The Mountain of Gold (38 page)

Fortunately, Francis Gale had no such concerns. He strode forward, gave Hallett a mighty punch in the stomach that winded him, then struck Treninnick a fearsome blow on the jaw that drove back even that formidably strong creature. In the brief moment before the two combatants could come to grips with each other again, or turn their combined rage against him, Francis raised his hands in the eternal gesture of supplication and cried, 'Let us pray!'

The circle of spectators fell sheepishly to their knees. Hallett and Treninnick looked about them and fell reluctantly to the beach in their turn; even if Treninnick did not understand the words, he knew the gestures well enough, and he also knew better than the soldier that thanks to our land's civil wars, Francis Gale was as accomplished and unconventional a fighter as he was a man of God. The chaplain of the
Seraph
hastily embarked on a recitation of the Fifty-First psalm, enunciating the words slowly and weightily: 'Have mercy upon me, O God, after thy great goodness; according to the multitude of thy mercies do away mine offences. Wash me thoroughly from my wickedness, and cleanse me from my sin.'

All around me, tempers and enthusiasms calmed, as Francis knew they would (for the
Miserere Mei
is a distinctly lengthy psalm, especially when delivered at a funereal pace). A mob that had been braying with blood-lust but moments earlier was slowly transformed into as respectable a congregation as one could hope to find.

Morgan Facey arrived just then, flustered, red of face and out of breath; he had been reconnoitring the approaches to the town, considering its defensibility in the event of an attack by a rival native kingdom or Montnoir's French troops. I acquainted him with the situation. He shook his head sadly, for we both had the same thought: so much for our intent to impress the natives with the sobriety and restraint of our English race.

When the psalm finally concluded, we ordered all soldiers and sailors back to the ship. Then Facey and I confronted the two miscreants, Martin Lanherne coming across from
Seraph
to interpret for Treninnick.

'He thieved my new dagger-scabbard,' said Hallett. 'Just bought it, that I had. Put my head down to sleep through the noon-day, and when I was wakened, it had gone.'

Once the charge had been translated to him, Treninnick launched into an impassioned stream of vitriolic Cornish. 'He denies it,' said Lanherne. 'Says he's never seen the scabbard. Says he's no thief.'

This struck home with me; I knew Treninnick well, and although he would readily crack a man's skull if provoked, he was at least an honest brute.

Facey interrogated Hallett anew. 'If you were asleep and did not see this man take the scabbard,' he asked, 'then why did you accuse him of stealing it?'

Hallett shrugged. 'He was seen taking it. By the colonel. He woke me and told me.'

Facey and I exchanged a horrified glance. 'Colonel O'Dwyer?' I gasped.

'Aye, sir,' said Hallett, who (as Facey told me later) was an impressionable creature of little intelligence. To such, the word of such a grand officer as a colonel would be unimpeachable.

'Then where,' I asked with mounting dread, 'is Colonel O'Dwyer now?'

Lanherne's face fell, and he hastened in search of Polzeath and Tremar, who were meant to be watching the renegade during that hour. He returned with two mortified Cornishman. The colonel had found a native woman, they said, and had retired to a hut with her. They had watched the hut, and he had not seemed to emerge from it. But now, when they and Lanherne had entered it, they found the hut empty. Colonel Brian Doyle O'Dwyer had disappeared.

The renegade's defection had been expected for so very long, yet now it had happened, a palpable sense of shock pervaded the crew of the
Seraph.
Some of it was tinged with shame; my trusted Cornish followers who had kept watch over the Irishman at Santa Cruz de Tenerife had come to look on it as a cheerful private game in which they colluded with their captain, regarding the surveillance of the renegade as a matter of personal pride. Polzeath and Tremar were especially mortified, but their shame was reflected in every quarter of the ship, for men knew full well that they had been duped into spectating and scuffling upon the beach. O'Dwyer had done his work well. To create a diversion by pitting a soldier against a sailor was ingenious enough (such contests being certain to attract an ample audience of both breeds), but to set Hallett and Treninnick at odds was cunning indeed; Treninnick, virtually the mascot of my Cornish following, was bound to attract sympathy and support in large measure, but his strength and Hallett's size would guarantee a lengthy fight.

