Chapter 10
Prospero’s Gold
“Good old Timor, he hasn’t
disappointed. That’s the right cave then,”
said Prospero, “Now we just have to move
it down vertically on that trajectory to the point
where it meets the high water mark and the treasure
is 20 yards from that; there. Here look Miss Bonny,
me hearty,” he slapped a hand on my shoulders.
No-one had ever called me “me hearty”
before and it felt good. No-one had ever called
Miss Bonny either; a Scotsman once called me a
“Bonny lass”, but that was hardly
the same thing.
Through the lens I could make
out the shoreline. Prospero said: “Now one
of us has to go stand on that spot where the seaweed
marks the top o’ the tide and look this
way. Now when I raises my hand it means you’re
at the point where you can walk in 20 paces due
south: that’s up the beach. You’ll
need this other telescope here. I made these purchases
in George Town from Prospero’s emergency
fund.”
I was confused. “I thought
you wanted the treasure for yourself.” I
said. Prospero looked hurt. “Where do you
get that idea? There’s more treasure than
I could ever spend in a lifetime. Anyways you
brought me here and you’re going to take
me away. We’re in this together Miss Mo
and Mr Pat, Mr Vince and Mr Badger hey?”
“And Timor,” said
Vince.
“Yes, Timor too, if he
wants it, but I’m not sure he does,”
said Prospero.
“What about our parents?”
asked Vince.
“I’m sure there’ll
be something for them too,” said Prospero.
“It’s the pirates’ way to divide
the spoils.”
He turned to Pat. “Mr Pat
are you up to making that journey to the sea shore?
By my reckoning it’s about four or five
miles up this road. Do you remember passing two
fancy beach houses on your right just after making
the turning on to the coast road? It’s on
the private beach of the farthest one just a bit
in front of some kind of summer house. You get
to that spot and walk up and down the water line
there till you sees me raise my arm.”
Pat took the scooter and we waited.
“What if Timor doesn’t
want us to dig? What if he reports us to the authorities?”
I said.
“Well we hasn’t done
anything yet and if he does tell the police he
might have to explain his own presence. I know
Timor. That’s not his way. Listen lad. Timor
isn’t perfect. He’d like to see that
treasure as much as anyone and, remember, he bears
the marks. He’s one of us.”
The human humbug with the snorkel and the breadcrumbs
had stepped out of the sea and was walking ungainly,
still wearing his flippers, towards a cabin next
to the restaurant. He tripped and fell on his
face. I walked over to the telescope. There was
still no sign of Pat, but when I looked down the
road I could trace his progress along the coast.
Within a few minutes he had reached the spot.
“Isn’t he taking
a risk? Supposing there are people at the house.”
“They’re both empty.
I already checked them out. I knew it was somewhere
near there, just wasn’t sure of the exact
spot. Now let me look through the scope. There
he is. He’s down at the water’s edge.
No he’s too far for’ard, needs to
go back.. Go back. I wishes he could hear me.
Right, right, now he’s stepping back, looking
this way, back, back, there that’s it.”
Prospero was gesticulating as
he spoke. Now he was holding his arm in the air.
“Good boy,” he said. “He’s
marking the spot with his feet. Right that’s
it, so come on.”
Prospero had hired a small white
van. He drove ahead with Badger and the shovels
and I followed with Vince on the scooter. I know
this sounds silly, given the circumstances, but
my biggest thrill on Grand Cayman to this point
was getting my chance to ride the scooter.
As soon as we reached the beach
house I felt nervous. It was very swish. “This
is private property. We can’t go in here,”
said Badger. Prospero looked at him as if he was
wrong in the head. “We’re pirates,”
he said. “Pirates don’t give a damn.
That’s why they’re pirates.”
Nervousness aside, I was with Prospero on this.
“We’ve come this
far Badger, there’s no turning back now,”
I said. Maybe there was something in this pirate
thing. I had a map and I wanted the treasure.
Pat was waiting by the gate.
