The Home-Coming of Captain Dan

For a story of exact fact, I think that this is just about as extraordinary as a professional storyteller could desire. It concerns the treasure of Captain Dan, known in his youth as merely Dan, in the village of Geddley on the South Coast.

With the youth of Captain Dan, which occurred—if I may so phrase it—prior to 1737, I have nothing to tell, except that, being “wild like”, and certainly lacking in worldly “plenishings”, he was no credit to the respectability of that quiet seaport village.

In consequence of this double stigma of commission and omission, he went away to sea, taking his wildness and his poverty along with him; on which it is conceivable that the respectable matrons and maidens of Geddley sighed, though, possibly, with somewhat different feelings.

There you have the whole tale of Dan’s youth in a few words; that is, so far as Geddley is concerned.

Twenty years later he returned, with an ancient and ugly scar from right eyebrow to chin, and two enormous iron-bound chests, whose weight was vouched for by the men he hired to carry them to the old Tunbelly Hostel, that same Tunbelly Inn being fronted on the old High Street Alley, which has been done away this twenty years and more.

Now, if young Dan had lacked of friends and kindliness in his wild and youthful days of poverty, the returned Captain Dan had no cause for complaint on such score.

For no sooner had he declared his name and ancient kinship to the village than there were a dozen to remember him and shake him by the hand in token of those older days, when—as they seemed strangely to forget—there had been no such general desire to grip hands and invite him to sundries of that which both cheers and inebriates.

Yet, at the first of it, there seemed to be every reason to suppose that Captain Dan had forgotten the slights and disrespect that had been put upon the one-time Dan; for he accepted both the hands and the liquors that were offered to him; and these, I need scarcely say, were not stinted when word of those weighty iron-bound chests had gone through the little port; for there was scarcely a man who could refrain from calling in the Tunbelly to welcome “Old Dan, coom back agen. Cap’n Dan, sir, beggin’ your pardin!”

As that first evening of warm welcoming of the returned and now respectable citizen of Geddley wore onward, Cap’n Dan warmed to the good liquor that came so plentiful and freely, and insisted on dancing a hornpipe upon the bar-table. At the conclusion of the warm applause which followed this feat, he declared his intention of showing them that Cap’n Dan was as good as the best— “ ’S good asser besht,” he assured the bar-room generally a great many times; and finally shouted to some of them to bring in his two great chests, which was done without argument or delay, a thing, perhaps, easy to understand.

They were set in the middle of the floor, and all the men in the room crowded round, with their beer-mugs, to watch. But at this point, Cap’n Dan proved he was quite uncomfortably sober; for he ordered every man to stand back, enforcing his suggestion with a big, brass-mounted pistol, which he brought very suddenly out of a long pocket in the skirts of his heavy coat.

Having assured himself of a clear space all around his precious chests, Cap’n Dan pocketed the big, brass-mounted pistol, and pulled out a big snuffbox from which he took ample refreshment. He then dug in amid the snuff with one great, powder-blackened forefinger, and presently brought to view two smallish keys. He replaced the snuffbox in his vest pocket, and set the keys against the side of his big nose, exclaiming, with a kind of half-drunken knowingness, in French:

“Tenons de la verge d’une ancre!” which most of those present understood, being sailormen and in the free-trade, to mean literally the “nuts of the anchor”; but used at that time as a marine catch-phrase, as much as to say, “the key of the situation”; though often used also in a coarser manner.

“Tout le monde a son poste!” he shouted, with a tipsy laugh; and turned to unlock the nearer chest.

There were two great locks on each chest, and a separate key was used for each and the interest was quite undoubted as the cap’n turned back the bolts and lifted the lid of the chest. Upon the top of all there were four long wooden cases containing charts. These he lifted out, and put with surprising care upon the floor. Afterwards there came a quadrant, wrapped in an old pair of knee-breeches; then a compass similarly wrapped in an old body vest. Both of these he put down upon the four chart-cases with quite paternal tenderness.

He reached again into the chest, lurching, and hove out onto the floor a pile of heavily braided uniforms, a pair of great sea boots with iron leg-guards stitched in on each side of the tops, a big Navy cutlass, and two heavy Malay knives without sheaths. And all the time, as he ladled out these somewhat “tarry” treasures, there was no sound in the big, low-ceilinged room, except the heavy breathings of the interested menfolk of Geddley.

