20

Great Inagua

Matthew Town

Great Inagua Island, the Bahamas

Tuesday, 14 August 1888

At last we made Matthew Town, main settlement of Great Inagua Island, famous for its enormous salt industry. The journey wasn’t easy. Of the two weeks it took to transit the 300 miles south to Great Inagua, we spent six days holding on at anchor in the lee of Deadman’s Cay on Long Island, courtesy of yet another hurricane moving across our path. When the wind and seas subsided, we made our way to the southern end of Crooked Island and its infamous Mira Por Vos Passage. Absalom, who knew the Bahamian archipelago better than any other man I’ve known, before or since, counseled anchoring for the night under the eastern lee of Castle Island, famous for its 130-foot light house. From there we departed for Inagua, crossing in light air and confused seas.

***

By this point in the narrative, I’m sure the reader is wondering about the state of affairs between the guests aboard. Perplexed by the Frenchmen’s intimate knowledge of Russian, I passed along that intelligence to the Britisher, but he merely smiled, as if I had confirmed a prior notion. Inspector Randall then asked if Cynda had befriended Claire enough to obtain information from her.

I replied that Cynda was not disposed to befriend anyone at the moment, including me. Randall nodded politely. The policeman—alias preacher—did not know of the depth of my relationship with Cynda, or of our habitation arrangements before his arrival aboard.

Even though I had terminated our rather tactless daytime lovemaking, we had still enjoyed very discreet romantic interludes in the evenings. Those ended when we left Nassau, and Cynda was still upset over the loss of our privacy by the arrival of a woman aboard—a woman she was forced, by me, to share a cabin with, and whom she deemed nothing more than a dim-witted and badly dyed concubine of Roche and Billot. Cynda vehemently shared her views with me belowdecks, two hours after we departed Nassau, and our relationship had grown colder since. Alas, it’s been my sad experience in life that once a woman has made that particular determination about another of her sex, there is no changing her opinion.

Rork, who’s never been shy about providing me his opinion, provided his assessment of the situation aboard while we were riding out the storm at Deadman’s Cay. He was even more animated than usual.

“Methinks ye got swindled by that Limey redcoat major, an’ swindled good. None o’ them’re real Froggies, sir. Nary a whiff o’ garlic or wine about ’em. By God, I can tell a Froggie a mile away, especially upwind, by the smell o’ that garlic. Comes out o’ their skin, it does.”

He was on a roll, but paused for a breath before resuming his lecture. “An’ that Rooskie stuff is a bad omen, too, I tell ya. Rooskies in the tropics? Who ever heard o’ that? An’ none o’ the bloody lot o’ ’em ’re using their real names. Damned imposters, I say. Aye, they’s all as fake as that trollop’s face. A bad bunch that’ll give us nothin’ but trouble, mark me words.”

“You’re probably right, Sean. And somehow they’re involved with the missing boy. But damned if I know how . . .”

Rork raised his false hand to make his point. “Oh, they’re in it to their friggin’ eyeballs, an’ a lyin’ bunch o’ bastards too. Aye, mind me words here an’ now—the Devil’s in here somewhere with those foreign bastards, that much’s for certain.”

The French, which is how I kept thinking of them, kept to themselves all this time, plainly frightened by the sea. I heard no more Russian spoken and very little French. Evidently, they knew they’d blundered and were determined not to repeat the mistake.

Randall did his best to act his part, praying over us in the storm, attempting to ingratiate himself with his fellow passengers, all the while periodically nipping below and surreptitiously going through all of their things. Rork observed him in the act several times and reported it to me. The Brit didn’t share the results of his investigation with me, instead regarding me with amused condescension, like a superior regarding an upstart. My dislike, and extreme distrust, of the inspector escalated. The sooner I was rid of all of them, the better.

***

During our several days at anchor off Matthew Town, I managed to accomplish several things. First, I divested myself of the French people and the Brit, who were installed ashore in a boarding house. Second, I obtained provisions for Delilah. Third, and most importantly, before Roche or the others could do so, I asked Mr. McGregor, the local magistrate, about the missing schooner, explaining that my friends and I were searching for the missing boy. McGregor, one of the few black magistrates in the islands, was a dignified gentleman and deliberated over my question for several seconds.

“Yes, Condor visited the island, three months ago. I remember her well,” he said.

“That would place her here in late May. Did you interact with the passengers or captain?”

McGregor nodded. “Yes, I duly noted Condor’s arrival in my journal. Later, ashore, I had occasion to speak with Captain Kingston and learned of his passenger’s standing. I then arranged for a dinner at my home, visitors of such high strata being a rare occurrence here.”

