Chapter 9
The patch was narrow, about six feet long--instantly suggestive of a grave. But swift beyond all process of reason was the certainty that flashed into my mind. I fell on my knees beside the stone at the head and pulled away the torn vine-tendrils. I saw the letters B. H. and an attempt at cross-bones rudely cut into the surface of the stone.
I closed my eyes and tried to steady myself. I thought, I am seeing things. _This is the mere projection of the vision which has been in my mind so long_.
I opened my eyes, and lo, the fantasy, if fantasy it were, remained. I smote with my fist upon the stone. The stone was solid--it bruised the flesh. And as I saw the blood run, I screamed aloud like a madman, "_It's real, real, real_!"
Under the stone lay the guardian of the treasure of the _Bonny Lass_--And his secret was within my grasp.
I don't know how long I crouched beside the stone, as drunk with joy as any hasheesh toper with his drug. I roused at last to find Benjy at my shoulder, thrusting his cool nose against my feverish cheek. I suppose he didn't understand my ignoring him so, or thought I scorned him for losing out in his race with the pig. Yet when I think of what I owe that pig I could swear never to taste pork again.
Brought back to earth and sanity, I rose and began to consider my surroundings. Somewhere close at hand was the mouth of the cave--but where? The cliffs, as I have already said, were too steep for descent. Nothing but a fly could have crawled down them. I turned to the craggy face of the mountain. There, surely, must be the entrance to the cave! For hours I clambered among the rocks, risking mangled limbs and sunstroke--and found no cave. I came back at last, wearily, to the grave. There lay the dust of the brain that had known all--and a wild impulse came to me to tear away the earth with my bare hands, to dig deep, deep--and then with listening ear wait for a whispered word.
I put the delirious fancy from me and moved away to the edge of the cliffs. Looking down, I saw a narrow sloping shelf which dropped from the brink to a distance of ten or twelve feet below, where it met a slight projection of the rock. I had seen it before, of course, but it had carried no significance for my mind. Now I stepped down upon the ledge and followed it to its end in the angle of the rock.
Snugly hidden in the angle was a low doorway leading into blackness.
Now of course I ought in prudence to have gone back to the hut and got matches and a lantern and a rope before I set foot in the darkness of that unknown place. But what had I to do to-day with prudence--Fortune had me by the hand! In I went boldly, Benjy at my heels. The passage turned sharply, and for a little way we walked in blackness. Then it veered again, and a faint and far-off light seemed to filter its way to us through a web woven of the very stuff of night. The floor sloped a little downward. I felt my way with my feet, and came to a step--another. I was going along a descending passage, cut at its steepest into rough, irregular stairs. With either hand I could touch the walls. All the while the light grew clearer. Presently, by another sharp turn, I found myself in a cave, some thirty feet in depth by eighteen across, with an opening on the narrow strip of beach I had seen from the top of the cliffs.
The roof is high, with an effect of Gothic arches. Near the mouth is a tiny spring of ice-cold water, which has worn a clean rock-channel for itself to the sea. Otherwise the cave is perfectly dry. The shining white sand of its floor is above the highest watermark on the cliffs outside. There is no doubt in my mind that in the great buccaneering days of the seventeenth century, and probably much later, the place was the haunt of pirates. One fancies that Captain Sampson of the _Bonny Lass_ may have known of it before he brought the treasure to the island. There were queer folk to be met with in those days in the Western Ocean! The cave is cool at blazing midday, and secret, I fancy, even from the sea, because of the droop of great rock-eaves above its mouth. Either for the keeping of stores or as a hiding-place for men or treasure it would be admirable. Yes, the cave has seen many a fierce, sea-tanned face and tarry pigtail, and echoed to strange oaths and wild sea-songs. Men had carved those steps in the passage--thirty-two of them. In the sand of the floor, as I kicked it up with my feet, hoping rather childishly to strike the corner of the chest, I found the hilt and part of the blade of a rusty cutlass, and a chased silver shoe-buckle. I shall take the buckle home to Helen--and yet how trivial it will seem, with all else that I have to offer her! Nevertheless she will prize it as my gift, and because it comes from the place to which some kind angel led me for her sake.