Cap’n Dan stood up, wiped his forehead briefly with the back of his hand, and stooped again into the chest, seeming to be fumbling round for something, for the sound of his rough hands going over the wooden inside of the chest was plain to be heard.

Presently he gave a satisfied little grunt, and immediately afterwards there was a sharp click, which, as the landlord of the Tunbelly told certain of his special cronies afterwards, was a sure sign of there “Bein’ a secret lock-fast” within the chest. Be this as it may: the next instant Captain Dan pulled a thick wooden cover or partition, bolted with flat iron bands, out of the chest, and hove it with a crash onto the floor. There he stooped, and began to make plain to the men of Geddley the very good and sufficient reason for the immense weight of the two great chests; for he brought out a canvas bag about the size of a man’s head, which he dropped with a dull, ringing thud onto the floor. Five more of these he brought out, and threw beside the first; and all the time no sound, save the breathing of the onlookers and an occasional hoarse whisper of excited suggestion.

Cap’n Dan stood up as he threw the sixth bag upon the others, and signed dumbly for his brandy-mug, with the result that he had half a score offered to him, as we say in these days, gratis. He took the first, and drained it; then threw it across the room, where it smashed against the far wall. Yet this provoked no adverse comment even from the fat landlord of the Tunbelly; for those six bulging, heavy bags on the floor stood sponsors for many mugs, and, it is to be supposed, the contents thereof.

It will be the more easily understood that no one bothered to remark upon Cap’n Dan’s method of disposing of his crockeryware when you realise that the captain had squatted down upon the floor beside his bags, and was beginning to unlash the neck of one. There was not a sound in the room as he took off the last turn of spunyarn stopper; for each man of Geddley held his breath with suspense and expectation. Then Cap’n Dan, with a quite admirable unconcern, capsized the bag upside-down upon the floor, and cascaded out a heap of coins that shone with a dull golden glitter.

There went a gasp of astonishment, echoing from man to man round the room, and then a chorus of hoarse exclamations, for no man here had ever seen quite so much gold at one time in his life. Yet Cap’n Dan took no heed, but, with a half-drunken soberness, proceeded to unlash the necks of the five other bags, and to empty them likewise upon the contents of the first.

And by the time that the gold from the sixth bag had been added to the heap the silence of the men of Geddley was a stunned and bitter and avaricious silence, broken at last by the fat landlord of the Tunbelly, who, with a nice presence of mind, came forward with the brandy-keg under his arm, and a generous-sized beer mug, which was surely a fit spirit measure for the owner of so prodigious a fortune.

Cap’n Dan was less appreciative of this tender thoughtfulness than might have been supposed, for, with a mixed vocabulary of forceful words, chosen discriminately from the French and English, he intimated that the landlord of the Tunbelly should retire, possibly with all the honours of war, but certainly with speed.

And, as the stout proprietor of the Tunbelly apparently failed to grasp the full and imperative necessity of speed, Cap’n Dan plucked his big brass-mounted pistol from the floor beside him, and let drive into the brandy-keg which reposed, as you know, under the well-intending arm of the fat Drinquobier, this being, as you may as well learn here, the landlord’s name. The bullet drove through the little keg, and blew out the hither end, wasting a deal of good liquor, and scored the head of Long John of Kenworth, who came suddenly to a state of fluency, but was unheeded by the majority of the men of Geddley, who were gathered round the stout landlord of the Tunbelly, where he lay like a mountain of flesh upon the floor of the taproom, shouting at the top of his fat and husky voice that he was shot, and shot dead at that—which seemed to impress his customers with a conviction of truth.

But as for Cap’n Dan, he sat calmly upon the floor beside his heap of gold coinage, and began unemotionally to shovel it back into the six canvas bags, lashing each one securely, as it was filled. Presently, still unheeding of the death-cries of the very much alive landlord, he rose slowly to his feet, and began to replace the gold in the big chest, replying to Long John of Kenworth’s rendering of the Commination Service merely by drawing forth a second heavy pistol, and laying it ready to his hand across a corner of the chest.

In course of time, the fat landlord having discovered that he still breathed, and Long John of Kenworth having considered discreetly the possibilities of that second pistol, there was a period of comparative quiet once more in the big taproom, during which Cap’n Dan methodically completed his re-storage of his goods in the chest, and presently locked it securely with the two keys.