With a heavy heart, I ordered a council-of-war to meet in the steerage of the
Seraph.
We would have to make at least a token search for O'Dwyer, even though I knew full well that it was likely to be little more than a forlorn gesture. Before I ordered the despatch of this futile expedition, I decided that it was time for a reckoning with the man who seemed to have done more than most to bring us to this pass. Thus I summoned the pilot, Jesus Sebastian Belem, to my cabin.

'Well, old man,' I said bitterly, 'you might be a cripple, but you have led us all a merry dance these last weeks, I think.'

'Captain?'

'You and O'Dwyer. I've seen the two of you in secret conclave—aye, no doubt plotting the means by which he would be able to escape!'

The old man was impassive; more impassive than I would have been if faced with such a serious charge. 'You are mistaken, Captain,' he said. 'Colonel O'Dwyer wished only to learn from me something of these parts. Of the temper of the King of Kasang and his neighbours, and of the nature of the country round about. Nothing beyond matters of fact.'

A calmer, older Matthew Quinton would have asked what those 'matters of fact' were, but at that time I still had too much youthful impatience, exacerbated by the heat and my anger at the Irishman's flight.

'Damnation, Belem,' I cried, 'you as good as supported the traitor in his story! Before Holmes and myself, aboard the
Jersey,
you actually encouraged the idea that there was a mountain of gold. Why in God's name did you do that, man, unless you were some sort of confederate of his? Why give credence to this foul lie from the blackest of liars?'

Belem looked at me curiously. 'Captain,' he said, 'with respect, I had never encountered Colonel O'Dwyer before that day, and I never said that there was such a mountain. I said there were tales of gold mines beyond Barraconda, which is true. Has always been true, since first I came upon this river. But tales do not mean that those mines really exist. I said that Moorish caravans came across the desert from the very north of Africa and traded in gold, which is also true, and that the chiefs of these parts wear much gold—as for that, Captain, use the evidence of your own eyes.'
So O'Dwyer's tale of the great journey across the desert might well have been truth—omitting only the mountain at the end of it.
'Now, if men wish to construct a legend of an entire mountain of gold from these half-truths and rumours, well, that it is their affair.' I was dimly aware of some noise upon the deck above, but thought nothing of it. 'It seems to me, Captain,' Belem continued, 'that this is just what your Prince Rupert has done, since first I knew him in these parts ten years ago. A great warrior, but a—what is the word you English use?—ah yes, a romantic. That is it. And if the romantic prince has convinced your king that ten years of wishful thinking has transformed the stories he heard on this river into a real mountain—and if your king is fool enough to believe him, and this man O'Dwyer too—well, that is their affair, and do not blame Jesus Sebastian Belem for it. Besides,' said the ancient Belem, smiling at last, 'consider my position, Captain Quinton. I am an old man. A very old man, and a cripple. My only income comes from the pilotage of this river, for I am fit for no task ashore. Now, I have observed that those who come seeking the mountain of gold are prepared to pay much higher fees for pilotage. Your Prince Rupert, for one. He paid me a true prince's ransom. So, Captain, consider this.' The old man looked at me levelly. 'If men come here wishing to find a mountain of gold, do you really believe I would tell them it does not exist?'

The door of my cabin opened, and an impossible apparition stood framed within it.

'And why should you, when in truth it does so?' said Brian Doyle O'Dwyer.

Twenty-Three

I had convinced myself that I would never see the renegade's face again, or hear his silken words. I was shaken to my core. For his part, O'Dwyer simply dismissed Belem—aboard
my
ship!—and smiled that insufferable, charming smile that I had seen and resented so often since our first meeting.

'My apologies, Captain,' he said, 'I should have sent you word. I should have expected you to be concerned for my safety, and to wish to know my whereabouts.' He said it with an apparent absence of irony. 'An appalling breach of military etiquette on my part. But I encountered this Arab factor, you see, and thought he might be a useful man to furnish provisions for our expedition to come. And in truth, it was good to be able to speak the Arabic again, if only for an hour or two.'

