Spanish Doubloons Part 6

That was all. A fairly clear direction for any friend who had attended the obsequies of Bill and knew where to look for the stone marked B. H. and a cross-bones, but to perfect strangers it was vague.

A blank look crept into the intent faces about the table.

"It--it don't happen to say in more deetail jest precisely where that cave might be looked for?" inquired Mr. Tubbs hopefully.

"In more detail?" repeated Miss Browne challengingly. "Pray, Mr.

Tubbs, what further detail could be required?"

"A good deal more, I am afraid," remarked the Scotchman grimly.

Miss Browne whirled upon him. In her cold eye a spark had kindled.

And suddenly I had a new vision of her. I saw her no longer as the deluder of Aunt Jane, but as herself the deluded. Her belief in the treasure was an obsession. This map was her talisman, her way of escape from an existence which had been drab and dull enough, I dare say.

"Mr. Shaw, we are given not one, but several infallible landmarks.

The cave has two mouths, it can be approached by sea, it is IN the immediate neighborhood of the grave of William Halliwell, which is to be recognized by its headstone. As the area of our search is circ.u.mscribed by the narrow limits of this island, I fail to see what further marks of identification can be required."

"A grave ninety years old and hidden beneath a tropical jungle is not an easy thing to find, Miss Browne. As to caves, I doubt but they are numerous. The formation here makes it more than likely.

And there'll be more than one with two mouths, I'm thinking."

"Mr. Shaw"--Miss Browne gave the effect of drawing herself up in line of battle--"I feel that I must give expression to the thought which comes to me at this moment. It is this--that if the members of this party are to be chilled by carping doubts, the wave of enthusiasm which has floated us thus far must inevitably recede, leaving us flotsam on a barren sh.o.r.e. What can one weak woman--pardon, my unfaltering Jane!--two women, achieve against the thought of failure firmly held by him to whom, we looked to lead us boldly in our forward dash? Mr. Shaw, this is no time for crawling earthworm tactics. It is with the bold and sweeping glance of the eagle that we must survey this island, until, the proper point discerned, we swoop with majestic flight upon our predestined goal!"

Miss Browne was somewhat exhausted by this effort, and paused for breath, whereupon Mr. Tubbs, anxious to retrieve his recent blunder, seized with dexterity this opportunity.

"I get you. Miss Browne, I get you," said Mr. Tubbs with conviction. "Victory ain't within the grasp of any individual that carries a heart like a cold pancake in his bosom. What this party needs is pep, and if them that was calculated on to supply it don't, why there's others which is not given to blowin' their own horn, but which might at a pinch dash forward like Arnold--no relation to Benedict--among the spears. I may be rather a man or thought than action, ma'am, and at present far from my native heath, which is the financial centers of the country, but if I remember right it was Ulysses done the dome-work for the Greeks, while certain persons that was depended on sulked in their tents.

Miss Higglesby-Browne, you can count--count, I say--on old H. H.!"

"I thank you, Mr. Tubbs, I thank you!" replied Miss Browne with emotion. As for Aunt Jane, she gazed upon the n.o.ble countenance of Mr. Tubbs with such ecstatic admiration that her little nose quivered like a guinea-pig's.

VI

THE CAVE WITH TWO MOUTHS

Obscure as were the directions which Hopperdown's niece had taken from his dying lips, one point at least was clear--the treasure-cave opened on the sea. This seemed an immense simplification of the problem, until you discovered that the great wall of cliffs was honeycombed with fissures. The limestone rock of which the island was composed was porous as a sponge. You could stand on the edge of the cliffs and watch the green water slide in and out of unseen caverns at your feet, and hear the sullen thunder of the waves that broke far in under the land.

One of the boats which had conveyed us from the _Rufus Smith_ had been left with us, and in it Mr. Shaw, with the Honorable Cuthbert and Captain Magnus, made a preliminary voyage of discovery. This yielded the information above set down, plus, however, the thrilling and significant fact that a cave seemingly predestined to be the hiding-place of treasure, and moreover a cave with the specified two openings, ran under the point which protected the anchorage on the south, connecting the cove with the sea.

Although in their survey of the coast the voyagers had covered only a little distance on either side of the entrance to the bay, the discovery of this great double-doored sea-chamber under the point turned all thoughts from further explorations. Only the Scotchman remained exasperatingly calm and declined to admit that the treasure was as good as found. He refused to be swept off his feet even by Mr. Tubbs's undertaking to double everybody's money within a year, through the favor of certain financial parties with whom he was intimate.

"I'll wait till I see the color of my money before I reckon the interest on it," he remarked. "It's true the cave would be a likely and convenient place for hiding the chest; the question is: Wouldn't it be too likely and convenient? Sampson would maybe not choose the spot of all others where the first comer who had got wind of the story would be certain to look."

Miss Browne, at this, exchanged darkly significant glances with her two main supporters, and Mr. Tubbs came to the fore with an offer to clinch matters by discovering the grave of Bill Halliwell, with its marked stone, on the point above the cave within twenty-four hours.