I left the cave and hurried back to the cabin for a spade, walking on air, breaking with snatches of song the terrible stillness of the woods, where one hears only the high fitful sighing of the wind, or the eternal mutter of the sea. As I came out of the hut with the spade over my shoulder I waved my hand to the _Island Queen_ riding at anchor.
"You'll soon be showing a clean pair of heels to Leeward, old girl!" I cried. Back in the cave, I set to work feverishly, making the light sand fly. I began at the rear of the cavern, reasoning that there the sand would lie at greater depth, also that it would be above the wash of the heaviest storms. At the end of half an hour, at a point close to the angle of the wall my spade struck a hard surface. It lay, I should judge, under about two feet of sand. Soon I had laid bare a patch of dark wood which rang under my knuckles almost like iron. A little more, and I had cleared away the sand from the top of a large chest with a convex lid, heavily bound in brass.
Furiously I flung the sand aside until the chest stood free for half its depth--which is roughly three feet. It has handles at the ends, great hand-wrought loops of metal. I tugged my hardest, but the chest seemed fast in its place as the native rock. I laughed exultantly. The weight meant gold--gold! I had hammer and chisel with me, and with these I forced the massive ancient locks. There were three of them, one for each strip of brass which bound the chest. Then I flung up the lid.
No glittering treasure dazzled me. I saw only a surface of stained canvas, tucked in carefully around the edges. This I tore off and flung aside--eclipsing poor Benjy, who was a most interested spectator of my strange proceedings. Still no gleam of gold, merely demure rows of plump brown bags. With both hands I reached for them. Oh, to grasp them all! I had to be content with two, because they were so heavy, so blessedly heavy!
I spread the square of canvas on the sand, cut the strings from the bags, and poured out--gold, gold! All fair shining golden coins they were, not a paltry silver piece among them! And they made a soft golden music as they fell in a glorious yellow heap.
I don't know how long I sat there, playing with my gold, running it through my fingers, clinking the coins together in my palm. Benjy came and sniffed at them indifferently, unable to understand his master's preoccupation. He thrust his nose into my face and barked, and said as clearly as with words, _Come, hunt pig_!
"Benjy," I said, "we'll leave the pork alone just now. We have work enough to count our money. We're rich, old boy, rich, rich!"
Of course, I don't yet know exactly what the value of the treasure is. I have counted the bags in the chest; there are one hundred and forty-eight. Each, so far as I have determined, contains one thousand doubloons, which makes a total of one hundred and forty-eight thousand. Estimating each coin, for the sake of even figures, at a value of seven dollars--a safe minimum--you get one million, thirty-six thousand dollars. And as many of the coins are ancient, I ought to reap a harvest from collectors.
Besides the coin, I found, rather surprisingly, laid between the upper layers of bags, a silver crucifix about nine inches long. It is of very quaint old workmanship, and badly tarnished. Its money value must be very trifling, compared to the same bulk of golden coins. I think it must have had some special character of sacredness which led to its preservation here. It is strange to find such a relic among a treasure so stained by blood and crime.
And now I have to think about moving the gold. First of all I must get the chest itself aboard the _Island Queen_. This means that I shall have to empty it and leave the gold in the cave, while I get the chest out by sea. When the chest is safely in the cabin of the sloop--where it won't leave much room for Benjy and his master, I'm afraid--I will take the bags of coin out by the land entrance. I can't think of risking my precious doubloons in the voyage around the point.
Of course I should have liked to get to the task to-day, but after the first mad thrill of the great event was over, I found myself as weak and unnerved as a woman. So by a great effort I came away and left my glorious golden hoard. Now I dream and gloat, playing with the idea that to-morrow I shall find it all a fantasy. The pleasure of this is, of course, that all the while I _know_ this wildest of all Arabian fairy tales to be as real as the most drab and sober fact of my hitherto colorless life.