When this was finally achieved, a sudden silence of renewed interest came down upon the men of Geddley as the captain proceeded to unlock the second chest, which, though, somewhat smaller than the other, was yet considerably the heavier.

Cap’n Dan lifted back the ponderous lid, and there, displayed to view, was the picture of an enormous skull, worked in white silk on a background of black bunting. It was evident that the captain had forgotten, in his half-drunken state, that this lay uppermost in the chest; for he made now a hurried and clumsy movement to turn back the folds of the flag upon itself so as to hide the emblem, which was uncomfortably familiar in that day. Yet that the men of Geddley had seen was obvious, for there came a general cry from the mariners present, some of whom had been privateersmen and worse, of “The Jolly Roger! The Jolly Roger!”

Cap’n Dan stood a moment in a seeming stupid silence, with the flag all bunched together in his hand; then suddenly he turned, and flirted it out wide across the floor, so that the skull and the crossed bones, surmounted by a big D, showed plain. Underneath the D there was worked an hour-glass in red wool. The men of Geddley crowded round, handling the flag, and criticising the designs with something of the eyes of experts; some of them, and notably Long John of Kenworth, saying that it was no proper Jolly Roger, seeing that it held no battleaxe.

And on this a general and forceful discussion ensued, which ended in a physical demonstration of their views on the part of Long John of Kenworth, and a square, heavy privateersman, during which Cap’n Dan hauled the flag out of the midst of the discussion, and began to bundle it back into the chest, which he did so clumsily that he disturbed a layer of underclothing which covered the lower contents, and, displayed to view that the chest was nearly two-thirds full of smashed and defaced gold and silver work of every description, from the gold hilts of swords and daggers, to the crumpled golden binding of some great Bible, showing burst jewel-sockets from which precious stones had been roughly prised.

At sight of all this new treasure, the value of which was plainly enormous, a great silence came upon the room, broken only by the scuffling and grunting of the two who were setting forth their arguments upon the floor of the taproom. So marked was this silence that even these two at last became aware of something fresh, and scrambled to their feet to participate. And they, also, joined in the general hush of astonished awe and avarice and, what cannot be denied, renewed and intense respect for this further proof of the desirable worth of the returned citizen of Geddley.

And the cap’n, realising in his half-drunken pride the magnitude of the sensation he bad created, and the supremeness of the homage that he had won, shut down the lid of the chest and locked it with the two keys, which he afterwards returned to the snuffbox, bedding them well down into the snuff, and shutting the box with a loud snap, after he had once more refreshed his nose sufficiently.

“Be you not goin’ to turn out t’other, cap’n?” asked Long John of Kenworth, in a marvellously courteous voice—that is, considering the man.

“Non,” said Captain Dan, with that brevity of courtesy so admired in the wealthy; for it is likely enough that the wealth contained in those two great chests was sufficient to have bought up the whole of the port of Geddley, and a good slice of the country round about it, lock, stock, and barrel, as the saying goes.

Now, when the captain had so wittily described his intention, he pulled out a small powder-flask from his side pocket, and proceeded, in a considerable silence, to recharge the fired pistol, which he did with a quite peculiar dexterity, speaking of immense practice, and this despite his half-drunken condition. When he had finished ramming down a couple of soft-lead bullets upon the charge of powder, he primed the lock, replaced the flask, and announced his intention of turning in—i.e., going to bed—which he achieved with remarkable speed by dragging the two chests together in the middle of the tap-room, and using them as a couch, with his rolled-up coat as a pillow; and so in a moment he composed himself with a grunt, his loaded pistols stuffed in under the coat, and his great right hand resting on the butts.

And so he seemed to be instantly asleep. Yet it is a curious thing that once when Long John stepped over towards him, after a bout of whispering with several of the men in the room, Cap’n Dan opened one bleary eye, and, without undue haste, thrust out one of his big pistols in an indifferent manner at the body of Long John, whereat that gentleman stepped back without even attempting to enter into any argument on the score of intention.

After this little episode, the cap’n once more returned to his peculiar mode of slumbering; but there was no longer any whispering on the part of Long John of Kenworth and his mates. Instead, a quite uncomfortable silence obtained an unwonted permission in the taproom broken presently by the departing feet of this man and that man, until the place was empty, save for the fat landlord, who leaned against the great beer-tub and regarded the sleeping captain in a meditative and puzzled fashion.

