Free The Last Bookaneer by Matthew Pearl

the island will. The place is a hell on earth, with roasting temperatures and consumed with deadly quarrels among the pagan tribes. Between the spears of the natives and the intervention of heavily armed foreign governments, plus the mischief of tropical disease, no white man is safe. The novel, this masterpiece, will perish out there—but if one were able to bring it back to civilization . . . I know when you want something you go at things like one o’clock, no matter how lackadaisical you seem to others. You are the one to do it, Pen!”
    â€œHave at it yourself when you decide to leave this palace.”
    â€œYou see I am no longer in any condition to do anything of the sort. I have spent my fortune and my health hunting for Poe’s lost novel, alas, which is never to see the light of day. If you can retrieve Stevenson’s book, my dear Pen, you will yield a terrific fortune. You can bring the publishers and their damned monopolies to their knees begging you for it.”
    â€œEven if any of what you say is true, you must know I would not give you the satisfaction of following a lead brought by you, Whiskey Bill.”
    Bill looked him up and down. “I used to know you as having a grander sense of destiny, of our profession. A man who sought to transcend mere errands parceled out by the gluttonous publishers. A man not quite so . . . calculating in everything.”
    â€œFergins.”
    I began to collect our coats and hats. Then I noticed Davenport had tilted his head back and was looking at the ceiling. Knowing what he was thinking, I spoke softly to him: “Samoa. Warlike tribes, dangerous climate. Too risky, treasure or not, my dear Davenport.”
    Whiskey Bill scowled at me, then stretched his hand out to the other bookaneer, though he could not reach him. “This will be the final gift to posterity, to the world at large, from our work. I am dying,” Bill said in a quieter voice filled with pain. “You are the only one who can do this. My ambitions must vanish—but I need not vanish from history. When the yarn is told, I will be spoken of as the man to have passed the mission along to you, and that will be something. I will have played a part. That will be—it will have to be enough. Your permanence in the legends of the bookaneers—your life as it exists beyond these earthly skins—depends upon this chance, Pen Davenport. I know you long for such a laurel. I know that like me, you do not yet feel our calling completed.”
    â€œYou know nothing about me.” There was an unusual tremor in his voice.
    â€œTo the devil with laurels, then. With the copyright treaty about to go into effect on the first of July, Pen, how many missions are still left for you? The end comes. Why, it would be the most lucrative pursuit since the discovery of Shelley’s lost novelette. Do you know how much money you would walk away with if you managed to do this?”
    I had already started calculating this in my notebook—factoring in Stevenson’s last three contracts, the scarcity of major successes over the last twelve to eighteen months, and the unique value to the public of an author’s last work. “Twenty thousand pounds, at least,” I said. When I met Davenport’s glare, I felt my cheeks flush with color and I looked down at my hands.
    Bill, heartened by my mistake, straightened himself on his pillows. “Talk of a true ‘treasure island.’” His bearing now grew funereal. “In making myself your enemy, Pen, I believe I have served almost in a role similar to a friend—goading and encouraging you to do more.”
    â€œThere are no friends in our line of work,” Davenport said.
    â€œNo,” Bill said, his eyes darting over my face before continuing. “Then perhaps you would say I have served as something of a mentor to you.”
    â€œI’ve had only one.”
    â€œYou have