Pirate Gold | Page 5

thousand eight hundred and ninety-seven dollars."
"Pirates!" he muttered; "it's a new account for us to carry. I'll not be sorry the day we write it off."
Bowdoin, in the frivolity of youth, laughed.
"And now," said McMurtagh, "you must tie up the bag again and seal it, and I must take it up and put it in the vault of the bank."
"And the little girl?" asked Bowdoin. "We can hardly carry her upon the books."
"For the benefit of whom it may concern," said the clerk absently.
Bowdoin laughed again.
McMurtagh looked at her and gasped, but this time silently. She had clambered down from the stool, and was gazing with delight at the old pictures of the ships; but, as if she understood that she was being talked about, she turned around and looked at them with large round eyes.
"What is your name?" said he; and then, "Como se llama V.?" (for we all knew a little Spanish in those days.)
"Mercedes," said the child.
"I suppose," ventured Bowdoin, "there is some asylum"--
McMurtagh looked dubious; and the little maid, divining that the discussion of her was unfavorable, fell to tears, and then ran up and dried them on McMurtagh's business waistcoat.
"You take the gold," said he dryly; "I'll carry the child myself."
"Where?" inquired young Bowdoin, astonished.
"Home," said McMurtagh sharply.
McMurtagh was known to have an old mother and a bedridden father (a retired drayman, run over in the service of the firm), whom he lived with, and with some difficulty supported. Yet little could be said against the plan, as a temporary arrangement, if they were willing to assume the burden. At all events, before Mr. James could find speech for objection, McMurtagh was off with the child in his arms, seeking to soothe her with uncouth words of endearment as he bore her carefully down the narrow stairs.
James Bowdoin laughed a little, and then grew silent. Finally, his glance falling on the yellow piles still lying on the floor, he shoveled them into the bag again and shouldered it up to the bank. There the deposit of specie was duly made, the money put in the old chest and sealed, and he learned that the pirates had been committed to stand their trial. And he and his father talked it over, and decided that the child might as well stay with McMurtagh, for the present at any rate.
But that "present" was long in passing; for the pirates were duly tried, and all but one of them found guilty, sentenced to be hanged, and duly executed on an island in the harbor. There were no sentimentalists about in those days; and their gibbets were erected in the sand of that harbor island, and their bodies swung for many days (as these same sentimentalists might now put it) near the sea they had loved so well; being a due encouragement to other pirates to leave Boston ships alone. Pity the town has not kept up those tactics with its railways!
All the common seamen were executed, that is, and Manuel Silva, the second in command, who had left the little girl with McMurtagh. The captain, it was proved, had been polite to his two lady captives: the men safely disposed of, he had placed the best cabin at their command, and had even gone so far out of his way as to head the ship toward Boston, on their behalf; promising to place them on board some fishing-smack, not too far out. Silva had not agreed to this, and it had led to something like a mutiny on the part of the crew. It was owing to this, doubtless, that they were captured. De Soto, it was known, was a married man; moreover, he was new in command, and not used to pirate ways.
However, this conduct was deemed courteous by the administration at Washington, and, feminine influence being always potent with Andrew Jackson, De Soto's sentence was commuted to imprisonment for life; and shortly after, being taken to a quiet little country prison, he made interest with the jailer and escaped. It was reported that he shipped upon an African trader; and, going down the harbor past the figure of Manuel Silva elegantly outlined against the sky, he bowed sardonically to the swaying schema of his ancient messmate. It excited some little comment on the African trader at the time; but the usual professional esprit de corps keeps sailors from asking too many questions about the intimate professional conduct of their messmates in earlier voyages.
But that is why De Soto made no draft upon the credit side of his account at the Old Colony Bank; and James Bowdoin's Sons continued to carry the deposit on their books "for the benefit of whom it may concern." And so McMurtagh, who had taken little Mercedes Silva home that day, continued to