He said that the dinner was attended by Kingston and the New York businessman, Jason Hobart Vanderburg. The crew, including Luke, stayed aboard Condor, which was anchored directly off Matthew Town, as we were.

McGregor and his wife saw nothing indicating duress from Vanderburg.

“Quite the contrary, he and the captain seemed gay and excited, for they were going the next day to search the eastern end of the island for the hidden treasure of King Henri Christophe, the black king of Haiti. They had already looked about at other islands for treasure. Henry Morgan’s loot at Andros, I believe.

“Mr. Vanderburg vaguely indicated that he’d had some sort of falling out with some companions earlier and they’d gone home from Nassau. He said he was heading home also, after hunting around Inagua for the Haitian treasure.”

McGregor never saw them again. Later, when he got word the schooner was no longer anywhere in sight around the island, he got to thinking it over and sent a routine report to Nassau reporting Condor’s visit to the island. Until we arrived, he hadn’t thought again about Captain Kingston and his passenger.

When I asked about the actual legend of the treasure, McGregor smiled and said, “I think it’s untrue, a quaint romantic myth, but there are many here in the Bahamas, and in Haiti, that do place credence in it. In fact, I know one man on Great Inagua who knows more about it than anyone else.”

The magistrate suggested I visit Victor Pamphille, an elderly ex-Haitian retired to a modest dwelling on the south shore of Great Inagua after a life spent commanding island schooners around the Caribbean. It was still light out, so we walked the mile or so to Pamphile’s home, just west of Salt Pond Hill. McGregor asked the man to tell me all he knew of the treasure, that a boy had gone missing while searching for it. Leaving me there with the old man, the magistrate began to walk home.

McGregor was a man who took his responsibilities seriously, so before he left, I decided to alert him to some of the oddities regarding my former passengers, who were now under his accountability.

“Mr. McGregor, there are some unusual aspects of my passengers that I think you should be aware of. Pastor Randall is actually a British policeman, who has been surveilling the French people all the way out here from London. And there is some speculation that they are not really French, since they speak Russian quite well. I’ve discovered that Roche, the tall Frenchman, had been inquiring about the Condor’s visit at Morgan’s Bluff, up in northern Andros Island. He is connected in some important way with all of this, but I don’t know how. What he did tell me were lies. Perhaps if you do learn anything about them, you could share it with me. It might help in my search for the boy.”

“Hmm, how very interesting. I’ll have to keep alert.” He stopped abruptly, looking at me with doubtful eyes. “And what about you? Should I be alert around you also, Captain Wake? What are your secrets?”

I feigned humor. “Oh, nothing nearly that interesting, sir.”

McGregor wagged his head and said, “I hope so.” Then he sauntered away, toward the mango-colored sun setting over Matthew Town. I don’t think he believed me.

***

Pamphile was getting frail in body, but his mind was still taut as a main sheet in a gale. The best short description of the old man across from me at that table was that he was weathered, like old teak railings that could still perform their function. I estimated his age as seventy-five, at least. He didn’t know himself with any certainty. Educated at a seminary in his youth, Pamphile had developed an aptitude for the European languages of the Caribbean, a skill that helped his maritime career. He spoke English astonishingly well in a steady bass voice, with a schoolbook British accent.

He invited me inside his hut, consisting of coral stone walls and a thatched roof. In the shadowy dwelling, he poured rum into two smudged glasses and we sat down at a hatch-cover table. After establishing our bona fides as veteran seamen, we laughed and exchanged stories of ports and storms and women around the West Indies. It is a necessary prelude among sailors, enabling reciprocal trust.

He grew dramatic, solemn, holding up a hand and saying he needed more rum to tell me what I needed to know. While I waited patiently as Pamphile rummaged his home for another bottle, I surveyed the scene outside.

An opening in the southern wall looked out over the ocean, a hundred feet away. The sun had gone, dusk was gathering quickly. Offshore, Molasses Reef broke the swell in a ragged slash of white foam. The sea itself was indigo dark, blending with the sky, except for that reef with its mocking break in the liquid rhythm.

My host returned and plunked down another bottle of rum, the sort with no label. He filled our glasses again and sighed. Then, with yellowed, watery eyes, Pamphile began to tell his tale.

“The story of Henri Christophe is a long and fascinating one, Peter. But there is no reason or time to tell it all tonight. Here is the part relevant to your quest for the missing schooner and the little boy. Sixty-eight years ago, in May of eighteen twenty, when I myself was a young boy in the village of Port a l’Ecu, my sovereign, King Henri Christophe—the former slave turned king of northern Haiti—was fighting off insurrection within his kingdom. It was stirred up by General Boyer from the south, at Port au Prince, where the famous Petion had ruled. Then Boyer invaded the border area of Christophe’s kingdom. At this same time, my king was a sick man, with serious ailments inside his body.

