CHAPTER IV IN WHICH I EXAMINE THE PARCHMENTS

The advent of the stranger on board the Thrush caused an outburst of surprise and consternation among the men, who stood in a group around him, addressing him and making remarks upon his personal appearance and his clothes.

“ ’E looks like old Father Christmas been starved to death!” I heard one seaman remark. “Look at his shoes. Them buckles are silver, mates!”

And then for the first time I noticed that the buckles on his shoes were very beautiful ones.

“There’s something confoundedly mysterious about both the craft and the man,” declared a seaman who had accompanied us. “There’s lots of skeletons on board, and old armour, cannon, and things. She was a battleship, I believe. At any rate, the men on board her were soldiers.”

“If they were, then the old fossil’s a good specimen,” one of them said, to which the old seaman who had rowed our boat replied: —

“Well, we collared over a thousand quid in gold, sonny. It was in them heavy bags that are stowed in the skipper’s quarters. Besides, the doctor’s got a few things—books, bits of parchment, and the like.”

They asked for a description of the craft, and we gave it to them, explaining the circumstances in which we discovered the Mysterious Man. The latter was seated on a coil of rope, glancing at us but utterly apathetic to the fact that he was the centre of attraction. We told them how the old fellow was both dumb and insane, whereupon their interest in him was increased fourfold. Their jeering remarks regarding his gorilla-like countenance and his quaintness of attire were quickly turned into expressions of sympathy and even the roughest man among them was ready to render the afflicted stranger any little service.

The armour and books had been placed in my cabin, and when Seal had related our experiences to Thorpe, the latter suggested that we should stand by the Seahorse and take her in tow when the gale abated. It would mean a day or two overdue in London, but we should nevertheless secure a prize such as no living man had ever before seen. Apart from the interest in the old vessel and the mystery of how it had come to the surface after being so long submerged, there were on board many things of value from an antiquarian point of view.

And so it was arranged that we should lay to that night, and if the wind went down next day, as Seal believed it would because the morrow was the fourth day of continued bad weather, we should tow the extraordinary craft to Valencia, and, if possible, round to London.

The Mysterious Man, after eating ravenously of food set before him, curled himself up in one of the men’s bunks in the forecastle and soon went to sleep. One man, a well-spoken, middle-aged sailor named Harding, was told off to take care of the madman and to see that he did not get into mischief, while the cure of his intellect was left in my charge.

Together with Seal I proceeded to examine our find. As the sun sank crimson and stormy, flooding the skipper’s cabin with a blood-red glow, he and I carefully counted the gold. There were 1,783 pieces, large and small, and of great variety. The English ones mostly bore the effigies of Edward VI. and Elizabeth. There were none of James I., but many were of Henry IV. of France, together with a variety of Spanish doubloons and Italian pieces. I found none of a later reign than Elizabeth, therefore I put down the date of the Seahorse as about 1603, or a few years earlier.

“I wonder whether Old Mystery will claim the coin?” Seal reflected, as he slowly filled his pipe, having finished the counting.

“As the sole survivor, it most probably belongs to him,” I said.

“But if he’s a lunatic, what claim can he make to it? There’ll be some job to find the vessel’s owner, I reckon.”

His remark caused me to remember the two parchments I had in my pocket, and I drew them out, opened them, and examined them carefully.

The first was beautifully and clearly written, about a foot square, and headed “Cosmvs.” It was in Latin, and I must admit that although I had passed in Latin up at Edinburgh, I was very rusty in it. The document at commencement read as follows: —

Cosmus Dei Gratia Magnus Dux Etruriæ, etc. et sacræ Religionis, et Militiæ Militum S. Stephani Papæ, et Martyris Magnus Magister et Custos, etc., Dilecto Nobis Pompæo Marie a Paule, Nobili Pisano et S. Stephani Militi, gratiam uram, et omne bonum.

Then, after a screed of twenty long lines, the document ended: —

Datum Florentiæ die pa. Februarij anno ab incarn. MDCI. Nostri Magni Ducatus Etruriæ anno VI.

Below were three signatures in ink that had long ago faded yellow, but so badly written were they that I could not decipher them. At the foot of the document was threaded a hempen cord, and to it was attached a heavy leaded seal, a trifle bigger than half a crown. On the obverse was a Maltese cross, the same as upon the faded silken banner at my side, and on the reverse a shield bearing six balls, the arms of the Florentine house of the Medici. Around the cross was the legend “Sancti Stephani Signum Religioni,” while around the armorial bearings were the words: “Cosmvs Mag. Dux Etr. Magn. Magis.”