The landlord’s pondering was interrupted disagreeably; for slowly one of the sleeping captain’s eyes opened, and a curiously disturbing look was fixed upon the fat landlord for the space of perhaps a full minute. Then Captain Dan extended a great hand towards the landlord, and in the hand was one of his big, brass-bound pistols, the muzzle towards Master Drinquobier. For a little space the captain directed the pistol thus, whilst the landlord shrivelled visibly in a queer, speechless fashion.

“Tenons de la verge d’une ancre!” said Captain Dan, even as he had said it once before that evening.

He tapped the pistol with his other hand to emphasise the remark, and sat on the bigger chest, still looking at the landlord.

“So,” he said at last, speaking in English, “you’re thinkin’ to go halves with Long John o’ Kenworth, ye gowk Tunbelly. You ’m waitin’ now, beer-hog, to give them the signal; to enter when I’m gone over, ye soft; an’ think to fool Dan easyways; an’ I knowin’ what ye meant, an’ they only without in enter-porch, ye fat fool! Out with you, smartly! Out, I say!”

And therewith he flung the loaded pistol at the landlord’s head; but he dodged, quite cleverly, for so fat a man, and the weapon exploded against the wall with a great crash of sound; whilst the landlord ran heavily for the door, tore it open, and fell headlong out into the passageway, whilst within the empty taproom the captain sat on the chest and shook with a kind of grim laughter.

Presently he rose from the chest, after he had heard the landlord go scrambling away in clumsy fright upon his hands and knees. He stood a few minutes, listening intently; then, seeming to hear something, he ran with surprising nimbleness to the door, pushed it silently to, and set down the socket-bar across from side to side, so that the door would have to be broken down before anyone could enter. Then he bent forward to listen, and in a little while heard the faint sound of bare feet without in the passage; and soon a soft, gentle fumbling at the door.

“Depasser!” he shouted, roaring with a kind of half-laughter, half-anger. Then, in English: “You’ve overrun your reckoning, my lads! Get below and turn in!”

And, with the word, he turned unconcernedly from the door and went back to his rough couch, and presently was sleeping unemotionally, whilst without the door the men, who had come with some hope of surprising him, departed with muffled but considerable fluency, and an unabated avarice.

And thus, and in this manner exactly, was the home-coming of Captain Dan, pirate (presumably), and now (certainly) a most desirable citizen of the port of Geddley.

Captain Dan waked early, and rolled off his uncomfortable bed. He walked across to the shelf where the brandy kegs were stored, and helped himself to a generous tot; after which he went over to the door, unbarred it and opened it, and bellowed the landlord’s name, calling him also old Tunbelly and beer-hog, and cursing him between whiles in both French and English, until he came tumbling clown the creaking stair in a very fluster of dismay.

Breakfast, was Cap’n Dan’s demand. Breakfast, and speedily and plentifully, and if the maids were not up yet, then it was time they turned out, and old Tunbelly could prepare the meal himself and serve it to him in the taproom, upon one of his big chests. Meanwhile, he applied himself methodically to the brandy keg, varying his occupation with occasional bellows through the quiet of the inn for the meal he had ordered.

It came presently, and he squatted sideways upon the narrow chest and set to work. As he ate, he asked the landlord questions about this and that woman of the port, who—when he had gone off to sea all these twenty years gone—had been saucy maids, but now were mostly mothers of families, if he could believe all the fat Drinquobier told him.

“Eh,” said Cap’n Dan, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, “there was some saucy ones among the lot when I was a younker. An’ how’s young Nancy Drigg doin’?”

“She be Nancy Garbitt these thirteen year, Cap’n Dan, sir,” said the landlord.

Whereat the, captain ceased his eating a moment to hark the better.

“Eh?” he said, in a curious voice at last. “Married that top-o’-my-thumb Jimmy Garbitt? Dieu, but I’ll cut the throat of him this same day! The sacred man-sprat! The blandered bunch o’ shakin’s!”