After all, on the way back from the cave Benjy brought down a pig. So he is as well pleased with the day as I am. Now I am sitting in the doorway of my cabin, writing up my journal, and trying to calm down enough to go to bed. If it were not for the swift fading of daylight, I would go back to the cave for another peep into the chest. But all round the island the sea is moaning with that peculiarly melancholy note that comes with the falling of night. The sea-birds have risen from the cove and gone wheeling off in troops to their nests on the cliffs. Somehow a curious dislike, almost fear, of this wild, sea-girt, solitary place has come over me. I long for the sound of human voices, the touch of human hands. I think of the dead man lying there at the door of the cave, its silent guardian for so long. I suppose he brooded once on the thought of the gold as I do--perhaps he has been brooding so these ninety years! I wonder if he is pleased that I, a stranger, have come into possession of his secret hoard at last?
Oh, Helen, turn your heavenly face on me--be my refuge from these shuddering unwholesome thoughts! The gold is for you--for you! Surely that must cleanse it of its stains, must loose the clutch of the dead hands that strive to hold it!
February 11. This morning I was early at the cave. Yes, there it was, the same wonder-chest that I had dreamed of all night long. It was absurd how the tightness in my breast relaxed.
I began at once the work of removing the bags from the chest and stacking them in the corner of the cave. It was a fatiguing job, I had to stoop so. At the bottom of the chest I found a small portfolio of very fine leather containing documents in Spanish. They bear an official seal. Although I should be interested to know their meaning, I think I shall destroy them. They weaken my feeling of ownership; I suppose there is a slight flavor of lawlessness in my carrying off the gold from the island like this. Very likely the little Spanish-American state which has some claim to overlordship here would dispute my right to the treasure-trove.
I spent so much time unloading the chest and poring over the papers, trying, by means of my ill-remembered Latin, to make out the sense of the kindred Spanish, that before I was ready to go for my boat the tide was up and pounding on the rocks below the cave. I find that only at certain stages of the tide is the cave approachable by sea. At the turn after high water, for instance, there is such a terrific undertow that it sets up a small maelstrom among the reefs lying off the island. At low tide is the time to come.
February 12. Got the chest out of the cave, though it was a difficult job. I don't know of what wood the thing is built--some South American hardwood, I fancy--but it weighs like metal. The heavy brass clampings count for something, of course. Luckily there was no sea, and I had a smooth passage around the point, I laughed rather ruefully as I passed the Cave of the Two Arches. To think of the toil I wasted there! I wish Benjy had encountered the fateful pig a little sooner.
Got the chest aboard the _Island Queen_ and stowed in the cabin. Not room left to swing a kitten. Contrived an elaborate arrangement of ropes and spikes to keep it in place in a heavy sea.
In the afternoon began moving the gold. It's the deuce of a job.
February 15. Been hard at it for three days. Most of the gold moved. Have to think too of provisions and water for the trip. I am making rather a liberal allowance, in case of being blown out of my course by a tropical gale.
February 16. On board the _Island Queen_. Have moved my traps from the hut and am sleeping on the sloop. Want to be near the gold. "Where the treasure is, there will the heart be also," and in this case the body as well. To-morrow I have only to bring the last of the gold aboard--a trifling matter--and then go out with the ebb. I would have got all the bags on board to-day, but I noticed a worn stretch in the cable holding the sloop and stopped to repair it. I can't have the sloop going on the rocks in case a blow comes up to-night. There are only about a load and a half of bags left in the cave.
A queer notion seized me to-day about the crucifix, when I was bringing it from the cave. It seemed to float into my brain--I can't say from what quarter--_that I had better leave the crucifix for Bill_. It wasn't more than he had a right to, really--and there is no virtue in a cross-bones to make a man sleep well.
Of course I put the absurd idea from me, and brought the crucifix aboard along with the rest of the gold. I shall be glad when I know that the vines have again covered that lonely-looking gravestone from sight. I can't help feeling my own glorious good fortune to be somehow an affront to poor unlucky Bill.
