The Island Treasure

The Island Treasure, by John
Conroy Hutcheson

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Title: The Island Treasure
Author: John Conroy Hutcheson
Illustrator: W S Stacey
Release Date: October 21, 2007 [EBook #23141]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE
ISLAND TREASURE ***

Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England

The Island Treasure
or The Black Man's Ghost

by John Conroy Hutcheson.
CHAPTER ONE.
OFF THE TUSKAR LIGHT.
"All hands take in sail!"
"Stand by y'r tops'l halliards!"
"Let go!"
Sharply shouted out in quick succession came these orders from
Captain Snaggs, the hoarse words of command ringing through the ship
fore and aft, and making even the ringbolts in the deck jingle--albeit
they were uttered in a sort of drawling voice, that had a strong nasal
twang, as if the skipper made as much use of his nose as of his mouth
in speaking. This impression his thin and, now, tightly compressed lips
tended to confirm; while his hard, angular features and long, pointed,
sallow face, closely shaven, saving as to the projecting chin, which a
sandy-coloured billy-goat beard made project all the more, gave him
the appearance of a man who had a will of his own, aye, and a temper
of his own, too, should anyone attempt to smooth him down the wrong
way, or, in sea parlance, "run foul of his hawse!"
Captain Snaggs did not look particularly amiable at the present
moment.
Standing by the break of the poop, with his lean, lanky body half bent
over the rail, he was keeping one eye out to windward, whence he had
just caught sight in time of the coming squall, looking down below the
while at the hands in the waist jumping briskly to their stations and
casting off the halliards with a will, almost before the last echo of his
shout `let go!' had ceased to roar in their ears; and yet the captain's gaze
seemed to gleam beyond these, over their heads and away forwards, to
where Jan Steenbock, the second-mate, a dark-haired Dane, was
engaged rousing out the port watch, banging away at the fo'c's'le
hatchway and likewise shouting, in feeble imitation of the skipper's

roar,--
"All ha-ands, ahoy! Doomble oop, my mans, and take in ze sail!
Doomble oop!"
But the men, who had only been relieved a short time before by the
starboard watch, and had gone below for their dinner when `eight bells'
were struck, seemed rather loth at turning out again so soon for duty,
the more especially as their caterer had just brought from the cook's
galley the mess kid, full of some savoury compound, the appetising
odour of which filled the air, and, being wafted upwards from below,
made even the swarthy second-mate feel hungry, as he peered down the
hatchway and called out to the laggards to come on deck.
"It vas goot, ja," murmured Jan Steenbock to himself, wiping his
watering mouth with the back of his jacket sleeve and sniffing up a
prolonged sniff of the odorous stew. "It vas goot, ja, and hart to leaf ze
groob; but ze sheeps cannot wait, my mans; zo doomble oop dere!
Doomble oop!"
Captain Snaggs, however, his watchful weather eye and quick
intelligence taking in everything at a glance, liked the second-mate's
slowness of speech and action as little as he relished the men's evident
reluctance at hurrying up again on deck; for, although barely a second
or two had elapsed from his first order to the crew, he grew as angry as
if it had been a "month of Sundays," his sallow face flushing with red
streaks and his sandy billy-goat beard bristling like wire, every hair on
end, just as a cat's tail swells at the sight of a strange dog in its
immediate vicinity when it puts up its back.
"Avast thaar, ye durned fule!" he screamed in his passion, dancing
about the poop and bringing his fist down with a resounding thump on
the brass rail, as if the inanimate material represented for the nonce the
back of the mate, whom he longed to belabour. "Guess one'd think ye
wer coaxin' a lot o' wummen folk to come to a prayer-meetin'! Why
don't ye go down in the fo'c's'le an' drive 'em up, if they won't come on
deck when they're hailed? Below thaar, d'ye haar?--all hands reef
tops'ls!"

This shout, which the captain yelled out in a voice of thunder, finally
fetched the dawdlers on