“He’m dead these yere two years, cap’n,” said Drinquobier, staring hard at Captain Dan with half-frightened and wholly curious eyes. “I heerd oncst ’s ye as sweet-ways on Nancy. No offence! No offence, cap’n! Seven, Jimmy left be’ind, an’ all on ’em maids at that.”

“What!” cried Captain Dan, with a sudden strange anger, and threw his brandy mug at the landlord’s head.

But afterwards he was silent for a time, neither eating nor speaking, only frowning away to himself.

“An’ Nancy Drigg herself!” he asked, at length. “How ’m she lookin’ these days, ye old Tunbelly? Seven on ’em! Seven on ’em, an’ to that blundering bunch o’ shakin’s! Why don’t ye answer, you bilge-guzzlin’ beer-cask! Open your face, ye— ye—”

“Fair, cap’n, sir; fair an’ bonny like, Cap’n Dan,” old Drinquobier interjected, with frightened haste; his frontal appendage quivering like a vast jelly, until the form shook on which he sat.

“Ah!” said the captain, and was quiet again; but a minute afterwards he made it pointedly clear to the landlord that he needed a timber-sled to be outside of the inn, speedily. “An’ half a dozen of thy loafer lads, Tunbelly, do ye hear! An’ smart, or I’ll put more than beer betwixt thy wind and water, ye old cut-throat, that must set a respectable townsman to sleep with his pistols to hand all the long night in this inn of yours lest ye an’ your louts do him a mischief! Smartly, ye beer-swiller, wi’ yon sled, an’ smartly does it, or I’ll be knowin’ the why!”

And evidently smartly did do it, as we say; for in a very few minutes Captain Dan was superintending, pistol in hand, the transferring of his two great chests to the sled, by the hands of a dozen brawny longshore men who had been fished out of various handy sleeping places by the fearful landlord.

Cap’n Dan sat himself down upon his chests, and signalled to the horse-boy to drive on. But, as he started to move, the fat landlord discovered, somewhere in his monstrous body, the remnant of a one-time courage, and came forward towards the sled, crying out that he would be paid for liquor, bed, and board.

At this Cap’n Dan raised one of his pistols; evidently with the full intention of ending, once and for all, the entire agitation of the landlord’s avaricious soul. But, suddenly thinking better of it, he drew out a couple of guineas, which he hove in among the little crowd of shore-boys, shouting to them to get their fill of good beer to the hatchways, and the change might go to pay his debts to Drinquobier. He did this knowing full well that no change would the landlord ever see out of those two guineas; and so sat back, roaring with laughter, and shouting to the horse-boy to “Crack on sail an’ blow the sticks out o’ her!” Which resulted in the lad laying his cudgel repeatedly and forcibly across the hindquarters of the animal, which again resulted in the beast changing its walk to a kind of absurd amble, which in its turn resulted in the sled bounding and bumping along down the atrociously paved street dignified by the name of the High Street Alley, so that the last the group around the doorway of the Tunbelly saw was the broad, heavy figure of Cap’n Dan jolting and rolling on the top of his great chests, and trying to take aim at the horse-boy with one of his big brass-bound pistols, the while he bellowed to the lad to shorten sail, and likewise to be damned as before.

And so they went, rattling and hanging round the corner, out of sight; the clatter and crashing of the heavy sled punctuated twice by the reports of the captain’s pistols. After which he was content to hold on, and curse the boy, horse, sled, the landlord of the Tunbelly, and the road, all with equal violence, until, in a minute, the lad once more got the horse controlled to a walk, and was cursing back pluckily at the cap’n for loosing off his pistols at him. And this way they came presently to a little house in the lower end of the alley, where the boy stopped the sled and his cursing all in the same moment, and pointed with his horse-cudgel to the door of the little house, meaning that they had come to the place.

At this Cap’n Dan got down lumberingly from the top of his big chests; and suddenly, before the boy knew his intention, he had caught him by the collar of his rough jacket, and hoist him bodily from the ground. Whereupon the lad, full as ever of his strange pluck, set-to to curse him again—so well as he might, being half strangled—and to striking at him with the horse-cudgel.

Immediately the captain plucked the cudgel from him, and then, setting the lad’s feet to the road again, he hauled forth a great handful of gold pieces, which he crammed forcibly down the back of the boy’s neck, shaking with queer, noiseless laughter the while.

