his mouth shut.
Before he proceeded to the mansion and therefore to bed, Matthew approached the spring and stood beside an oak tree on its grassy bank. A chorus of frogs thrummed in the darkness, and a number of somethings—turtles, he presumed—plopped into the water off to his right. He saw the reflection of stars and moon on the surface, over which spread slow ripples.
How was it that turtles had Spanish gold and silver coins—as well as silverware and pottery shards—in their bellies? Matthew sat down on his haunches, plucked up some grass, and stared out across the ebon pond.
/ have a gift for thee, Satan had said in his dream.
He thought of the coins spilling from the turtle's guts. He thought of Goode showing him what he'd found, and saying, It's a thing needs answerin'.
It surely is, Matthew told himself. From where might the turtles have gotten such coins? They'd swallowed them, of course. Most likely the limit of their world was this spring, and so...
Oh, Matthew thought. Oh!
The suspicion went off like a cannon blast inside his head. He realized he should have heard such a blast as soon as Goode had shown him the coins, but there had been too many other questions crowding his mind. Now, though, here in the quiet dark, the idea was thunderous in its impact.
Goode had found Spanish gold and silver coins within the bellies of turtles that lived in the spring... because there were Spanish gold and silver coins within the spring.
Abruptly, Matthew stood up. He placed a hand on the trunk of the oak tree beside him, if only to steady his thoughts. This suspicion—like the tearing open of a turtle in his dream—was full of glittering possibilities.
One gold and one silver piece, one pottery shard, and one silver spoon did not make a treasure hoard... but who might say what was lying down in the mud at the very bottom of Fount Royal's center of existence?
He recalled with a jolt of the senses something that Nicholas Paine had said, back at Shawcombe's tavern, upon viewing the original gold piece: No black-flagger in his right mind would bury his loot in redskin wilderness. They hide their gold where they can easily get to it, but it would be a poor pirate whose winnings could be found and unearthed by savages.
Unearthed? But what about sunken to the bottom of a freshwater spring?
His brain had caught fire. Bidwell had decided to build Fount Royal around the spring, as it would be—among other considerations—convenient as a source of fresh water for merchant ships arriving from the Indies.
But what was fresh water for merchants was also fresh water for those flying a blacker flag, was it not? And was it not possible that the spring had been discovered and used for such a purpose long before Bidwell had even set eyes on it? If that were true, the spring would make an excellent vault in which to deposit—as Paine had put it —'winnings.'
This was all, however, the wildest possible conjecture. Still... how else to explain the coins in the turtles' bellies? The turtles, searching for food down at the bottom of the spring, may have scooped up the coins from the mud or else been attracted by their shine. The same might be true of the spoon and the pottery shard. The question remained: what else could be down there, secreted away for safekeeping?
But how to explain an Indian's possession of Spanish gold? If indeed there had been pirate treasure in the spring, had the Indians found and raised it before Fount Royal was born? If so, they'd missed a few trinkets. He would have to sleep on these questions, and pursue them—quietly—in the morning. Bidwell might know something, but he would have to be carefully approached.
Matthew paused a little longer, staring out at the pond that seemed now to contain a further enigma. Nothing could be answered tonight, so it was time to get to bed though sleep might be nigh impossible.
He continued on his way along Peace Street toward the mansion, which was dark. He had no idea what the hour was, though it must be long past midnight. And with the next step he took he suddenly stopped and froze, looking straight ahead.
A figure in a tricorn hat and dark cloak was striding briskly past the mansion, in the direction of the slaves' quarters. It took no more than five or six seconds for the figure to disappear from view. Matthew hadn't seen if the man was carrying an unlit lantern or not, but he knew who it was. The fox was on the prowl, he thought. Going to what destination, and for what purpose?
This indeed was a night of opportunities, though this one Matthew realized might be far more treacherous than the blacksmith's hatchet.
His mouth was dry, his blood racing. He looked around but saw no other person out on the street. The embers of the school house still glowed a faint red, and the breeze blew a whirl of sparks into the sky.
He would have to go. He knew it. But he would have to hurry, to find the fox before he got away into the swamp. The fox would be wary around the watchman's tower, and so too would Matthew have to be because he couldn't depend on the fact that the watchman was asleep.
A little dagger of fear stabbed Matthew in the chest. Whoever that midnight prowler was, he was likely to be dangerous if he realized he was being followed. There was the chance that, out in the swamp, anything could happen, and all of it bad.
But there was no time for dawdling. Fear would have to be conquered. The fox was moving fast, and so must Matthew.
twenty-four
MATTHEW COULD HEAR the tempestuous sound of the sea. Breakers were hitting islands or exposed sandbars some distance away from the swamp that he was now negotiating with great difficulty. Ahead of him and almost at the limit of his perception was the midnight traveller—a dark, moving blotch within further darkness—who would have been totally lost to him had it not been for the faint orange moonlight, and even that meager illumination was jealously guarded by the streams of moving clouds.
The man had come this way before, that was a certainty. And more than once. His pace was swift and sure- footed, even without benefit of a lantern. Matthew was up to the task of following through the waist-high grasses and across the muck that pulled at his shoes, but it was a tough and laborious journey.
They had left Fount Royal far behind. Matthew estimated the distance at least a quarter mile from the watchman's tower, which had been easily circumvented by cutting through the pinewoods. If the watchman had been awake—and this Matthew seriously doubted—he'd been looking out to sea. Who would expect anyone in their right mind to venture out into this morass in the dead of night?
The midnight traveller had a definite purpose, one that gave speed to his step. Matthew heard something rustle off in the grass to his right; it sounded large and quite sinister, therefore he found a little extra speed himself. He discovered in the next moment, however, that his worst enemy was the swamp itself, as he walked into a shallow pond that closed about his knees and almost sent him sprawling. The mud at the pond's bottom seized his shoes and it was only with extreme tenacity that Matthew worked his way to freedom. Once out of the water he realized he could no longer detect his quarry's movement. He scanned from right to left and back again, but the darkness had truly dropped its curtain.
Still, he knew the man must be going in this general direction. He started off again, more mindful of where he was stepping. The swamp was indeed a treacherous place. The midnight traveller must surely have come out here many times to be able to navigate these dangers. Indeed, Matthew thought the man may have made a map of his route and consigned it to memory.
After three or four minutes, Matthew was yet unable to spy any movement in the darkness. He glanced back and saw that his course had taken him around a headland. A black line of pines and swamp oaks stood between his current position and the watchman's tower, which was probably the greater part of a mile behind. Beyond him was only more swamp. He debated whether to turn back or forge on. Everything out here was only greater and lesser shades of dark, so what was the point? He did continue on a few paces, though, and again paused to scan the horizon. Mosquitoes hummed about his ears, hungry for blood. Frogs croaked in the rushes. Of another human, however, there was not a sign.
What was there to bring a person out here? This was wild desolation, hardly a civilized soul standing between his footprints and the city of Charles Town. So what did the midnight traveller seek to accomplish?
Matthew looked up at the banners of stars. The sky was so huge and the horizon so wide that it was fearsome. The sea, too, was a dark continent. Standing on this coast with the unknown world at his back, he felt more than a little distress, as if his equilibrium and very place on earth were challenged by such immensity. He