So insufficient was my knowledge of Latin that all I could make out of the writing was that it was some diploma or deed concerning some one named Paule, a noble of Pisa. But what honour it conferred upon him I could not decipher, so I turned my attention to the second parchment.

It was yellower, and penned in a hand so crabbed that for a long time I could not make out in what language it was written.

“Below were seven scrawly signatures in that strange old Elizabethan hand.”

The Tickencote Treasure]                [Chapter IV

At last I decided that the first portion was in the abbreviated Latin of old documents, for after much puzzling I deciphered that the first words read “In Dei Nomine, Amen.” At foot was an endorsement in old English, which I deciphered, making a covenant between certain parties, and below were seven scrawly signatures in that strange old Elizabethan hand, namely of Geo. Greene, Gilbert Kanadale, John Ffreeman, Alex. Stephen Wyon, John Dollington, Clement Wollerton, and George A. Dafte, hys mark.

The bottom of the parchment had been cut until a short strip an inch wide hung from it, and upon this the round seal of yellow wax had been impressed, the device upon it being a shield with a leopard rampant, together with a fleur-de-lys. That is how best I can describe it, not being versed in heraldic terms.

That the two documents were precious ones could not for a moment be doubted when I recollected how carefully they had been preserved: first in that leathern bag and secondly in the treasure-chest. To me, however, they presented no appearance of value.

“What are they all about, doctor?” inquired the skipper, puffing at his pipe.

“At present I can’t tell. They’re both in Latin,” I answered, “and we must wait until we get a proper translation. This”—and I held the second document in my hand—“was written in the time of Queen Elizabeth, and seems to be a covenant, or something of the sort.”

“I suppose we can get some lawyer chap to puzzle ’em out?” Seal said.

“Oh, I don’t anticipate any difficulty,” I answered. “Only if there is any secret attached to them we don’t want to give it away.”

“Ah! I never thought of that,” remarked the skipper. “It is, as you say, very probable that some secret is contained there, and for that reason they were so carefully preserved and hidden away. No, doctor, we’d better not employ a lawyer. He’d want to know too much.”

Then I turned my attention to the books. The first I opened was of fine white parchment, thick, heavily bound, and written in a bold hand with many flourishes. A glance through it showed that it was an inventory of some kind, but it was all in Italian and much beyond me. The only part I could translate was the commencement, which, as far as I was able to decipher, read as follows: —

In the name of Almighty God and of His Holy Mother, Saint Mary, and of St. Peter, and of St. Paul, of St. John the Baptist, and of all the Celestial Court of Paradise, who have conceded to me the benefit that I should commence this book sound of body and of mind. Amen.

In this Book written by me, Bartholomew di Simon da Schorno, I have set down certain things that all men should know, as well as a certain Secret that one alone may discover to his advantage hereafter.

And then followed about 150 pages of manuscript and memoranda.

Through an hour I diligently endeavoured to decipher correctly regarding the secret mentioned, but it was in old Italian, with long l’s and s’s, and therefore extremely difficult to understand.

The date of the conclusion of the book I discovered to be August 16, 1591, on a Friday; while here and there I discovered the name of Paule, evidently the same family as the Pompæo Marie a Paule, the Pisan noble mentioned in the document with the leaden seal of Cosimo di Medici.

The author, Bartholomew da Schorno, whoever he was, had certainly produced a very respectable volume as regards size, and Job Seal and myself were extremely anxious to learn the secret which, in the introduction, was said to be contained therein.

The other books were not of great interest save perhaps to a bibliophile. They, however, showed that their owner was a scholar. The first, a thin manuscript on paper, and written in a neat Gothic hand, which I afterwards discovered was of the early fifteenth century, bore the title, “Trithemius, Liber de Triplici Regione.” The others were a well-written book of monastic law on vellum, with red and blue capitals of about the same date, and a kind of old pocket-book, in which was a treatise entitled “Loci Communes Theologici per Dominicas et Festes Totius Anni.”

It was the secret of old Bartholomew da Schorno—an Italian, evidently—that we were eager to discover, for both Seal and I felt confident that it would reveal to us the name of the dead owner of the Seahorse and the history of that remarkable resurrection.

In that heavy parchment book was a secret which old Bartholomew declared “one alone may discover to his advantage hereafter.”

What could it be?

Job Seal and I sat smoking our pipes and wondering what strange things were hidden within that yellow old volume that emitted so musty a smell.

Little, however, did we dream of the remarkable consequences that were to follow upon our startling discovery. It is, indeed, well sometimes that the Book of Fate is ever closed to us.