Chapter 11

The morning wore on with ever-increasing heat, and as nothing happened I began to find my watchful waiting dull. Crusoe, worn out perhaps by some private nocturnal pig-hunt, slept heavily where the drip of the spring over the brim of old Heintz's kettle cooled the air. Aunt Jane's sobs had ceased, and only a low murmur of voices came from the cabin. I began to consider whether it would not be well to take a walk with Cuthbert Vane and discover the tombstone all over again. I knew nothing, of course, of Mr. Tubbs's drastic measures with the celebrated landmark. As to Cuthbert's interrupted courtship, I depended on the vast excitement of discovering the cave to distract his mind from it. For that was the idea, of course--Cuthbert Vane and I would explore the cave, and then whenever I liked I could prick the bubble of Mr. Tubbs's ambitions, without relating the whole strange story of the diary and the _Island Queen_. I was immensely pleased already by the elimination of Mr. Tubbs from the number of those who need have a finger in the golden pie. I thought that perhaps with time and patience I might coax events to play still further into my hand.

But meanwhile the cave drew me like a magnet. I jealously desired to be the first to see it, to snatch from Mr. Tubbs the honors of discovery. And I wanted to know about poor Peter--and, the doubloons that he had gone back to fetch.

But already Captain Magnus had forsaken the post of duty and departed on an unknown errand. Could I ask Cuthbert Vane to do it, too? And then I smiled a smile that was half proud. I might ask him--but he would refuse me. In Cuthbert's simple code, certain things were "done," certain others not. Among the nots was to fail in standing by a friend. And just now Cuthbert was standing by Dugald Shaw. Therefore nods and becks and wreathed smiles were vain. In Cuthbert's quiet, easy-mannered, thick-headed way he could turn his back calmly on the face of love and follow the harsh call of duty even to death. It would not occur to him not to. And he never would suspect himself of being a hero--that would be quite the nicest part of it.

And yet I knew poor Cuthbert was an exploded superstition, an anachronism, part of a vanishing order of things, and that the ideal which was replacing him was a boiler-plated monster with clock-work heart and brain, named Efficiency. And that Cuthbert must go, along with his Jacobean manor and his family ghost, and the oaks in the park, and everything else that couldn't prove its right to live except by being fine and lovely and full of garnered sweetness of the past--

At this point in my meditations the door of the cabin opened and Miss Browne came out, looking sternly resolute. Aunt Jane followed, very pink about the eyes and nose. She threw an anxious fluttering glance at Mr. Tubbs, who sat up briskly, and in a nervous manner polished with a large bandana that barren zone, his cranium, which looked torrid enough to scorch the very feet of the flies that walked on it. It was clear that on the lips of Miss Browne there hovered some important announcement, which might well be vital to the fortunes of Mr. Tubbs.

With a commanding gesture Miss Browne signaled the rest to approach. Mr. Tubbs bounced up with alacrity. Mr. Shaw and Cuthbert obeyed less promptly, but they obeyed. Meanwhile Violet waited, looking implacable as fate.

"And where is Captain Magnus?" she demanded, glancing about her.

But no one knew what had become of Captain Magnus.

As for myself, I continued to sit in the shade and tat. But I could hear with ease all that was said.

"Mr. Tubbs," began Miss Browne, "your recent claims have been matter of prolonged consideration between Miss Harding and myself. We feel--we can not but feel--that there was a harshness in your announcement of them, an apparent concentration on your own interests, ill befitting a member of this expedition. Also, that in actual substance, they were excessive. Not half, Mr. Tubbs; oh, no, not half! But one-quarter, Miss Harding and myself, as the joint heads of the Harding-Browne expedition, are inclined to think no more than the reward which is your due. We suggest, therefore, a simple way out of the difficulty, Mr. Dugald Shaw was engaged on liberal terms to find the treasure. He has not found the treasure. He has not found the slightest clue to its present whereabouts. Mr. Tubbs, on the contrary, has found a clue. It is a clue of the first importance. It is equivalent almost to the actual discovery of the chest. Therefore let Mr. Shaw, convinced I am sure by this calm presentation of the matter of the justice of such a course, resign his claim to a fourth share of the treasure in favor of Mr. Hamilton H. Tubbs, and agree to receive instead the former allotment of Mr. Tubbs, namely, one-sixteenth."

