"If it really is a clue," Yorke said doubtfully.
"I'm inclined to think it is," St Brieuc said. "The Spanish are not stupid. They're close to the treasure. If they believe it, then I think we should."
"They were digging on level patches," Yorke said. "That's something we can do anyway. There can't be so many in a hilly place like this. Plenty of flat fields, of course, but I think the Dons know it's a small flat area up in the hills. If we try those we don't waste time while we work on the clue. We want to get to windward of the treasure before the provision ship arrives."
Ramage had quite forgotten to find out when the ship was due. He excused himself and went off to question the teniente again. He found him much more cheerful, and quite prepared to talk. The next ship was due on the first day of the month. That was the regular date, though it was sometimes a day or two late.
While considering the problem of keeping Colon a prisoner without a building to lock him in, Ramage remembered that there were houses in the village ... Houses and a well.
The Marines and a handful of seamen could stay here in the camp to guard the provisions and magazine and the rest of them could move to San Ildefonso. The slaves seemed quite cheerful with their new status, which could be best described as freedom with limited liberty.
Chapter Fourteen
By nightfall most of the survivors of the two ships were in occupation of the village. The powder and muskets had been moved and the St Brieucs and St Cast were given the best house while Ramage, Yorke, Southwick and Bowen shared another. The senior petty officers shared two more which left four unoccupied and in various stages of disrepair for the seamen. Ramage was surprised at the lack of enthusiasm for them.
"Those houses," he asked Jackson. "What's wrong with them? Why don't the men use them?"
Jackson looked blank and Ramage said irritably, "I've given them four houses and told 'em to decide among themselves, you know all that!"
The American said apologetically, "Sorry, sir, I didn't quite follow what you meant. The men are grateful, sir, but they'd sooner sleep out in the open."
"You mean that what is good enough for the officers isn't good enough for them," Ramage said acidly.
"Oh no, sir!" Jackson exclaimed in alarm, "it's not that at all. Sleeping in hammocks slung from trees in the Tropics with all the birds singing and the strange flowers and all that - why, sir, they're like kids at Michaelmas Fair. They're loving it. They've been betting on humming birds, putting their money on which particular blossoms on a tree get visited in a set time."
"Oh," Ramage said lamely. "I'm glad. I hope they won't forget how to sling a hammock afloat."
"They'll be ready to go to sea when the time comes, sir. It's just something completely new. Even the men from country places are finding it so different, sir."
Supper was served in the largest room in the house taken over by Ramage, and he decided that he would eat his meals with the others simply because the alternative was too complicated.
They were halfway through the meal when Ramage said: "Has anyone thought of an explanation of the mysterious clue?"
No one had.
"What do you propose to do?" Yorke asked.
"Well, the provisions ship isn't due from San Juan for another three weeks. I might as well keep the men busy digging holes as doing anything else."
"The wrecks, sir," Southwick reminded him.
"Of course. The most important jobs are protecting ourselves here, guarding the provisions, bringing over the rest of the powder, and getting more supplies from the wrecks before they break up, just in case we don't get off the island for a while. That means I can use the slaves and some seamen just to dig. The dons dug only one hole at a time."
"I'm not surprised," Bowen said. "If that Spanish officer wasn't there, the moment the treasure was found, it'd vanish into thin air!"
"Exactly," Ramage said. "And because we have more reliable people to take charge, we can cover more ground."
"Count me in," Yorke said.
"I hope you won't forget me, sir," Bowen said. "I should regard the discovery of pirate treasure as the climax of my medical career."
"Medicine and piracy go hand in hand," Southwick teased.
"Exactly," Bowen said. "Didn't you notice the alacrity with which I volunteered?"
"I wonder what language the clue was composed in," Yorke said.
"Why not Spanish?" Ramage asked.
"I just can't see a pirate not making it rhyme. I was wondering if it was originally in English, poorly translated, and now translated back, slightly differently from the original."
"I should have thought of that before," Ramage said, feeling his face redden. "The Spanish weren't the pirates; they were the victims. The clue certainly wouldn't have been in Spanish."
"Let's translate it again," Yorke said cheerfully.
Ramage sent his steward for pen, ink and paper, and when he had written a translation of the Spanish phrases, he read them out aloud:
"Let's take the first line," he said. "I want ideas reflecting treasure and poetry!"
Yorke said, "It's wrong, I'm sure. It's isolated from the next line, whereas it probably ran on originally."
"What was the man trying to describe?" Bowen asked.
"It's a distance," Southwick said. "Buried within sound of the sea."
"You're right," Ramage exclaimed. "Let's look at the second line for a moment. It's ambiguous. It could be 'my memory' or 'remember'."
" 'Remember me'?" asked Yorke.
Ramage nodded, wrote it down and then said tentatively, "It could begin, 'Hear the sea and remember me...'"
"That's more like it," Bowen said. "Now, how did the third line go?"
Ramage read it again, and the surgeon said: "Three times three, eh. Nine paces, or perhaps three pieces of something in three places?"
"Three pieces ... I'd have expected it to be 'Three by three' in that case," Yorke said.
Ramage scribbled it down, and read the fourth line, adding, " 'A tree above' could also mean 'underneath a tree', or in the shade of it."
"What have we got now, sir?" Southwick said, running his hands through his white hair. "My memory isn't very good for poetry."
Ramage continued changing a word here and there for a moment, then said: "How does this sound?
"Well, we can hear the sea," he continued. "Then we have to remember this chap - presumably remember his treasure. Then 'three by three', or 'three times three'. Trees in three groups of three ... A hill with three groups of three big rocks on its slope - plenty around here, I've noticed ... Three groups of three peaks among the hills?"
"Not trees, surely," Southwick said. "They grow quickly or get blown away in a hurricane. Or burned down - I've seen traces of big fires here, probably started by lightning. And hills - they're not precise enough."
"Not trees," Yorke echoed. "Too obvious. The family here who knew the rhyme would have spotted anything like that. They've probably been looking for a trio of anything for a century or more."
"Can you hear the sea from where the Spanish party was digging when Jackson found them?" Bowen asked.
"Barely," Ramage said. "On a still night with a heavy swell on the reefs..."
"So either the Spanish don't realize the significance of 'The sound of the sea', sir, or they discount it," Bowen said.