I struggled with my emotions. There was relief, certainly; but along with it came anger and doubt. Above all, doubt. The man could have slipped away, that much was certain. He had escaped the sentinels I appointed to watch him, and had he so wished, he could have been far away from Kasang. Yet there he was, as confident and arrogant as ever, lording it in my half of the captain's cabin of the
Seraph.
His presence raised the most potent of questions. For all these months, had I been wrong about Brian Doyle O'Dwyer? And if I had been wrong about him, had I also been wrong about the mountain of gold itself?

Somehow, I managed to say, 'We were indeed concerned for you, Colonel. We were on the point of sending out parties to search for you.'

I should have tackled the man over the blatant lie he had told to the soldier, Hallett, but such rational thoughts were driven away by the shock of the Irishman's reappearance. As, perhaps, he had intended.

'How touching,' said O'Dwyer, pleasantly. 'But you need have no more concerns about me, Captain Quinton, for I am quite safe, as you can see. Never safer, I think. Now, the ship is at a mooring after a long and arduous voyage, and days of hard work lie ahead for soldiers and sailors alike—building the canoes to take us upstream, and so forth. And your crew has had its shore leave curtailed, entirely because of my inconsiderate behaviour. Thus, might not an evening of festivity at my personal expense be appropriate, Captain?'

I was still not thinking clearly, and I could see no objection to what the renegade was proposing. There had been not a few grumbles when O'Dwyer's disappearance put paid to any prospect of extended leave among the manifold attractions of Kasang, especially the more nubile ones, and the Irishman was undoubtedly correct in his assessment of what lay both behind and ahead of my crew. Moreover, there were still tensions aplenty between mariners and redcoats, Bristolians and Cornishmen, so an evening of holiday aboard the
Seraph
seemed amply justified. As O'Dwyer departed to his own half of the cabin, I sent for Lanherne and gave the necessary orders. A little later, I heard cheering all along the main deck as the news was relayed to the messes. It's said that a captain should not seek too much popularity; but I thought of those who had already died upon this voyage, and of the unknown number who would certainly die of fevers, ravenous beasts or God alone knew what else in the weeks and months to come, and judged that this was one night when a little popularity for Matthew Quinton—and even, God help us, for Brian Doyle O'Dwyer—could not go amiss. I sent for Martin Lanherne to give the necessary orders.

But something troubled me: something I could not quite name or measure. Half an hour later I stood upon the forecastle, almost in the very beakhead itself, and shared my thoughts with Francis Gale, Valentine Negus and Kit Farrell.

I was in a deep sleep, the deepest I had known in our whole time upon the River of Gambia. Not even the carousing from the messes, continuing long after the night watch would have been set at sea, served to disturb me. It must have been the very middle of the night, when all should have been quiet upon the ship—yet there seemed to be a voice...

'Alarm, boy!'

The door of my cabin was open. Beyond it, I could hear the ship's bell begin to ring out from its belfry on the forecastle. There was no light, but I was aware of a presence standing above me. A blade glinted in the moonlight that glimmered through the stern window. In that instant, I knew the man about to kill me was Brian Doyle O'Dwyer.

The blade came down, straight for my eyes, but I just had time to throw my head to the right. I felt something nick my ear, and knew it was the traitor's knife.

'Not so fast, fuckhead!' cried a familiar voice behind the Irishman. Phineas Musk leaped across the cabin with unexpected agility, thrusting his own short-bladed knife at the traitor.

O'Dwyer turned. Still barely awake, I kicked out and caught him on the thigh. He lunged at me again with his blade, embedding it in my mattress. As I reached for my sword, O'Dwyer ran the few strides to the stern window and flung it open. I saw him, framed for an instant against the moonlight, before he flung himself into the abyss beyond. As I reached the open window, I heard a loud splash as he entered the water.

I stared into the blackness, my eyes adjusting slowly to the night. As Musk came up beside me, I saw O'Dwyer pull himself out of the water into a low, silent shape that could only be a native canoe. He turned, looked at me, and seemed to shrug. Then he touched his forelock before making a Moorish hand-salute.

As his canoe pulled away, I became aware of others. Many others, surrounding the
Seraph.
I heard the first clashes of metal against metal on the deck above, the first shrieks of death-agony.