Having offered this remarkable suggestion, Miss Browne folded her arms and waited for it to bear fruit.

It did--in the enthusiastic response of Mr. Tubbs. Having already played his highest trump and missed the trick, he now found himself with an entirely fresh hand dealt to him by the obliging Miss Higglesby-Browne. The care in his countenance yielded to beaming smiles.

"Well, well!" he exclaimed. "To think of your takin' old H. H. that literal! O' course, havin' formed my habits in the financial centers of the country, I named a stiff price at first--a stiff price, I won't deny. But that's jest the leetle way of a man used to handlin' large affairs--nothin' else to it, I do assure you. The Old Man himself used to say, 'There's old H. H.--you'd think he'd eat the paint off a house, he'll show up that graspin' in a deal. And all the time it's jest love of the game. Let him know he's goin' to win out, and bless you, old H. H. will swing right round and fair force the profits on the other party. H. H. is slicker than soap to handle, if only you handle him right.' Can I say without hard feelin's that jest now H. H. was not handled right? Instead o' bein' joshed with, as he looked for, he was took up short, and even them which he might have expected to show confidence"--here Mr. Tubbs cast a reproachful eye at Aunt Jane--"run off with the notion that he meant jest what he said. All he'd done for this expedition, his loyalty and faith to same, was forgotten, and he was thought of as a self-seeker and Voracious Shark!" The pain of these recollections dammed the torrent of Mr. Tubbs's speech.

"Oh, Mr. Tubbs!" breathed Aunt Jane heart-brokenly, and of course a tear trickled gently down her nose, following the path of many previous tears which had already left their saline traces.

Mr. Tubbs managed in some impossible fashion to roll one eye tenderly at Aunt Jane, while keeping the other fastened shrewdly on the remainder of his audience.

"Miss Higglesby-Browne and Miss Jane Harding," he resumed, "I accept. It would astonish them as has only known H. H. on his financial side to see him agree to a reduction of profits like this without a kick. But I'm a man of impulse, I am. Get me on my soft side and a kitten ain't more impulsive than old H. H. And o' course the business of this expedition ain't jest business to me. It's--er--friendship, and--er--sentiment--in short, there's feelin's that is more than worth their weight in gold!"

At these significant words the agitation of Aunt Jane was extreme. Was it possible that Mr. Tubbs was declaring himself in the presence of others--and was a response demanded from herself--would his sensitive nature, so lately wounded by cruel suspicion, interpret her silence as fatal to his hopes? But while she struggled between maiden shyness and the fear of crushing Mr. Tubbs the conversation had swept on.

"Mr. Shaw," said Miss Browne, "you have heard Mr. Tubbs, in the interest of the expedition, liberally consent to reduce his claim by one-half. Doubtless, if only in a spirit of emulation, you will attempt to match this conduct by canceling our present agreement and consenting to another crediting you with the former sixteenth share of Mr. Tubbs."

"Don't do it, Shaw--hold the fort, old boy!" broke in Cuthbert Vane. "I say, Miss Browne, this is a bally shame!"

Miss Browne had always treated the prospective Lord Grasmere with distinguished politeness. Even now her air was mild though lofty.

"Mr. Vane, I must beg leave to remind you that the object of this expedition was yet unattained when Mr. Tubbs, by following clues ignored by others, brought success within our reach. Mr. Dugald Shaw having conspicuously failed--"

"Failed!" repeated Cuthbert, with unprecedented energy. "Failed! I say, that's too bad of you, Miss Browne. Wasn't everybody here a lot keener than old Shaw about mucking in that silly cave where those Johnnies would have had hard work to bury anything unless they were mermaids? Didn't the old chap risk his neck a dozen times a day while this Christopher Columbus stayed high and dry ashore? Suppose he did find the tombstone by stubbing his silly toes on it--so far he hasn't found the cave, much less the box of guineas or whatever those foreign chaps call their money. Let Mr. Tubbs go sit on the tombstone if he likes. Shaw and I can find the cave quite on our own, can't we, Shaw?"