“Bad news,” he said. “Come with
me.” We followed him down the side of the
house to a stand-alone gazebo on the beach. Pat
walked to the high tide mark and began pacing
due south from the mark he had made with his foot
in the sand. After eighteen paces he had reached
the edge of the gazebo. “Concrete,”
he said.
“Damn their eyes,”
said Prospero.
“Our shovels aren’t
going to be much use now,” I said. “All
those miles to find this.” In a way I was
glad. It was all nonsense anyway. I had never
really expected to find treasure and, as Timor
had said, the best part had been the journey.
Vince looked glum. So did Badger. Pat simply shrugged
his shoulders. But Prospero had a glint in his
eye. We were walking around the gazebo, kicking
the sides in the same way that used car salesmen
kick car tyres, when Timor arrived. “Do
you live here?” he said.
“See mon ami, I didn’t
need your map after all. You shouldn’t have
stood in that cave. You gave away your position
and I wasn’t sure that was the spot.”
“I wanted to know the spot as much as you
Prospero. Maybe I would like to see the treasure
after all.”
Prospero began to dance in the
sand. He threw out his arms towards Timor. “Ah
ah! I knew you’d come round to my way of
thinking. Once a pirate, always a pirate. We have
the same pirate blood you and me.”
“Prospero I don’t
want the treasure. It’s cursed. It’s
tainted. But I would like to see it.”
“Well it’s true,
there was evil deeds brought that stuff together
and that’s no good. But this is history
we’re talking about. Besides, gold is gold,”
said Prospero with a shrug.
We stepped up to a white plastic
table with chairs that had been placed in the
shade of the gazebo. Then for the very first time
in nearly 300 years the three modern day guardians
of Blackbeard’s secret prepared to reunite
the torn scraps of map. Like three gunslingers,
each waiting for another to draw first, Prospero,
Timor and me faced each other across the table.
I pulled my paper copy out first, then Prospero
added his piece of parchment and finally Timor
completed the jigsaw with another yellowing fragment.
Each of us looked at the map with expert eyes
and quiet exclamations of “Ah, now I see”.
Rum Point was on a line of sight with a small
cave, marked on Timor’s part of the map.
Timor had been standing in the cave scanning the
coast, looking for any of the rest of us. Timor’s
parchment had quite a bit of writing on it. Apart
from the instructions, I noticed that it did not
refer to the hoard as Blackbeard’s treasure
but as “Pizarro’s gold.”
Pointing to the words I asked
Timor: “What does that mean?”
“I know exactly what it
means,” said Timor, gravely. “That’s
why, in spite of everything, I’m interested
in this stuff. Have you heard of Francisco Pizarro?”
“He was the Spaniard who
found the Incas,” said Badger.
“Correct,” said Timor
who began to tell us the story. I knew parts of
it but couldn’t remember it all. Pizarro,
he reminded us, was one of the Spanish Conquistadors,
a 16th century adventurer who had been set on
finding the heart of the Inca empire in the barely
explored “new continent” of South
America. The Incas had the most powerful and advanced
society in the whole of the continent. They built
great roads and temples using techniques that
even now could not be fully explained. But they
were not liked by other tribes and, unlike the
Spanish, they did not possess guns or horses.
Pizarro had heard stories about
their great wealth and was determined to reach
the heart of the Inca kingdom. After two unsuccessful
attempts he landed at Tumbes, northern Peru, in
1532 and marched inland with 101 foot soldiers
and 67 cavalrymen. The Incas he met on the way
had allowed him to march across the Andes, the
great mountain chain of South America, to meet
their king, Atahualpa, who was waiting with his
army in the city of Cajamarca.
The Inca army was several thousand
strong and Pizarro was fearful that he and his
men were perilously exposed. Supposing the Incas
turned hostile? He decided on a plan to ambush
Atahualpa in the main square and asked him for
a meeting. Before the seated king was carried
shoulder high into the square for the meeting,
Pizarro had placed some of his men in hiding.
