Chapter 2

He was informed that Governor Eden had been in secret partnership with
Stede Bonnet, the pirate; and that when Bonnet was finally caught the
guilty Royal Governor, in terror of Bonnet’s confession, fled to
Charleston and died of sheer fright in this very house.

“The coward!” commented the boy, who had never known a guilty fear.

The auctioneer, in his soft, pleasant, Southern voice, continued to
describe the contents of this ancient house as it was sold under the
hammer, lot by lot.

A small but heavy leather box, garnished with strap hinges and nails of
copper, was offered.

According to the auctioneer it bulged family papers; he urged it as a
fine speculation for any collector of antique documents.

As there appeared to be no such collectors present, the boy bid a
dollar. A negro wanted the box for some unknown purpose and bid a dollar
and a quarter.

At two dollars the boy got the box.

Why he bought it he did not quite understand,—except that like all boys
he was interested in pirates; and the mention of Stede Bonnet revived
the deathless appetite.

“Send it to me at the St. Charles Hotel,” he said carelessly, and paid
for the cartage also.

Then, having had enough of romantic antiquity, he started for reality
and the nearest movie.

IV

That evening after dinner Mr. Welper wrote letters, and the boy went to
the theatre.

Mr. Welper was still writing letters when the boy returned. Tired, ready
for bed, he went into his room, which adjoined Mr. Welper’s. But a boy,
no matter how sleepy, welcomes any diversion that postpones that
outrageous waste of time called sleep.

As he stood yawning and undecided, his eye fell on the box which he had
purchased at auction.

A large, wrought-iron key was tied to one handle. With his penknife he
cut it loose, unlocked the box, and gazed at the stacks of ancient
documents within.

All were tied with pink tape. A musty odour filled the room. The boy
seated himself on the carpet, still yawning, picked up a packet of
ancient deeds, tossed them aside, glanced over a sheaf of letters,
petitions, invoices, legal documents with waning interest. Then, of a
sudden, his eye fell upon the signature of Stede Bonnet. Interest
freshened; he read the letter with the conscious thrill that invades all
boys even when in vaguest contact with great malefactors.

He looked with awe upon the signature of Stede Bonnet, touched his
finger to the faded ink, strove to realise that the hand which had
penned this screed had been imbrued in human blood; shivered agreeably.

The letter was written by Bonnet on board the sloop _Revenge_ off the
Virginia Capes, to one Edward Teach, Esq., on board a ship called the
_Man-o’-War_.

It requested a rendezvous for the two ships off False Cape.

Further, Bonnet informed Teach, he had obtained documents in the
Barbadoes which, if deciphered, might clear up the mystery of the ship
_Red Moon_. But, he added, it would require the crew of the _Man-o’-War_
as well as his own crew to salvage the cargo if, indeed, the location of
the sunken ship could be discovered.

Eden believed it lay in five fathoms somewhere off Tiger Island. The
crews of the two ships could camp on Tiger Island, or, more comfortably,
on the group of three islands west of False Cape and known as “The
Place-of-Swans.”

The boy was wide awake now. Letter after letter he examined, untying and
re-tying the faded yellowish packets.

These letters and documents offered all sorts of information concerning
events on the high seas two hundred years ago. Among other things the
boy learned that Bonnet had hoisted the black flag and had taken the
_Anne of Glasgow_; that the other name for Edward Teach, Esq., was
“Blackbeard the Pirate;” and that Blackbeard had as ally a bloody
scoundrel named “Dick Hands,” commanding a sister ship near Ocracoke
Inlet, North Carolina.

And now the thrills that had swept the boy when he first read _Treasure
Island_ so long ago again stirred his blond and curly hair. He read of
abominable cruelties, of treachery unspeakable, of savage reprisal, of
robbery, of torture, of murder, of heartless mirth, of horrible
excesses, carouses, mutiny, of pursuit, of escapes by sea and land.

Hour after hour he sat there cross-legged on the carpet devouring the
ancient records of wickedness; but, not until he came to the very last
packet in the box, did he discover any further mention of the “_Red
Moon_, galley.”

“She has been missing,” Bonnet wrote, “since the month of July in 1568,
which is now more than a hundred and fifty years ago. But it is known
that she sailed loaded from bilge to gunwales with pure, soft, Indian
gold. . . . Which knowledge, when imparted to me by Eden,” added poor
Bonnet, “so inflamed me that, although I was an English gentleman with
vast estates in the West Indies, and indeed was rich and everywhere
respected, I could think of naught but this Spanish shipful of soft,
Indian gold.

“My God, Mr. Teach, I think my mind is crazed with the fierce flame of
desire that devours me night and day. For such a man as I must be mad
indeed to abandon estates, riches, and the approbation of honest men to
take the sea for gold he hath no need of.

“Yes this, God help me, is what I have done in my sloop, _Revenge_; and
I am committed, for I have taken the _Anne of Glasgow_; and the black
flag flies at my fore.”

The other documents in the last packet were a paper and a parchment tied
together.

The paper was grimly significant. In Governor Eden’s hand was written:

“This parchment, if properly translated, should indicate the precise
spot where the _Red Moon_, galley, sank in 1568.”

Under this Stede Bonnet had written his name and: “Property of Governor
Eden, who had it of the late Captain William Kidd.”

Under this was written:

“Kidd is in hell and Eden may go thither at his convenience. This
document now belongs to Wm. Teach. Let him who hath a gamecock’s gizzard
come and take it!”

* * * * *

The boy sat with mouth open staring at a specimen of that kind of Truth
which makes fiction tasteless.

Here between his own fingers he had the terrible story as told by those
who once enacted it; he actually was touching a paper which had been
touched by the reeking hands of Blackbeard!

Legendary pirates suddenly had become living creatures of to-day,
leering at him out of the lamplight, telling their frightful tales for
his ears alone,—tales of blood and gold!

Again and again as in a trance he read the tragedy,—strove to read
between the brief, grim lines, to visualise, to comprehend.

And now, trembling, the boy unfolded the parchment which, these bloody
men informed one another, contained the key to a sunken ship loaded to
the gunwales with “pure, soft, Indian gold!”