"Mr. Vane," replied the still deferential Violet, "as a member of the British aristocracy, it is not to be supposed that you would view financial matters with the same eye as those of us of the Middle Classes, who, unhappily perhaps for our finer feelings, have been obliged to experience the harsh contacts of common life. Your devotion to Mr. Shaw has a romantic ardor which I can not but admire. But permit us also our enthusiasm for the perspicacity of Mr. Tubbs, to which we owe the wealth now within our grasp."

Mr. Shaw now spoke for the first time.

"Miss Browne, I do not recognize the justice of your standpoint in this matter. I have done and am still prepared to do my best in this business of the treasure. If Mr. Tubbs will not give his information except for a bribe, I say--let him keep it. We are no worse off without it than we were before, and you were then confident of success. My intention, ma'am, is to hold you to our original agreement. I shall continue the search for the treasure on the same lines as at present."

"One moment," said Miss Browne haughtily. She had never spoken otherwise than haughtily to Mr. Shaw since the episode of the Wise Woman of Dumbiedykes. "One moment, Jane--and you, Mr. Tubbs--"

She drew them aside, and they moved off out of earshot, where they stood with their backs to us and their heads together.

It was my opportunity. Violet herself had proposed that the original agreement--the agreement which bound me to ask for no share of the treasure--should be canceled. Nothing now was necessary to the ripening of my hopes but to induce Dugald Shaw to immolate himself. Would he do so--on my bare word? There was no time to explain anything--he must trust me.

I sprang up and dashed over to the pair who stood looking gloomily out to sea. They turned in surprise and stared down, the two big men, into my flushed up-tilted face.

"Mr. Shaw," I whispered quickly, "you must do as Miss Browne wishes." In my earnestness I laid a hand upon his arm. He regarded me bewilderedly.

"You must--you must!" I urged. "You'll spoil everything if you refuse!"

The surprise in his face yielded to a look composed of many elements, but which was mainly hard and bitter.

"And still I shall refuse," he said sardonically.

"Oh, no, no," I implored, "you don't understand! I--oh, if you would only believe that I am your friend!"

His face changed subtly. It was still questioning and guarded, but with a softening in it, too.

"Why don't you believe it?" I whispered unsteadily. "Do you forget that I owe you my life?"

And at the recollection of that day in the sea-cave the scarlet burned in my cheeks and my head drooped. But I saw how the lines about his mouth relaxed. "Surely you must know that I would repay you if I could!" I hurried on. "And not by--treachery."

He laughed suddenly. "Treachery? No! I think you would always be an open foe."

"Indeed I would!" I answered with a flash of wrath. Then, as I remembered the need of haste, I spoke in an intense quick whisper. "Listen--I can't explain, there isn't time. I can only ask you to trust me--to agree to what Miss Browne wishes. Everything--you don't dream how much--depends on it!" For I felt that I would let the treasure lie hidden in the _Island Queen_ forever rather than that Mr. Tubbs should, under the original contract, claim a share of it.

The doubt had quite left his face.

"I do trust you, little Virginia," he said gently. "Yes, I trust in your honesty, heaven knows, child. But permit me to question your wisdom in desiring to enrich our friend Tubbs."

"Enrich him--enrich _him_! The best I wish him is unlimited gruel in an almshouse somewhere. No! What I want is to get that wretched paper of Miss Browne's nullified. Afterward we can divide things up as we like--"

Bewilderment, shot with a gleam of half-incredulous understanding, seemed to transfix him. We stood a long moment, our eyes challenging each other, exchanging their countersign of faith and steadfastness. Then slowly he held out his hand. I laid mine in it--we stood hand in hand, comrades at last. Without more words he turned away and strode over to the council of three.

I now became aware of Cuthbert Vane, whom perplexity had carried far beyond the bounds of speech and imprisoned in a sort of torpor. He was showing faint symptoms of revival, and had got as far as "I say--?" uttered in the tone of one who finds himself moving about in worlds not realized, when the near-by group dissolved and moved rapidly toward us. Miss Browne, exultant, beaming, was in the van. She set her substantial feet down like a charger pawing the earth. You might almost have said that Violet pranced. Aunt Jane was round-eyed and twittering. Mr. Tubbs wore a look of suppressed astonishment, almost of perturbation. _What's his game_? was the question in the sophisticated eye of Mr. Tubbs. But the Scotchman had when he chose a perfect poker face. The great game of bluff would have suited him to a nicety. Mr. Tubbs interrogated that inexpressive countenance in vain.

