timber.
And Francis, in extremity, swaying dizzily from the blow of a rock on his head, saw the apparition, that almost convinced him he was already dead and in the realm of the shades, of Sir Henry Morgan himself, cutlass in hand, rushing up the beach to his rescue. Further, the apparition, brandishing the cutlass and laying out Indians right and left, was bellowing:
‘Back to back against the mainmast,
Held at bay the entire crew.’
As Francis’ knees gave under him and he slowly crumpled and sank down, he saw the Indians scatter and flee before the onslaught of the weird pirate figure and heard their cries of:
‘Heaven help us!’ ‘The Virgin protect us!’ ‘It’s the ghost of old Morgan!’
Francis next opened his eyes inside the grass hut in the midmost center of the Calf. First, in the glimmering sight of returning consciousness, he beheld the pictured lineaments of Sir Henry Morgan staring down at him from the wall. Next, it was a younger edition of the same, in three dimensions of living, moving flesh, who thrust a mug of brandy to his lips and bade him drink. Francis was on his feet ere he touched lips to the mug; and both he and the stranger man, moved by a common impulse, looked squarely into each other’s eyes, glanced at the picture on the wall find touched mugs in a salute to the picture and to each other ere they drank.
‘You told me you were a Morgan,’ the stranger said. ‘I am a Morgan. That man on the wall fathered my breed. Your breed?’
‘The old buccaneer’s,’ Francis returned. ‘My first name is Francis. And yours?’
‘Henry straight from the original. We must be remote cousins or something or other. I’m after the foxy old niggardly old Welshman’s loot.’
‘So’m I,’ said Francis, extending his hand. ‘But to hell with sharing.’
‘The old blood talks in you,’ Henry smiled approbation. ‘For him to have who finds. I’ve turned most of this island upside down in the last six months, and all I’ve found are these old duds. I’m with you to beat you if I can, but to put my back against the mainmast with you any time the needed call goes out.’
‘That song’s a wonder,’ Francis urged. ‘I want to learn it. Lift the stave again.’
And together, clanking their mugs, they sang:
‘Back to back against the mainmast,
Held at bay the entire crew…’
Chapter III
But a splitting headache put a stop to Francis’ singing and made him glad to be swung’ in a cool hammock by Henry, who rowed off to the Angelique with orders from his visitor to the skipper to stay at anchor but not to permit any of his sailors to land on the Calf. Not until late in the morning of the following day, after hours of heavy sleep, did Francis get on his feet and announce that his head was clear again.
‘I know what it is got bucked off a horse once,’ his strange relative sympathized, as he poured him a huge cup of fragrant black coffee. ‘Drink that down. It will make a new man of you. Can’t offer you much for breakfast except bacon, sea biscuit, and some scrambled turtle eggs. They’re fresh. I guarantee that, for I dug them out this morning while you slept.’
‘That coffee is a meal in itself,’ Francis praised, meanwhile studying his kinsman and ever and anon glancing at the portrait of their relative.
‘You’re just like him, and in more than mere looks,’ Henry laughed, catching him in his scrutiny. ‘When you refused to share yesterday, it was old Sir Henry to the fife. He had a deep-seated antipathy against sharing, even with his own crews. It’s what caused most of his troubles. And he’s certainly never shared a penny of his treasure with any of his descendants. Now I’m different. Not only will I share the Calf with you; but I’ll present you with my half as well, lock, stock, and barrel,[17] this grass hut, all these nice furnishings, tenements, hereditaments, and everything, and what’s left of the turtle eggs. When do you want to move in?’
‘You mean…?’ Francis asked.
‘Just that. There’s nothing here. I’ve just about dug the island upside down and all I found was the chest there full of old clothes.’
‘It must have encouraged you.’
‘Mightily. I thought I had a hammerlock on it. At any rate, it showed I’m on the right track.’
‘What’s the matter with trying the Bull?’ Francis queried.
‘That’s my idea right now,’ was the answer, ‘though I’ve got another clue for over on the mainland. Those old-timers had a way of noting down their latitude and longitude whole degrees out of the way.’
‘Ten North and Ninety East on the chart might mean Twelve North and Ninety-two East,’ Francis concurred. ‘Then again it might mean Eight North and Eighty-eight East. They carried the correction in their heads, and if they died unexpectedly, which was their custom, it seems, the secret died with them.’
‘I’ve half a notion to go over to the Bull and chase those turtle-catchers back to the mainland,’ Henry went on. ‘And then again I’d almost like to tackle the mainland clue first. I suppose you’ve got a stock of clues, too?’
‘Sure thing,’ Francis nodded. ‘But say, I’d like to take back what I said about not sharing.’
‘Say the word,’ the other encouraged.
‘Then I do say it.’
Their hands extended and gripped in ratification.
‘Morgan and Morgan strictly limited,’ chortled Francis.
‘Assets, the whole Caribbean Sea, the Spanish Main, most of Central America, one chest full of perfectly no good old clothes, and a lot of holes in the ground,’ Henry joined in the other’s humor. ‘Liabilities, snake-bite, thieving Indians, malaria, yellow fever—’
‘And pretty girls with a habit of kissing total strangers one moment, and of sticking up said total strangers with shiny silver revolvers the next moment,’ Francis cut in. ‘Let me tell you about it. Day before yesterday, I rowed ashore over on the mainland. The moment I landed, the prettiest girl in the world pounced out upon me and dragged me away into the jungle. Thought she was going to eat me or marry me. I didn’t know which. And before I could find out, what’s the pretty damsel do but pass uncomplimentary remarks on my mustache and chase me back to the boat with a revolver. Told me to beat it and never come back, or words to that effect.’
‘Whereabouts on the mainland was this?’ Henry demanded, with a tenseness which Francis, chuckling his reminiscence of the misadventure, did not notice.
‘Down’ toward the other end of Chiriqui Lagoon,’ he replied. ‘It was the stamping ground of the Solano family, I learned; and they are a red peppery family, as I found out. But I haven’t told you all. Listen. First she dragged me into the vegetation and insulted my mustache; next she chased me to the boat with a drawn revolver; and then she wanted to know why I didn’t kiss her. Can you beat that?’
‘And did you?’ Henry demanded, his hand unconsciously clinching by his side.
‘What could a poor stranger in a strange land do? It was some armful of pretty girl—’
The next fraction of a second Francis had sprung to his feet and blocked before his jaw a crushing blow of Henry’s fist.
‘I… I beg your pardon,’ Henry mumbled, and slumped down on the ancient sea chest. I’m a fool, I know, but I’ll be hanged if I can stand for—’
‘There you go again,’ Francis interrupted resentfully. ‘As crazy as everybody else in this crazy country. One moment you bandage up my cracked head, and the next moment you want to knock that same head clean of me. As bad as the girl taking turns at kissing me and shoving a gun into my midriff.’
‘That’s right, fire away, I deserve it,’ Henry admitted ruefully, but involuntarily began