“Good thinking, but there’s one catch. Who’s going to labor at building a fort, when there’s gold to be had?”
David pondered this for a time. “Someone whose labor earns them gold,” he answered. “Because the fort gives them the privilege of charging a toll to fortune hunters. And selling them supplies . . . at wilderness prices.
“In the meantime, while hardly any ships come by here, other than our own, we best stop doing an imitation of a sitting duck. I’ll lend you some men who are too sick for traveling, let alone gold hunting, to wear uniforms and swagger around your parapets. You might put some of our female colonists in uniform, too.”
“Women soldiers?” Dirck’s tone made it clear that he was horrified to the very depths of his by-the-book soul.
“Think of them as Amazons. Anyway, they probably won’t need to fire a shot, just look properly martial at a distance.”
Next, David had his own crew to worry about.
“All hands on deck!” bawled the high boatswain. The watch below roused itself, and blearily made their way up the hatches. Their expressions were puzzled; there was no storm, and no foes, to be seen. But Captain de Vries was dressed in his best uniform, and standing on the poop deck with his hands clasped behind him. Clearly the captain wanted to address them about something important.
David cleared his throat. “Lads, we’ve got a fine opportunity for fame and fortune before us, but only if we use our heads. There’s gold to be found up a nearby river but it will take time and effort, and the gold won’t do us much good if we don’t have a ship to return to. That gold’ll spend much better in Europe than in this blasted jungle.
“There are plenty of fools who have left their ships to rot while they chased gold, but we won’t be among them. The problem, of course, is that no one wants to be left behind while others make their fortune. And the solution to that problem is that we will sign a compact that it’s share-and-share alike, whether you’re panning for gold or manning the cannon to make sure the damned Spanish don’t come along to rob us of what we’ve earned.
“So what say you? Shall we have a compact?”
The roar left no doubt of the answer.
* * *
While at New Carthage negotiating with Maurício, David learned of Kojo’s predicament. David persuaded Maurício to set up a meeting, and then sweet-talked Kojo into coming aboard the Walvis as a guide. He had three cogent arguments. First, as “patron” of Gustavus, he had more authority over the colonists than anyone else, and hence could protect Kojo from the greedier Europeans. Second, by coming along, Kojo would be more quickly reunited with his fellow Ashanti. Third, that on the way to the goldfields, Kojo could learn how to use the fancy gold mining equipment that David had bought from Master Baum, and then be the “expert” for the benefit of his fellow tribesmen.
It was David’s intention to resell much of that gold mining equipment at a stiff markup to the colonists already upriver, and have Kojo provide, what did his up-timer friends call it? A “celebrity endorsement.”
* * *
Jan Smoot cleared his throat. “It has pleased the eternal and immutable Wisdom of Almighty God to call Dirck van Rijn to His bosom. He has passed from this sinful world to the blessed joy of God’s Eternal Kingdom, where the great street of the Eternal City is of pure gold. Revelation 22:21.”
Like Master Baum, Jan had decided that it was more profitable to sell goods to the miners than to pick up a pan or shovel himself. Unlike Master Baum, he had decided that the road to riches was to bring his goods to the goldfields, where competition was scarcest.
Near the old-time-line town of Grand Santi, Jan had found an island where, thanks to the poorness of the soil, there were few great trees, just ground cover and some small shrubs. There, he had built a small building to serve as both dwelling and shop. He had an Indian to serve as a go-between with the nearby tribes, and two Ndongo boatmen to ferry supplies up the Marowijne.
Jan looked around at the assembled miners, mostly colonists. “Anyone have anything they want to say about Dirck?” He paused. “Anything nice, I mean.”
“He was a hard worker,” said Pieter, Dirk’s former partner. They had split up in a dispute as to whether the stretch they were working was producing enough; Pieter had stayed and Dirk had moved on. Unfortunately, Dirck had picked a new location that had been recently worked by a pair of crewmen from the Patientia. When they returned, he insisted that they had abandoned the location, and they thought otherwise. The words became heated, he made a move they thought threatening, and one of them clubbed him in the noggin with a reversed pistol. He picked himself up, and walked off, seemingly wounded only in his pride. A few hours later, he lost consciousness.