Miss Browne advanced on Cuthbert Vane and seized both his hands in an ardent clasp.

"Mr. Vane," she said with solemnity, "I thank you--in the name of this expedition I thank you--for the influence you have exerted upon your friend!"

And this seemed to be to the noble youth the most stunning of all the shocks of that eventful morning.

Now came the matter of drawing up the new agreement. It was a canny Scot indeed who, acting on the hint I had just given him, finally settled its terms. In the first place, the previous agreement was declared null and void. In the second, Mr. Tubbs was to have his fourth only if the treasure were discovered through his direct agency. And it was under this condition and no other that Dugald Shaw bound himself to relinquish his original claim. Virginia Harding signed a new renunciatory clause, but it bore only on treasure _discovered by Mr. Tubbs_. Indeed, the entire contract was of force only if Mr. Tubbs fulfilled his part of it, and fell to pieces if he did not. Which was exactly what I wanted.

Miss Browne and Mr. Tubbs demurred a little at the wording on which Mr. Shaw insisted, but Mr. Tubbs's confidence in the infallibility of the tombstone was so great that no real objection was interposed. No difficulty was made of the absence of Captain Magnus, as his interests were unaffected by the change. Space was left for his signature. Mine came last of all, as that of a mere interloper and hanger-on. I added it and handed the paper demurely across to Violet, who consigned it to an apparently bottomless pocket. Copies were to be made after lunch.

My demonstrations of joy at this happy issue of my hopes had to be confined to a smile--in which for a startled instant Violet had seemed to sense the triumph. It was still on my lips as with a general movement we rose from the table about which we had been grouped during the absorbing business of drawing up the contract. Cookie had been clamoring for us to leave, that he might spread the table for lunch. I had opened my mouth to call to him, "All right, Cookie!" when a shrill volley of barks from Crusoe shattered the stillness of the drowsy air. In the same instant the voice of Cookie, raised to a sharp note of alarm, rang through the camp:

"_My Gawd, what all dis yere mean_?"

I turned, to look into the muzzle of a rifle.

XVI

LIKE A CHAPTER FROM THE PAST

Five men had emerged from the woods behind the clearing, so quietly that they were in the center of the camp before Crusoe's shrill bark, or the outcry of the cook, warned us of their presence. By that time they had us covered. Three of them carried rifles, the other two revolvers. One of these was Captain Magnus.

Advancing a step or two before the others he ordered us to throw up our hands. Perhaps he meant only the men--but my hands and Aunt Jane's and Miss Higglesby-Browne's also went up with celerity. He grinned into our astounded faces with a wolfish baring of his yellow teeth.

"Never guessed I wasn't here jest to do the shovel work, but might have my own little side-show to bring off, hey?" he inquired of no one in particular. "Here, Slinker, help me truss 'em up."

The man addressed thrust his pistol in his belt and came forward, and with his help the hands of the Scotchman, Cuthbert Vane and Mr. Tubbs were securely tied. They were searched for arms, and the sheath-knives which Mr. Shaw and Cuthbert carried at their belts were taken away. The three prisoners were then ordered to seat themselves in a row on the trunk of a prostrate palm.

The whole thing had happened in the strangest silence. Except for a feeble moaning from Aunt Jane, like the bleating of a sheep, which broke forth at intervals, nobody spoke or made a sound. The three riflemen in the background, standing like images with their weapons raised, looked like a well-trained chorus in an opera.

And indeed it was all extraordinarily like something on a stage. Slinker, for instance. He had a prowling, sidelong fashion of moving about, and enormous yellow mustaches like a Viking. Surely some artist in the make-up line had invented Slinker! And the burly fellow in the background, with the black whiskers--too bad he'd forgotten his earrings---

But I awoke to the horrid reality of it all as Captain Magnus, smiling his wolfish smile, turned and approached me.