To-morrow one last trip to the cave, and then hey, for home and Helen!
The diary ended here.
I closed the book, and stared with unseeing eyes into the green shadows of the encompassing woods. What happened to the writer of the diary on that last trip to the cave? For he had never left the island. Crusoe was here to prove it, as well as the wreck of the Island Queen. And, in all human probability, under the sand which choked the cabin of the derelict was the long-sought chest of Spanish doubloons.
But what was the mysterious fate of Peter? Had he fallen, overboard from the sloop and been drowned? Had he returned to the cave--and was he there still? It was all a mystery--but a mystery which I burned to solve.
Of course I might have solved it, very quickly, merely by communicating the extraordinary knowledge which had come to me to my companions. But for the present at least I meant to keep this astounding secret for my own. Somehow or other, by guile or lucky circumstance, I must bring it about that the document I had signed at Miss Browne's behest was canceled. Was I, who all unaided had discovered, or as good as discovered, the vainly-sought-for treasure, to disclose its whereabouts to those who would deny me the smallest claim upon its contents? Was I to see all those "fair, shining golden coins," parceled out between Miss Browne, and Mr. Tubbs, and Captain Magnus (the three who loomed large in my indignant thoughts), and not possess a single one myself? Or perhaps accept a little stingy present of a few? I really wasn't very covetous about the money, taken just as money; but considered as buried treasure it made my mouth water.
Then besides, while I kept my secret I had power; everybody's destiny was in my hands. This was a sweet thought. I felt that I should enjoy going about with a deceptive meekness, and taking the severest snubs from Miss Browne, knowing that at any moment I could blossom forth into the most exalted and thrilling importance. Also, not only did I want a share in the treasure myself, but I wanted, if possible, to divide it up on a different basis from the present. I wanted Cuthbert Vane to have a lot of it--and I should have been much better pleased not to let Mr. Tubbs or Captain Magnus have any. I did not crave to enrich Violet, and I thought Aunt Jane had already more money than was good for her. Give her another half-million, and Mr. Tubbs would commit bigamy, if necessary, for her sake.
And then there was Dugald Shaw, who had saved my life, and who seemed to have forgotten it, and that I had ever had my arms about his neck--and who was poor--and brave--
Yes, decidedly, I should keep my secret yet while, till I saw how the cards were going to fall.
XIII
I BRING TO LIGHT A CLUE
My first and all but overpowering impulse was to possess myself of a spade and dash for the wreck of the _Island Queen_. Sober second thought restrained me. Merely to get there and back would consume much time, for the descent of the cliffs, and still more the climb up again, was a toilsome affair. Also, reflection showed me that to dig through the damp close-packed sand of the cabin would be no trifling task, for I should be hampered by the need of throwing out the excavated sand behind me through the narrow companionway. I could achieve my end, no doubt, by patient burrowing, but it would require much more time than I had at my command before the noon-day sounding of Cookie's gong. I must not be seen departing or returning with a spade, but make off with the implement in a stealthy and burglarious manner. Above all, I must not risk betraying my secret through impatience.
But there was nothing to forbid an immediate pilgrimage to the much-sought gravestone with its sinister symbol. The account in Peter's diary of his adventure with the pig placed the grave with such exactness that I had no doubt of finding it easily. That done, I would know very nearly where to look for the cave--and in order to bid defiance to a certain chill sense of reluctance which beset me at the thought of the cave I started out at once, skirting the clearing with much circumspection, for it seemed to me that even the sight of my vanishing back must shout of mystery to Cookie droning hymns among his pots and pans. Crusoe, of course, came with me, happily unconscious of his own strange relation to our quest.