“A good plucked ’un! Dieu, a good plucked ’un!” he said; and loosed the lad suddenly, applying one of his big sea-boots with indelicate dexterity, to intimate that he had no further need of his services.

Whereupon the lad, who had ceased now to curse, ran off down the alley a little way, and commenced to shake himself, until all the gold had come through; after which he gathered it up, and, calling to his horse, mounted the sled, and away so fast as the brute would go.

Meanwhile, Cap’n Dan was pounding at the door of the house, and shouting lustily the name of Nancy Drigg, outside the door of Nancy Garbitt; until presently a startled feminine face came out of a lattice above, and seeing him, she screamed out, “Dan! Dan!” and withdrew hurriedly from sight.

“What do you want?” she, asked presently, from within the room, and not showing herself.

“Open!” shouted the cap’n; “afore I has the door down. I’m coom to board wi’ ye, Nance. Open, I say!”

And he commenced to kick at the door with his great sea-boots.

“Husht now, Dan! You ’m the drink in you, or you’d no think to shame a lone woman this fashion. Husht now, an’ I’ll coom down and let ’ee in.”

Whereupon the cap’n ceased from his kicking, and turned round to survey the various heads that had been thrust from the casements of the alley about, to discover the cause of the disturbance.

“Bon quart! Bon quart!” he called, at first good-humouredly; but, changing his tone as he saw they still continued to stare at him, “Bon quart! Bon quart!” he roared angrily; and aimed with one of his discharged pistols at the head of the nearest.

The flint snapped harmlessly, and the head dodged back; but the captain hauled a fresh weapon from the skirts of his long coat, and, seeing that he was still spied upon from a window higher up, he let drive in sound earnest, and very near ended the life of the onlooker; after which the alley might have held only the dead for all the living that displayed themselves to his view. He turned again, and commenced to kick upon the door, shouting. And in the same instant it was opened by Nancy, hurriedly wrapped about with her quilt.

“Husht now! Husht now, Dan, an’ coom in sober-like,” she said, “or ’tis only the outside of the door I’ll have to ’ee.”

The captain stepped inside, and turned on her.

“Nice wumman ye, Nancy Drigg, to splice that blandered bunch o’ shakin’s, Jimmy Garbitt. An’ seven ye’ve had to him; an’ not a man in the lot—an’ little wonder; ye that could not wait for y’r own man to come home wi’ the fortune I promised ye, but must marry a top-o’-my-thumb. Shame on ye for a poor-sperreted wench; an’ me this moment wi’ the half o’ oor silver penny to my knife chain that we broke all them years gone; an’ never a throat I cut but I ses, ‘There be another gold piece to my Nancy!’ An’ you go spliced to that—”

“Husht, Dan!” said Nancy at last, not loudly but with surprising firmness. “You be proper an’ decent wi’ me, Dan, an’ good care I’ll take of ’ee, an’ put up wi’ ’ee so well as I may, for owd sake’s sake. Put no word at poor Jimmy, an’ nowt to trouble my maids, or out ye go to the sharks o’ Geddley, an’ clean they’ll pluck ye, as well ye know.”

“An’ well they fear me, an’ well can I mind my own!” said the captain warmly, yet unmistakably more civil in his manner; for he felt that if Nancy Garbitt would take him in, then, at least, he need fear no traitors in the camp, as the saying goes.

“I’m troubled wi’ a sick pain in th’ heart, Nancy, an’ can’t last long,” he said, after little pause. “Will I pay ye a gold piece every week-ending, or will I pay ye nothin’ an’ you have the will of me when I go below?”

“I’ll trade on no man’s death, Dan; an’ least on yours,” said Nancy. “Pay me the guinea-piece each week, an’ well I’ll’ do by ’ee, as you know, Dan. An’ do ’ee be easy with drinkin’ an’ ill-livin’, an’ many a year you ’m boun’ to live yet.”

And so it was arranged:

“An’ you keep the seven brats out of my course!” said the cap’n.

“Dan!” said Nancy.

“Pardieu, Nance! No ill to it! No ill to it!” apologised Cap’n Dan. “You ’m pretty lookin’ yet, wi’ the sperret that’s in ye, Nance,” he concluded.

At which compliment Nancy’s eyes softened a little, so that it was like enough that she still had in a corner of her heart a gentle feeling towards this uncouth sea-dog of a man who had been her lover in her youth.