At a given signal the Spaniards fell on the unarmed
retinue around the king, slaughtering hundreds,
maybe thousands of them and capturing the king
as a hostage.
The next part of the story, said
Timor, only underlined the wickedness of Pizarro’s
actions. As a ransom, he asked the Incas to fill
a whole room with gold and silver. The room, some
22ft by 17ft and 9ft high, was filled from floor
to ceiling with precious artefacts brought from
across the kingdom. Then, after the Incas had
complied with his request, Pizarro had Atahualpa
strangled.
“It was the darkest deed
ever to have stained that great continent,”
said Timor. “Not only that, but it denied
historians much of the evidence of Inca culture
since most of the gold and silver was melted down
for bullion.
“But not all of it,”
said Timor.
“Pizarro picked out some
of the choicest pieces for himself and kept them
with him during those dark days of conflict. Pizarro
and his brothers had to fight with their own kind
to maintain their power. The treasure brought
them no happiness. Pizarro was murdered by supporters
of a rival commander and one of his brothers was
beheaded. Some thought there was a curse on the
treasure.
“The Inca treasures were
thought to have been lost or melted down like
the rest of the gold. Few people know this - it
was a closely guarded family secret - but some
of the treasure, said to include the finest pieces,
was retained within Pizarro’s family and
nearly 200 years later it was put on a ship in
Venezuela heading for Spain. But the ship was
captured and looted by Blackbeard’s crew.
They say this was the finest treasure hoard ever
seized by a pirate and Blackbeard supervised its
burial.”
Prospero added some details.
“According to Israel Hands - this story
was told to me by my father and he heard it from
his father - Blackbeard took two of the crew to
carry the chest but neither of the men returned
with him. It was a rum job all right.”
He paused for a moment, looking
thoughtful. “I wouldn’t want to be
here at night. Too many pirate ghosts for my liking.”
Vince began to cry. “I’m
scared,” he said. “I don’t like
ghosts and I don’t like this place. I want
my sniggly. I want to go home.”
None of us said anything but
I know that we were thinking the same things.
The sea itself seemed to have quitened. Not a
bird cried. No-one spoke and nothing stirred.
Timor’s voice shattered the silence as powerfully
as any thunderclap. “Let’s go,”
he said.
“What?” said Prospero. “Brother
you cannot be serious. I didn’t come all
this way….”
“And how do you propose
to dig under the concrete?” asked Timor.
Prospero scowled and grumbled and stamped his
feet. But came along after the rest of us. Our
treasure fever had subsided. Timor was right.
The gold was tainted by greed and the lust for
power and riches. Suddenly I wanted an ordinary
holiday like other people, sitting in deck chairs,
doing crosswords and eating ice creams. We turned
our backs on the gazebo and walked to the scooters
and the van.
“Did you enjoy the town?”
said mum when we got back to the boat. We had
parked the scooters out of sight.
“Yes mum.” I nudged
Vince in the ribs before he opened his mouth.
Uncle Bob had bought a disposable barbecue and
that evening we had steak and rice, sitting in
the Endeavour’s cockpit. I don’t think
I was the only one feeling guilty about our secret.
A secret as big as this one was a mighty burden
and I knew Vince would not be able to keep it
forever. It was hard enough for me. In fact at
one stage in the meal Vince had said “Pass
me the treasure, I mean pepper,” before
putting his hand over his mouth.
“So what have you kids
been doing,” said Uncle Bob.
“Looking for pirate treasure,”
said Badger. Vince almost choked on his rice.
After all, that was supposed to be his line.
“Oh that’s a good
idea,” said Bob. “I bet there’s
lots of treasure in a place like this. You should
get one of those metal detectors. Better still,
take Prospero or Timor. I’m sure they know
where the best treasure spots are. Isn’t
that right Timor?”
“Of course,” said
Timor.
Prospero was on the jetty, walking
towards us - late as always - when Bob spoke.
“Isn’t that right Prospero? You know
where all the treasure is I’m sure.”
“That’s right skipper,”
said Prospero looking puzzled.