"Look for it if you like," replied Mr. Shaw impatiently. "But don't forget that your tombstone is neither more nor less than such a boulder as there are thousands of on the island, and buried under the tropic growth of ninety years besides."

Miss Browne murmured to Aunt Jane, in a loud aside, that she well understood now why the eminent explorer had _not_ discovered the South Pole, and Aunt Jane murmured back that to her there had always been something so sacred about a tombstone that she couldn't help wondering if Mr. Shaw's att.i.tude were really quite reverential.

"Well, friends," remarked Mr. Tubbs, "there's them that sees nothin' but the hole in the doughnut, and there's them that see the doughnut that's around the hole. I ain't ashamed to say that old H. H. is in the doughnut cla.s.s. Why, the Old Man himself used to remark--I guess it ain't news to some here about me bein' on the inside with most of the leadin' financial lights of the country--he used to remark, 'Tubbs has it in him to bull the market on a Black Friday.' Ladies, I ain't one that's inclined to boast, but I jest want to warn you not to be _too_ astonished when H. H. makes acquaintance with that tombstone, which I'm willin' to lay he does yet."

"Well, good luck to you," said the grim Scot, "and let me likewise warn all hands not to be too astonished if we find that the treasure is not in the cave. But I'll admit it is as good a place as any for beginning the search, and there will be none gladder than I if it turns out that I was no judge of the workings of Captain Sampson's mind."

The cave which was now the center of our hopes--I say our, because somehow or other I found myself hoping and fearing along with the rest, though carefully concealing it--ran under the point at its farther end. The sea-mouth of the cave was protected from the full swell of the ocean by some huge detached rocks rising a little way offsh.o.r.e, which caught and broke the waves. The distance was about sixty feet from mouth to mouth, and back of this transverse pa.s.sage a great vaulted chamber stretched far under the land. The walls of the chamber rose sheer to a height of fifteen feet or more, when a broad ledge broke their smoothness. From this ledge opened cracks and fissures under the roof, suggesting in the dim light infinite possibilities in the way of hiding-places. Besides these, a wide stretch of sand at the upper end of the chamber, which was bare at low tide, invited exploration. At high water the sea flooded the cavern to its farthest extremity and beat upon the walls. Then there was a great surge and roar of waters through the pa.s.sage from mouth to mouth, and at turn of tide--in hopeful agreement with the legend--the suck and commotion of a whirlpool, almost, as the sea drew back its waves. Now and again, it was to prove, even the water-worn pavement between the two archways was left bare, and one could walk dry-shod along the rocks under the high land of the point from the beach to the cave. But this was at the very bottom of the ebb. Mostly the lower end of the cave was flooded, and the explorers went back and forth in the boat.

A certain drawback to boating in our island waters was the presence of hungry hordes of sharks. You might forget them for a moment and sit happily trailing your fingers overboard, and then a huge moving shadow would darken the water, and you saw the ripple cut by a darting fin and the flash of a livid belly as the monster rolled over, ready for his mouthful. I could not but admire the thoughtfulness of Mr. Tubbs, who since his submergence on the occasion of arriving had been as delicate about water as a cat, in committing himself to strictly land operations in the search for Bill Halliwell's tombstone.

Owing, I suppose, to the stoniness of the soil, the woods upon the point were less dense than elsewhere, and made an agreeable parade ground for Mr. Tubbs and his two companions--for he was accompanied in these daring explorations with unswerving fidelity by Aunt Jane and Miss Higglesby-Browne. Each of the three carried an umbrella, and they went solemnly in single file, Mr. Tubbs in the lead to ward off peril in the shape of snakes or jungle beasts.

"To think of what that man exposes himself to for our sakes!" Aunt Jane said to me with emotion. "With no protection but his own bravery in case anything were to spring out!"

But nothing ever did spring out but an angry old sow with a litter of piglets, before which the three umbrellas beat a rapid retreat.

The routine of life on the island was now established for every one but me, who belonged neither to the land nor sea divisions, but dangled forlornly between them like Mahomet's coffin. Aunt Jane had made a magnanimous effort to attach me to the umbrella contingent, and I had felt almost disposed to accept, in order to witness the resultant delight of Miss Higglesby-Browne. But on second thoughts I declined, even though Aunt Jane was thus left unguarded to the blandishments of Mr. Tubbs, preferring, like the little bird in the play, to flock all alone, except when the Honorable Cuthbert could escape from his toil in the cave.

