«If so be that you have,» he added, with a glance at Blood's four companions, «considering among how many the purchase money will be divided, you'll find me generous.»
If by this he had hoped to make an impression upon those four, their stolid countenances disappointed him.
Mr. Blood shook his head. «It's wasting your time, ye are, Captain. Whatever else we decide, we keep the Cinco Llagas.»
«Whatever you decide?» The great black brows went up on that shallow brow. «Ye're none so decided then as ye was, about this voyage to Europe? Why, then, I'll come at once to the business I'ld propose if ye wouldn't sell. It is that with this ship ye join the Bonaventure in a venture a bonaventure.» And he laughed noisily at his own jest with a flash of white teeth behind the great black beard.
«You honour us. But we haven't a mind to piracy.»
Easterling gave no sign of offence. He waved a great ham of a hand as if to dismiss the notion.
«It ain't piracy I'm proposing.»
«What, then?»
«I can trust you?» Easterling asked, and his eyes included the four of them.
«Ye're not obliged to. And it's odds ye'll waste your time in any case.»
It was not encouraging. Nevertheless, Easterling proceeded. It might be known to them that he had sailed with Morgan. He had been with Morgan in the great march across the Isthmus of Panama. Now it was notorious that when the spoil came to be divided after the sack of that Spanish city, it was found to be far below the reasonable expectations of the buccaneers. There were murmurs that Morgan had not dealt fairly with his men; that he had abstracted before the division a substantial portion of the treasure taken. Those murmurs, Easterling could tell them, were wellfounded. There were pearls and jewels from San
Felipe of fabulous value, which Morgan had secretly appropriated for himself. But as the rumours grew and reached his ears, he became afraid of a search that should convict him. And so, midway on the journey across the Isthmus, he one night buried the treasure he had filched.
«Only one man knew this,» said Captain Easterling to his attentive listeners for the tale was of a quality that at all times commands attention. «The man who helped him in a labour he couldn't ha' done alone. I be that man.»
He paused a moment to let the impressive fact sink home, and then resumed.
The business he proposed was that the fugitives on the Cinco Llagas should join him in an expedition to Darien to recover the treasure, sharing equally in it with his own men and on the scale usual among the Brethren of the Coast.
«If I put the value of what Morgan buried at five hundred thousand pieces of eight, I am being modest.»
It was a sum to set his audience staring. Even Blood stared, but not quite with the expression of the others.
«Sure, now, it's very odd,» said he thoughtfully.
«What is odd, Mr. Blood?»
Mr. Blood's answer took the form of another question. «How many do you number aboard the Bonaventure?»
«Something less than two hundred men.»
«And the twenty men who are with me make such a difference that you deem it worth while to bring us this proposal?»
Easterling laughed outright, a deep, guttural laugh. «I see that ye don't understand at all.» His voice bore a familiar echo of Mr. Blood's Irish intonation. «It's not the men I lack so much as a stout ship in which to guard the treasure when we have it. In a bottom such as this we'ld be as snug as in a fort, and I'ld snap my fingers at any Spanish galleon that attempted to molest me.»
«Faith, now I understand,» said Wolverstone, and Pitt and Dyke and Hagthorpe nodded with him. But the glittering blue eye of Peter Blood continued to stare unwinkingly upon the bulky pirate.
«As Wolverstone says, it's understandable. But a tenth of the prize which, by heads, is all that would come to the Cinco Llagas, is far from adequate in the circumstances.»
Easterling blew out his cheeks and waved his great hand in a gesture of bonhomie. «What share would you propose?»
«That's to be considered. But it would not be less than one fifth.»
The buccaneer's face remained impassive. He bowed his gaudily swathed head. «Bring these friends of yours to dine tomorrow aboard the Bonaventure, and we'll draw up the articles.»
For a moment Blood seemed to hesitate. Then in courteous terms he accepted the invitation.
But when the buccaneer had departed, he checked the satisfaction of his followers.
«I was warned that Captain Easterling is a dangerous man. That's to flatter him. For to be dangerous a man must be clever, and Captain Easterling is not clever.»
«What maggot's burrowing under your periwig, Peter?» wondered Wolverstone.
«I'm thinking of the reason he gave for desiring our association. It was the best he could do when bluntly asked the question.»
«It could not have been more reasonable,» said Hagthorpe emphatically. He was finding Blood unnecessarily difficult.
«Reasonable!» Blood laughed. «Specious, if you will. Specious until you come to examine it. Faith, now, it glitters, to be sure. But it isn't gold. A ship as strong as a fort in which to stow a halfmillion pieces of eight, and this fortress ship in the hands of ourselves. A trusting fellow this Easterling for a scoundrel.»