"I'm so glad," he said in the same off-hand voice. "You'd better send Stafford to fetch more Marines; we need a strong guard on here, and ask Mr Southwick to tell our guests we have - er, had some success."
It was remarkable how calm you could be when you succeeded.
The next eight days were so unreal that Ramage felt he was not just dreaming, but dreaming of a dream. Most of the seamen had been moved up to Punta Tamarindo, slinging their hammocks between trees, to save the long walk every morning. Under the casuarina tree seamen dug carefully, while on the landward side of the open space the carpenter's crew worked with saws, hammers and nails making strong crates in which to stow the treasure.
The coins were sorted into different denominations, put into canvas bags made from sail cloth - "a quarter o' the size o' a normal shroud" as Stafford commented - and sewn up. Each bag was then put into a wooden crate and pummelled until it took up a square shape. Then the lid of the crate was put on and nailed down securely.
Ramage limited each crate to half a hundredweight, and after the money had been checked by Southwick, the details of the contents were painted on the outside. A pair of long poles secured along the sides enabled two men to carry the crate comfortably like a stretcher, and it was taken away to be stowed. One of the houses in the village had been nicknamed "The Treasury" and was closely guarded by the Marines.
The gold and silver plate and ornaments - they ranged from dishes to candelabra - were dealt with in much the same way. They took up larger crates since they were bulkier and lighter than coins, but every item was described in an inventory kept by Southwick. When they did not know the name or purpose of a particular vessel or ornament, a small sketch was added with the main dimensions and weight.
As the totals of coin, plate, ornaments and jewellery mounted in what came to be called "The Treasure Log", Ramage was thankful that the men still regarded the digging and packing as a great game.
He had talked to Southwick and Yorke about a potential danger: the survivors from the two ships numbered some seventy-five seamen, but there were only three King's officers and a dozen Marines. If the seamen from both ships decided to keep the treasure, killing officers in their beds at night would present no problems. With the officers dead, the corporal of Marines would be a fool if he tried to stop his men joining the seamen...
The three of them had watched closely, but there was not the slightest hint of an intention to plunder on the part of the crew of either ship. Ramage was reasonably sure that by now the men had a few gold coins sewn into the waistbands of their trousers: he secretly hoped that they had, since it was unrealistic to begrudge a man ten guineas when ten thousand were his for the taking.
Yorke had agreed that as far as they were concerned no treasure was "dug up" until it was noted in the log as it was lifted out of the hole. What men did with odd coins when they were in a hole six feet deep and eight feet square was not their affair. There was a limit to what they could hide each time since none of them wore more than a pair of trousers. He only hoped the diggers shared with the rest of the men.
From the time the treasure was first found, St Brieuc had been urging Ramage to take special precautions against the seamen mutinying. He was so alarmed and so certain they would all be murdered in their beds that Ramage had asked Yorke to give him and St Cast a brace of pistols. St Brieuc had accepted gladly and then, four days later, returned the pistols to Yorke, explaining that having them about the house upset his wife and daughter. As Yorke told Ramage, it was a signal that St Brieuc now agreed with them that the men were "safe".
Teniente Colon frequently asked to see Ramage, but when the guard took him pencil and paper, with instructions to write his message, he wrote nothing, so presumably he was simply curious to know if any treasure had been found.
Ramage did not care whether Colon knew or not, but had neither told him nor given the Marines instructions that he was to be kept in the dark. It was interesting that the Marine guards had said nothing to him even though Colon often tried to strike up conversations with them in his halting English.
Two days before the supply ship was due from San Juan the last of the treasure had been brought to the surface and packed, and the skeletons reburied. Ramage read a burial service, the ground was smoothed over, and the working party marched away from Punta Tamarindo for the last time.
"I wish we'd been here when it was buried," Yorke commented. "Intriguing not to know exactly what happened."
Ramage shrugged his shoulders. "We might have ended up in the grave. I'm more interested to know why the owner decided to bury it. I'm sure we've guessed correctly that the hole was dug by slaves or prisoners, and that they were killed and buried here as well to ensure secrecy."
"Why the poem, then?" Yorke persisted.
"That's the puzzle. How about pirates trapped here because their ship hit a reef, and hurrying to bury their treasure before being captured. Perhaps they were put in prison and never came back ... and one of them made up the poem ..."
"Or one of them stayed behind on the island - Colon said something about an ancestor having a copy of the poem."
"An ancestor ... one of the original pirates who stayed or came back ... we'll never know."
That night at dinner Bowen asked the question on nearly everyone's lips.
"Any idea of the value of it all, sir?"
Ramage shook his head. "I don't know the current price of gold."
St Cast glanced up. "I can help there. Last February I was realizing some assets in London, and I can remember the prices quite well. Bar and gold coin was £3 17s 6d per fine ounce, and Portuguese gold was the same. That's troy measure, of course," he added. "A troy pound is over half an avoirdupois pound. Eight-tenths, if I remember correctly."
Southwick was scribbling with a pencil.
"A pound of gold avoirdupois is worth at least £100," Southwick said. "In other words, over £11,200 a hundredweight avoirdupois."
"How much does all the treasure weigh?" St Brieuc asked.
Ramage said: "We haven't totalled it all up yet, but we've estimated there's more than five tons of gold, and roughly a ton of silver."
"A ton of gold," Southwick said, "is worth nearly a quarter of a million pounds."
"Nearly?" Yorke repeated.
"About £224,000. So our five tons totals roughly £1,120,000..."
Southwick caught Ramage's eye. "It won't rate as prize, sir, I'm sure of it. The Crown will claim it all, and no shares for anyone."
"I told you that when we started digging," Ramage said heavily. "It's a pity we didn't let the Spanish find it, and then capture the ship they used for carrying it away ..."
"Why?" asked St Cast.
"That would have made it prize money ... in which case I would have received two-eighths. Southwick and Bowen would share an eighth, and the seamen two-eighths."
Southwick threw down his pencil in disgust. "It would have meant £280,000 for you, sir," he told Ramage, "while Bowen and I share £140,000 equally. Phew," he whistled, "I've just realized young Appleby would have an entire eighth share, £140,000: no other principal warrant officers, lieutenants of Marines, chaplains and so on to share with him..."
Yorke began laughing. "Actually I come off best. Since I'm not entitled to anything I haven't just lost either £280,000 or £140,000!"
Chapter Seventeen
Stafford marched up, halted and saluted smartly. "A dozen bleedin' cabbyleeroes, all present an' ker-ect, señor!"
Jackson, resplendent in the Spanish lieutenant's uniform, looked down his nose at Stafford and the dozen seamen now dressed in the uniforms of the Spanish soldiers.