“While faced with these crises, Christophe received a visit from his close friend, Rear Admiral Sir Home Riggs Popham, Commander-in-Chief of the Royal Navy’s West Indies Squadron from eighteen eighteen to eighteen twenty. Popham had been trying to mediate an end to the civil war in Haiti, but to no avail. Boyer knew Christophe was sick and his military was weakening and would not compromise. Why should he? Death was in the air.”

With the setting of the sun, it had grown dark in the hut. Pamphile stopped his narration with a curse, then lit an ancient oil lamp, its grimy glass shade casting a weak light that barely reached the walls. Above us the thatch ruffled in the wind, which moaned through the glassless windows. The scene, and Pamphile’s ominous story, made me uncomfortable. The old man, seeing my disquiet, topped off our glasses and held up a bony finger.

“Yes, it is a dark story of treachery, but here comes the interesting part, Peter. Admiral Popham was visiting his friend Henri for the last time, at the royal palace at Sans Souci. Popham himself was also very sick, having had two slightly paralytic strokes in the previous four months. At age fifty-eight, he was five years older than the king and going home to England. Both knew this would be their last meeting. Historical records say that they discussed the civil war and reminisced about past glories, but legend says another, more impassioned, matter was discussed.”

As Pamphile spoke, I had little difficulty imagining the great African king of Haiti, his ebony face like that of the noble man before me, conferring with his British naval friend by the light of a similar flickering lamp more than three score years earlier.

“The legend says that the king, anxious for his family’s safety and financial security when the inevitable should happen to him, asked his dear friend to take several trunks of valuables with him upon his departure. Popham was to hide them at the closest British territory, a mere day’s sail downwind from Christophe’s kingdom on the north coast of Haiti. That place is right here, Peter. Great Inagua.

“In this way, the king’s family would have an easily accessible and safe cache of treasure, on which they could live for the rest of their lives, in comfortable exile. Christophe asked this as a matter of honor between gentlemen. How could a man like Popham refuse such a request?

“Five months later—exactly one month after his friend Popham died in England—and as the external enemies from the south of Haiti pressed closer and closer, the men of Christophe’s own personal guard regiment revolted. Six days after that, on October the eighth, in the year eighteen twenty, fate arrived. In his royal apartments at Sans Souci Palace, King Henri Christophe, the first native monarch in the New World, shot himself through the heart, using a silver bullet he kept for that very purpose.”

My host slumped, exhausted by the passion expended in the telling of the tale. He poured more rum. It was his seventh glass since my arrival. I waited, digesting the story, forming my questions.

“Victor, does the legend say exactly where Popham buried the treasure?”

Pamphile’s mouth creased slyly, those eyes studying me for trickery. “Why, at the place named for my king’s treasure, Peter. At Christophe’s Lagoon. We all know where the treasure is, we just have not found it yet.”

“Did you tell this story to some white men from a schooner called Condor, back in May?”

Suddenly, he changed, slurring his words, lapsing into Haitian Creole. Was it the rum hitting him or was he alarmed by my question? I wasn’t sure.

“I told some blancs, yes, but I do not remember their names or the name of any bato. I mean ship. They looked, but not very hard. Bitsi bitsi. Little bit here and there. But anyen. Nothing. I did not think they would find it—they are blancs and do not have the proper understanding. I left them there, after they paid me, of course.”

“Do you remember a white boy in the crew? His name was Luke.”

“Oui, there was a boy. He helped them search.”

“Where did they say they were going next?”

“They did not say. But they looked fatigué . . . tired, when I left them. As I am tired now. I thought at the time that they would sail home, but no one saw them again. You know, Peter, my new friend, I am old, and the wonm . . . excusez-moi, le rhum . . . the rum, it has weakened me . . .”

I was losing him. It was no act. “Victor—stay awake! Has anyone ever found any of this treasure?”

He rolled his head to one side and stared at me. “Non, mwem zanmi. No, my friend. Though many have tried.”

“Does anyone live out there, at the end of the island? Could they have come in contact with the whites?”

“Oh, yes . . .”

“Can you take me there?”

“In three . . . days . . . when the wind serves. I am . . . tired . . . now.”

Pamphile slowly lowered his head to the table. Seconds later I heard snoring. Walking back to Matthew Town by the light of a half moon, my mind turned to the immediate future. The end of the island was the last place I knew that Condor was seen by anyone. Maybe I could find a witness. One who was sober.