And this way came, and settled, and presently died, Captain Dan; and with his death there arose the seven-year mystery of the treasure, which to this day maybe read in the “Records of the Parish of Geddley; by John Stockman, 1797.”

And regarding the length of life still coming to him, Cap’n Dan was right; for he lived no more than some eighteen or nineteen months—date uncertain—after the arrangement mentioned above. And these are the concluding details of his life.

For some months he lived quietly enough with Nancy Garbitt, paying her regularly, and amenable to her tongue, even in his most fantastic fits of humour, whether bred of drink or of his state of health. Eventually, however, his little room was broken into one dark night whilst he slept. But the captain proved conclusively that he was well able to defend both life and fortune; for he used his pistols and, later, his cutlass to such effect that when the raiders drew off there lay three dead and one wounded on the floor of his room, whose groans so irritated Cap’n Dan that he went over to him, and, picking up one of the overturned lanterns from the floor, passed his cutlass twice or thrice through him to quieten him, remarking as he did so: “I knew I’d ha’ to fix ’ee, Tunbelly, afore I was done wi’ ye.” (For he recognised the landlord’s corporation, despite the masks which he and all the robbers had worn.) “An’ here’s luck—an’ you’re sure goin’ easy.”

And he jabbed him conscientiously for the last time.

The direct result of this raid was that Cap’n Dan resolved to build himself a house that would make him and all his treasures secure in future from an attack of this sort. To this end he had masons by coach from a great distance—as distances were counted great in those days—and, acting as his own architect, he planned out a strange great house in the form of a ship in masonry, with a double tier of iron-barred windows in place of ports, and three narrow towers like modern lighthouses, to take the place of masts, with stairs inside so that they could be used for look-out posts.

There was one great door in the stern, which was hung on pintles, from the sternpost, like a huge and somewhat abnormally shaped rudder. Somewhere below this ship-house there was built a strong-room, though this was not known till later; for as soon as the masons had done their work they were sent back to their own towns, and in this way the secrets of the house were hidden from the men of Geddley.

It may be as well to say here that this peculiar house, minus its three towers, which had long since been removed, was to be seen almost intact as late as 1871. It had become built in, “bow-and-stern”, into a terrace of houses, which still form what is known as Big Fortune Terrace, and was then an inn, run by one Thomas Walker, under the name of the Stone Ship Inn. “Very much in!” used to be the local and extraordinarily witty joke, according to the “New Records” of Geddley, which we owe to Richard Stetson, a citizen, I imagine, of that same quaint seaport.

To revert to Cap’n Dan. As I have said, he concluded his house and “shipped back” his masons to their varied and distant homes, by this means hiding from the men of Geddley all possible details concerning the construction of his stronghold.

Presently he removed with his two great chests of treasure to his new house, and thereafter very little of his doings appear to have been worthy of remark; for, saving an odd walk down to Nancy Garbitt’s little cot, or a still rarer visit to the Tunbelly—now under the care of a new landlord—Cap’n Dan, sir, as he was latterly always addressed, appeared but little beyond his own great rudder-door.

After his removal he still continued to pay Nancy her guinea per week, and often assured her, that when he died she should own the whole of his treasure.

And presently, as I have intimated; he died. And certain grave lawyers, if that be the right term, came all the way from Bristol to read his will, which was quaint but simple. The whole of his wealth he left to Nancy Garbitt and her seven daughters, the one condition being that they must first find it, one day in each year being allowed only for the search. And if they had no success within and including seven years from his death, then the whole of the treasure—when found—must be handed over entire to a certain person named in a codicil to the will, which was not to be read save in the event of the gold not being found within the said seven years.

As may be imagined, the sensation which this will provoked was profound, not only within the parish of Geddley but throughout the whole county, and beyond.

Eventually, certain of the masons who had assisted in the building of the stone ship-house heard of the will, and sent word that there was a specially built strong-room under the foundations of the house, very cunningly hidden, and under it again there was a sealed vault. For a remuneration one of their number would come by coach and assist at the locating of the place.

This, of course, increased the excitement and general interest; but it was not until the 27th day of September of that year that the search might be made, between the hours of sunrise and sunset, the stone ship-house being occupied meanwhile by the lawyers; caretakers and seals liberally spread about.