"Well, boys," he remarked to his followers, who had now lowered their weapons and were standing about at ease, "here's the little pippin I was tellin' of. 'Fraid we give her a little scare bustin' in so sudden, so she ain't quite so bright and smilin' as I like to see. Its all right, girlie; you'll soon cheer up when you find out you're go'in' to be the little queen o' this camp. Things will be all your way now--so long as you treat me right." And the abominable creature thrust forth a hairy paw and deliberately chucked me under the chin.

I heard a roar from the log--and coincidently from Captain Magnus. For with the instant response of an automaton--consciously I had nothing at all to do with it--I had reached up and briskly boxed the captain's ears.

Furiously he caught my wrist. "Ah, you red-headed little devil, you'll pay for this! I ain't pretty, oh, no! I ain't a handsome mooncalf like the Honorable; I ain't got a title, nor girly pink cheeks, nor fine gentleman ways. No walks with the likes o' me, no tatey-tates in the woods--oh, no! Well, it's goin' to be another story now, girlie. I guess you can learn to like my looks, with a little help from my fist now and then, jest as well as you done the Honorable's. I guess it won't be long before I have you crawlin' on your knees to me for a word o' kindness. I guess--"

"Aw, stow that soft stuff, Magnus," advised Slinker. "You can do your spoonin' with the gal later on. We're here to git that gold, and don't you forget it. Plenty o' time afterwards to spark the wimmen."

"That's the talk," chimed in Blackbeard. "Don't run us on a lee shore for the sake of a skirt. Skirts is thicker'n herring in every port, ain't they?"

"I got a score to settle with this one," growled Magnus sullenly, but his grasp loosened on my arm, and I slipped from him and fled to Aunt Jane--yes, to Aunt Jane--and clung to her convulsively. The poor little woman was crying, of course, making a low inarticulate whimper like a frightened child. Miss Higglesby-Browne seemed to have petrified. Her skin had a withered look, and a fine network of lines showed on it, suddenly clear, like a tracery on parchment. Beyond her I saw the face of Dugald Shaw, gray with a steely wrath. A gun had been trained anew on him and Cuthbert, and the bearer thereof was arguing with them profanely. I suppose the prisoners had threatened outbreak at the spectacle of the chin-chucking.

No one had bothered to secure Cookie, and he knelt among the pots and pans of his open-air kitchen, pouring forth petitions in a steady stream. Blackboard, who seemed a jovial brute, burst into a loud guffaw.

"Ha, ha! Look at old Soot-and-Cinders gittin' hisself ready for glory!" He approached the negro and aimed at him a kick which Cookie, arising with unexpected nimbleness, contrived to dodge. "Looky here, darky, git busy dishin' up the grub, will you? I could stand one good feed after the forecastle slops we been livin' on."

Blackbeard, whom his companions addressed indiscriminately as "Captain," or "Tony," seemed to exercise a certain authority. He went over to the prisoners on the log and inspected their bonds.

"You'll do; can't git loose nohow," he announced. Then, with a savage frown, "But no monkey business. First o' that I see, its a dose o' cold lead for youse, savvy?"

He turned to us women.

"Well, chickabiddies, we ain't treated you harsh, I hope? Now I don't care about tyin' youse up, in case we can help it, so jest be good girls, and I'll let youse run around loose for a while."

But Magnus struck in with an oath.

"Loose? You're turnin' soft, I say. The future Mrs. M. there--which I mean to make her if she behaves right--she's a handful, she is. There ain't no low trick she won't play on us if she gets the chance. Better tie her up, I say."

"Magnus," responded Tony with severity, "it'd make a person think to hear you talk that you wasn't no gentleman. If you can't keep little Red-top in order without you tie her, why, then hand her over to a guy what can. I bet I wouldn't have a speck o' trouble with her--her and me would git along as sweet as two turtle-doves."

"You dry up, Tony," said Magnus, lowering. "I'll look after my own affairs of the heart. Anyway, here's them two old hens what have been makin' me sick with their jabber and nonsense all these weeks. Ain't I goin' to have a chance to get square?"

"Here, youse!" struck in Slinker, "quit your jawin'! Here's a feed we ain't seen the like of in weeks."