, when the level of the sea surface was raised several feet above ordinary, deeply flooding the low ground where he found her.

      “Of course Mr Barber climbed aboard and had a good look round, thinking that he’d perhaps be able to take up his quarters aboard her until he could get away from the place; but he found her timbers and deck planking all so rotten that it wasn’t safe to move about aboard her. All the same, he gave her a good overhaul; and down in the run he found a little room, and in it eight big chests all bound round with thick, steel bands. With a lot of trouble he broke ’em open, and five of ’em he found packed full of gold and silver things — coins, candlesticks, images and things that he believed had been stolen out of churches, with chains and rings and bracelets and things of that sort. And the other three chests had in ’em all sorts of gems — diamonds, rubies, emeralds — and oh, I forget the names of all the things he said he found in them; but I remember he said that they looked as though they’d been broken out of articles of jewellery. Two of the chests were full, chock-a-block, and the other was about three-parts full; and he said that, altogether, the treasure must be worth millions!

      “So as soon as Mr Barber felt well and strong enough to get away from the place, he caulked the seams of his boat, and his water breaker, with a kind of cotton that he found growing wild, made a mat sail for his boat out of grass, laid in a stock of fruit and water, and, taking a handful of the gems along with him, went out to sea again. But before leaving the place he got the meridian altitude of the sun, by setting a stick upright in the ground and measuring the length of its shadow very carefully several days running; and in this way he afterwards found that the latitude of the wreck was about 3 degrees 50 minutes South. Then, when he was satisfied that he’d got the position near enough to be able to find it again, he set his sail and went out to sea.

      “But he was unlucky again, for on that very night a gale sprang up, his sail was blown away, and he had all his work cut out to keep the boat from being swamped. Then he fell ill again and went crazy once more, coming to himself again aboard a Chinese junk bound for Singapore. Of course the first thing he did was to search for his little packet of gems; but they were gone; and, although he strongly suspected the Chinese of having stolen them, they swore that they had seen nothing of them. At Singapore Mr Barber applied for help as a distressed sailor, and, after waiting a bit, he was sent home in a ship bound for London. Four days after he landed in London he met Father, who helped him by giving him money and inviting him to take up his quarters, for a bit, aboard the Yorkshire Lass. Then he told Father all about the treasure, and they kept on talkin’ about it every evenin’, when the day’s work was done, until at last Father agreed to help Mr Barber to search for the treasure, he and Mr Barber to go halves in everything they found, and Mr Barber to come with us as mate. And — and — I think, sir, that’s all.”

      “And quite enough, too,” I said. “Why, it is the most amazing story to which I have ever listened. And do you really mean to say that your father actually allowed himself to be persuaded into engaging in such a wild-goose chase as that of hunting for a spot of which the latitude only is known — and that merely approximately, I should imagine.”

      “Yes, indeed, sir, it is a fact,” answered Billy. “I know, because Father and Mr Barber drew up an agreement and signed it, Father keeping one copy, and Mr Barber the other. Father’s copy is in his desk now, if you’d care to see it.”

      “Later on, perhaps,” I said. “There are other and more pressing matters requiring attention just now. This — er — unfortunate affair of the night before last has, I suppose, upset all plans, and clapped an effectual stopper on the treasure-hunting scheme, eh?” I asked, turning to the boatswain.

      “Oh no, sir, it haven’t,” answered Enderby. “It looked a bit like it, first off, I’ll allow; ’cause, you see, the loss of the Old Man and the mate left us without a navigator, and none of us knew which way to head the ship. But me and Chips, bein’ the only two officers left, had a confab together, and then we mustered the rest of the hands and put it to ’em whether they’d all agree to what we two proposed. And what we proposed was this: Barber had evidently persuaded Cap’n Stenson that there wasn’t no mistake about the treasure actually existin’, and that it might be found, with a bit of tryin’, otherwise the ship wouldn’t be where she is now.

      “Then there was the agreement between the two, by which the treasure — when found — was to be equally divided between ’em. Both of ’em havin’ gone over the side, that agreement couldn’t be carried out; but there was Billy, here; and there was us, the crew of the ship; and what me and Chips proposed was, first of all, to get hold of a navigator who’d agree to join in with us, and then go and try to find the treasure; the arrangement bein’ that Billy, as his father’s son, should have half of it, and we — the crew and the navigator — should divide the other half equally between us.

      “There was a lot of palaver over it, naturally — you know, sir, what sailor-men are — but at last everybody agreed; and then, since we didn’t know where to head for, we hove-to, waitin’ for something to come along whereby we could СКАЧАТЬ