“Pieces of eight,”
said Faustus and in a flurry of feathers and flapping
wings he left his perch, flying swiftly across
the harbour and out of sight.
“I didn’t know that
bird could fly,” said Bob.
Prospero looked even more worried.
“I don’t like it when he flies. Sometimes
he’s away for days, weeks even. Why I’ve
known him disappear for months.”
“Well I hope he’s
back before we go,” said Bob. “We’ve
been talking over things and we don’t want
to stay here more than another two or three days.”
We all exchanged looks of varying
types and meaning which only led to a further
questioning exchange of looks from the adults.
It was like grammatical spaghetti: a tooing and
frowing of exclamations, questions and full stops,
flavoured by quizzical eyebrows and frowns. Prospero
coughed heavily and studied the pattern of the
tablecloth. Only Timor sat impassively and stared
out across the harbour.
That night I was talking to Pat
outside our cabins. I couldn’t help feeling
disappointed. “All this way Pat, all those
stories, and nothing to show for it,” I
said.
“Well I don’t know
about that Mo. We’ve made two great friends.”
“Yes, that’s true
enough.”
“And you’ve become
a pirate.”
“So they say.”
“And you’ve fallen
in and out of love.”
“Shut up. That’s
rubbish.”
“Shortest romance since
that bloke and that woman in Brief Encounter.”
“I wonder if that treasure
really is there. I’d love to know. It seems
a shame to have come all this way to find a gazebo.”
I slept until eight the next
morning when a shaft of sunlight filtered through
the hatch above my bunk and stung my eyes beneath
their lids. I awoke to find a note on the sleeping
bag hood in front of my nose. In childlike writing
it read: If you wants to be in on the dig dear
Bonny, then meet me at the gazebo at 8 am. Prospero.
Pat was already out of his bunk.
Meeting him in the gangway I showed him the note.
“We’d better get
there,” he said. He roused Badger and Vince
and I went through to the galley where dad was
frying some bacon. He couldn’t believe we
wanted to leave so early without breakfast.
“I have never known you
pass up a bacon sandwich,” he said. “I
thought we might all go on the beach together
today. Why are you in such a hurry to get away?
“This afternoon,”
I said. “We just want to go for a walk,
looking for treasure, playing pirates, that sort
of thing. We’ll be back for lunch.”
Dad insisted we took some bacon sandwiches with
us.
We bolted the sandwiches on the
way down the pier to where we had parked the scooters.
I won the toss this time and Badger had to ride
on the pillion.
“You’re steering’s pathetic,”
he shouted over my shoulder. My first attempt
at scooter riding was pretty erratic, I must admit.
It was just as well that there was little traffic
on the road. We were nearly at the north shore
when another scooter pulled alongside us. It was
Timor, his denim shirt flapping and blond top
knot streaming behind him in the breeze.
“You’re not doing
this without me,” he said.
I knew something was odd when
we reached the beach house. We skidded to a halt
at looked at the driveway. The sand by the side
of the house was deeply ridged by a set of large
tyre tracks. From the beach I heard a low throaty
revving noise followed by the crumbling of masonry
and cracking of wood. Something was causing some
serious damage. We followed the noise to the beach
at the sea-facing front of the house. Prospero
was sitting in the cab of a large yellow mechanical
excavator. He was wearing matching yellow ear
protectors. I made eye contact and signalled him
to stop the engine. “What are you doing?”
“Prospecting.”
“I can’t believe
this,” said Timor, surveying the destruction.
Splintered wood, concrete, glass and plastic were
strewn across the sand. “But he’s
doing the right thing. That gazebo shouldn’t
ever have been allowed on such an unspoilt stretch
of coastline. The houses should go too.”
There was more crashing as the
whole structure collapsed. We sat on the white
sand, dumstruck spectators, watching as Prospero
began to break up the concrete base with a hydraulic
hammer punch. Within an hour he was down to hard
sand and the gazebo and its foundations had been
reduced to a neat pile of rubble alongside the
plot on which it had been built. The digger began
to go deeper.