On September 26th the mason arrived, accompanied by two of his fellows; the three of them being hired by Nancy Garbitt to act as expert searchers on her behalf. For; very wisely, she had steadfastly refused the enormous amount of “free” aid that had been tendered by the men of Geddley, collectively and singly, from day to day.

The 27th dawned—the anniversary, had Nancy but remembered, of that day, so many years gone, when she and young Dan had broken their silver penny. Surely the date was significant! Nancy Garbitt and her seven daughters and the men of Geddley stood near the door of the stone ship-house, with the three masons. As the sun rose into sight the lawyer knocked on the door, and the caretakers opened it and stood back for Nancy, her daughters, and the three masons to enter. But the men of Geddley had to remain outside, and there waiting, many of them remained the whole of the livelong day, if we are to believe the worthy John Stockman.

Within the house the masons went confidently to work, but at the end of a short time had to acknowledge themselves bewildered. There had been surely other masons to work since they had been sent away, or else the grim old sea-dog himself had turned mason in those last months of his life, for no signs of the hidden entrance to the strong-room could they discover.

At this, after some little discussion, it was resolved to break down through the stone-built floor direct into the strong-room, which the masons asserted to be immediately below a certain point, which they had ascertained by measurements. Yet the evening of that day found them labouring, still lacking the whereabouts of the strong-room. And presently sunset had put an end to the search for a year. And Nancy Garbitt and her seven daughters had to return treasureless to their small cot in the alley.

The second and the third and the fourth years Nancy and her daughters returned, likewise lacking of treasure; but in the fifth year it was evident to Nancy and her maidens that they had come upon signs of the long-lost strong-room. Yet the sunset of the “day of grace” cut short their delving before they could prove their belief.

Followed a year of tense excitement and conjecture; in which Nancy could have married off her daughters to the pick of the men of Geddley; for to every sanguine male it was apparent that the treasure was almost in sight.

Some suggestion there was of carrying the stone ship-house by assault, and prosecuting the search to its inevitable end without further ridiculous delay; but this Nancy would not listen to. Moreover, the strength of the building, and the constant presence of the armed legal guardians thereof, forbade any hope of success along these lines.

In the sixth year Nancy Garbitt died, just before sunset on the day of the search. Her death was possibly due, in part at least, to the long-continued strain of the excitement and the nearing of the hour when the search must be delayed for another whole year. Her death ended the search for that time, though a portion of the actual built-in door of the strong-room itself had been uncovered.

Yet already, as I have said, it had been close to the time when the search must cease.

When the 27th day of September in the seventh year arrived, the men of Geddley made a holiday, and accompanied the seven Misses Garbitt with a band to the great door of the stone ship-house. By midday the door of the long-shut strong-room was uncovered and a key the lawyer produced was found to fit. The door was unlocked, and the seven maidens rushed in—to emptiness.

Yet, after the first moment of despair, someone remembered the sealed vault which lay under the strong-room. A search was made, and the covering stone found; but it proved an intractable stone, and sunset was nigh before finally it was removed. A candle was lowered into the vault, and a small chest discovered, otherwise the vault was as empty as the strong-room.

The box was brought out into daylight and broken open. Inside was found nothing but the half of a broken silver penny.

At that moment, watch in hand; the lawyer declared that the hour of sunset had arrived, and motioned for silence where was already the silence of despair. He drew from his pocket the package that held the codicil, broke the seal, and proceeded to read to the seven maidens its contents.

They were brief and startling and extraordinary in their revelation of the perversity of the old sea-dog’s warped and odd nature. The codicil revealed that the gold for which they had so long searched was still left to Nancy, but that it lay under the stone flags of their own living-room, where the captain had buried it at nights all the long years gone when he had lived at Nancy’s, storing the removed earth in the chests in place of the buried gold.

“Seven children have you had, Nancy Drigg, to that top-o’-my-thumb, Jimmy Garbitt,” the codicil concluded, “and seven years shall you wait—you who could not wait.”

That is all. The money went to the children of Nancy Garbitt, for, by the whimsy of Fate, the woman for whose reproval all this had been planned was never to learn, and the bitter taunt of the broken silver penny was never to reach its mark; for the woman, as you know, was dead. And so ended the seven years’ search. And, likewise, this history of the strange but persistent love-affair of Captain Dan, sea-dog and pirate.