Following in the steps of Peter, who seemed in an airy and uncomfortable fashion to be bearing me company, I struck across the point, at the base of the rough slope which marks the first rise of the peak. As I neared the sea on the other side great crags began to overhang the path, which was, of course, no path, but merely the line of least resistance through the woods. Soon the noise of the sea, of which one was never altogether free on the island, though it reaches the recesses of the forest only as a vast nameless murmur, broke in heightened clamor on my ears. I heard the waves roaring and dashing on rocks far below--and then I stood at the dizzy edge of the plateau looking out over the illimitable gleaming reaches of the sea.
Somewhere in this angle between the ragged margin of the cliffs and the abrupt rise of the craggy mountainside, according to Peter's journal, lay the grave. I began systematically to poke with a stick I carried into every low-growing mass of vines or bushes. Because of the comparatively rocky, sterile soil the woods were thinner here, and the undergrowth was greater. Only the very definite localization of the grave by the accommodating diarist gave any hope of finding it.
And then, quite suddenly, I found it. My proddings had displaced a matted mass of ground-creeper. Beneath, looking raw and naked without its leafy covering, was the "curiously regular little patch of ground, outlined at intervals with small stones." Panic-stricken beetles scuttled for refuge. A great green slug undulated painfully across his suddenly denuded pasture, A whole small world found itself hurled back to chaos.
At the head of the grave lay a large, smoothly-rounded stone. I knelt and brushed away some obstinate vine-tendrils, and the letters "B. H." revealed themselves, cut deeply and irregularly into the sloping face of the stone. Below was the half-intelligible symbol of the crossed bones.
There was something in the utter loneliness of the place that caught my breath sharply. At once I had the feeling of a marauder. Here slept the guardian of the treasure--and yet in defiance of him I meant to have it. So, too, had Peter--and I didn't know yet what he had managed to do to Peter--but I guessed from his journal that Peter had been a slightly morbid person. He had let the wild solitude of the island frighten him. He had indulged foolish fancies about crucifixes. He had in fact let the defenses of his will be undermined ever so little--and then of course there was no telling what They could do to you.
With an impatient shiver I got up quickly from my knees. What abominable nonsense I had been talking--was there a miasma about that old grave that affected one? I whistled to Crusoe, who was trotting busily about on mysterious intelligence conveyed to him by his nose. He ran to me joyfully, and I stooped and patted his warm vigorous body.
"Let Bill walk, Crusoe," I remarked, "let him! He needn't be a dog in the manger about the treasure, anyhow."
Now came the moment which I had been trying not to think about. I had to find the entrance to the cave, and then go into it or part with my own esteem forever. I went and peered over the cliff. I had an unacknowledged hope that the shelf of which Peter had written had been rent off by some cataclysm and that I could not possibly get down to the doorway in the rock. My hope was vain. The ledge was there--not an inviting ledge, nor one on which the unacrobatically inclined would have any impulse to saunter, but a perfectly good ledge, on which I had not the slightest excuse for declining to venture. Seventy feet below I saw a narrow strip of sand, from which the tide was receding. It ran along under the great precipice which rose on my right, forming the face of the mountain on the south side. On that strip of sand the old hiding-place of the-pirates opened. I thought I saw the overhanging eaves of rock of which the diary had spoken.
There was truly nothing dangerous about the ledge. It was nearly three feet wide, and had an easy downward trend. Yet you heard the hungry roar of the surf below, and try as you would not to, caught glimpses of the white swirl of it. I moved cautiously, keeping close to the face of the cliff. Crusoe, to my annoyance, sprang down upon the ledge after me. I had a feeling that he must certainly trip me as I picked my way gingerly along.
An angle in the rock--a low dark entrance-way--it was all as Peter had described it. I peered in--nothing but impenetrable blackness. I took a hesitating step. The passage veered sharply, as the diary had recorded. Once around the corner, there would be nothing but darkness anywhere. One would go stumbling on, feeling with feet and hands--hands cold with the dread of what they might be going to touch. For, suddenly portentous and overwhelming, there rose before me the unanswered question of what had become of Peter on that last visit to the cave. Unanswered--and unanswerable except in one way: by going in to see.