“Careful here,” I
said, gesturing to Prospero with my hand.
Pat was standing a yard away
from me. A mechanical shovel full of sand was
emptied in front of him and a round dirty ivory
object rolled between his splayed sandled feet.
He bent down and picked it up, gingerly, before
brandishing the find towards the rest of us.
“Alas poor Yorrick I knew
him well,” he said.
Cupped in both hands, face outwards,
he held a bleached skull with grinning and teeth.
Its hollowed eye sockets were so dark you felt
that if you looked into them you would discover
some terrible secret. Vince shrieked and covered
his eyes.
Timor thumped his hand on the
yellow plated side of the digger and Prospero
switched off the engine. “What’s up?”
he asked.
“I think we should use
the shovels now for a while,” said Timor.
A few minutes of digging and
the older boys began to make other finds: human
bones – ribs, a femur, a tibia. Pat’s
newly emerging dark sense of humour began to take
a grip of his senses.
“Dem bones, dem bones,
dem dry bones, dem bones are gonna rise!”
“The knee bone connected
to the leg bone… Ow…....” he
screamed as I connected my toe bone to Pat’s
shin bone.
“Shut up will you, your
little brother is terrified,” I said.
Badger was sheltering a shaking
Vince nearby but I could see each new discovery.
An hour later we had unearthed almost two complete
skeletons. One of them had been lying with a cutlass
poking out of its ribs. We also found the rusty
remains of a flintlock pistol.
“I wonder what happened
to them?” said Vince who seemed to have
got over his earlier fright.
“If it’s who I think
it is, they’re both poor victims of old
Blackbeard’s ruthlessness. I bet these were
the men who helped him bury the chest. Dead men
tell no tales,” said Prospero.
“Then what’s this?”
said Pat as his shovel hit something hard. He
reached down to the object, smoothing sand away,
exposing another skull.
“Three skeletons,”
he said.
“Let’s go more carefully
now,” said Timor.
We started to scoop away the
sand with our hands. It was painstaking work but
the scene we began to unearth told its own story.
There was a chest, its outline was plain to see,
and over the chest was draped the third skeleton.
Its hand was close to the clasp of the chest.
Prospero held up one of its bony fingers.
“Timor,” he said,
in a shocked tone. “Who do we know with
a doubloon ring?”
There on the middle finger of
the left hand was a gold ring on which had been
mounted a single doubloon.
“It’s our pappy,”
wailed Prospero, slumping to his knees.
“He’d looked for
this treasure chest all his life,” he sobbed,
“And he found it.”
No-one moved for some time as
our companions came to terms with the grim discovery.
I felt numb, neither moved nor excited. I tried
not to look at the skeletal remains piled in the
sand. They were giving me the heeby jeebies, particularly
since we had been sort of introduced to one of
them.
“I want to go home,”
said Vince.
“Not again,” said Pat.
Timor was the first to regain
his composure. “Look,” he said, a
few minutes later, rubbing sand away from the
chest. “It’s gold. Solid gold. The
chest is gold Prospero. Did you ever in all your
life see anything like this?” The box gleamed
gloriously in the morning sunlight.
Pat whistled. Prospero was looking
crestfallen. The discovery of their father had
hit him hard.
“I wonder how he died?”
he said.
We moved the third set of bones
carefully, then began to wash the damp sand off
the box with seawater we brought in relays using
cupped hands until its external patterning was
fully exposed. The chest was about three feet
long by about two feet wide and two feet deep.
It was in excellent condition because of gold’s
resilience to the elements which would have rotted
wood and rusted iron. On its sides and lid there
were intricate engravings and some writing that
I could not read.
One engraving on the lid made
the hair on my neck stand on end. It was the horned-skeleton
with the glass and spear and heart. The skull
looked as if it was grinning up at me. The clasp
had no lock. Everyone by now was leaning over
the depression we had created in the sand. I put
my fingers on the clasp and began to tug.
“Shall I lift it,”
I asked. “Do you want to see inside?”
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