What with the genius of Cookie and the fruitfulness of our island, not to speak of supplies from the Army and Navy Stores, we lived like sybarites, There were fish from stream and sea, cocoanuts and bananas and oranges from the trees in the clearing. I had hopes of yams and breadfruit also, but if they grew on Leeward none of us had a speaking acquaintance with them. Cookie did wonders with the pigs that were shot and brought in to him, though I never could sit down with appet.i.te to a ma.s.sacred infant served up on a platter, which is just what little pigs look like,

"Jes' yo' cas' yo' eye on dis yere innahcent," Cookie would request, as he placed the suckling before Mr. Tubbs. "Tendah as a new-bo'n babe, he am. Jes' lak he been tucked up to sleep by his mammy. Sho' now, how yo' got de heart to stick de knife in him, Mistah Tubbs?"

It was significant that Mr. Tubbs, after occupying for a day or two an undistinguished middle place at the board, had somehow slid into the carver's post at the head of the table. Flanking him were the two ladies, so that the Land Forces formed a solid and imposing phalanx. Everybody else had a sense of sitting in outer darkness, particularly I, whom fate had placed opposite Captain Magnus.

Since landing on the island, Captain Magnus had forsworn the effeminacy of forks. Loaded to the hilt, his knife would approach his cavernous mouth and disappear in it. Yet when it emerged Captain Magnus was alive. Where did it go? This was a question that agitated me daily.

The history of Captain Magnus was obscure. It was certain that he had his captain's papers, though how he had mastered the science of navigation sufficiently to obtain them was a problem. Though he held a British navigator's license, he did not appear to be an Englishman. None of us ever knew, I think, from what country he originally came. His rough, mumbling, unready speech might have been picked up in any of the seaports of the English-speaking world. His manners smacked of the forecastle, and he was altogether so difficult to cla.s.sify that I used to toy with the theory that he had murdered the real Captain Magnus for his papers and was masquerading in his character.

The captain, as Mr. Vane had remarked, was Miss Browne's own find.

Before the objections of Mr. Shaw--evidently a Negative Influence from the beginning--had caused her to abandon the scheme. Miss Browne had planned to charter a vessel in New York and sail around the Horn to the island. While nursing this project she had formed an extensive acquaintance with persons frequenting the New York water-front, among whom was Captain Magnus. As I heard her remark, he was the one nautical character whom she found sympathetic, by which I judge that the others were skeptical and rude. Being sympathetic, Captain Magnus found it an easy matter to attach himself to the expedition--or perhaps it was Violet who annexed him. I don't know which.

Mr. Vane used to view the remarkable gastronomic feats of Captain Magnus with the innocent and quite unscornful curiosity of a little boy watching the bears in the zoo. Evidently he felt that a horizon hitherto bounded mainly by High Staunton Manor was being greatly enlarged. I knew now that the Honorable Cuthbert's father was a baron, and that he was the younger of two sons, and that the elder was an invalid, so that the beautiful youth was quite certain in the long run to be Lord Grasmere. I had remained stolid under this information, feelingly imparted by Aunt Jane. I had refused to ask questions about High Staunton Manor. For already there was a vast amount of superfluous chaperoning being done. I couldn't speak to the b. y.--which is short for beautiful youth--without Violet's cold gray eye being trained upon us. And Aunt Jane grew fl.u.s.tered directly, and I could see her planning an embroidery design of coronets, or whatever is the proper headgear of barons, for my trousseau. Mr. Tubbs had essayed to be facetious on the matter, but I had coldly quenched him.

But Mr. Shaw was much the worst. My most innocent remark to the beautiful youth appeared to rouse suspicion in his self-const.i.tuted guardian. If he did not say in so many words, _Beware, dear lad, she's stringing you_! or whatever the English of that is, it was because n.o.body could so wound the faith in the b. y.'s candid eyes.

But to see the fluttering, anxious wing the Scotchman tried to spread over that babe of six-feet-two you would have thought me a man-eating tigress. And I laughed, and flaunted my indifference in his sober face, and went away with bitten lips to the hammock they had swung for me among the palms--

The Honorable Cuthbert had a voice, a big, rich, ringing baritone like floods of golden honey. He had also a ridiculous little ukulele, on which he accompanied himself with a rhythmic strumming.

When, like the sudden falling of a curtain, dusky, velvet, star-spangled, the wonderful tropic night came down, we used to build a little fire upon the beach and sit around it. Then Cuthbert Vane would sing. Of all his repertory, made up of music-hall ditties, American ragtime, and sweet old half-forgotten ballads, we liked best a certain wild rollicking song, picked up I don't know where, but wonderfully effective on that island where Davis, and Benito Bonito, and many another of the roving gentry--not to mention that less picturesque villain, Captain Sampson of the _Bonny La.s.s_--had resorted between their flings with fortune.

Oh, who's, who's with me for the free life of a rover?

Oh, who's, who's with me for to sail the broad seas over?

In every port we have gold to fling, And what care we though the end is to swing?

Sing ho, sing hey, this life's but a day, So live it free as a rover may.

Oh, who's, who's with me at Fortune's call to wander?

Then, lads, to sea--and ash.o.r.e with gold to squander!

We'll set our course for the Spanish Main Where the great plate-galleons steer for Spain.

Sing ho, sing hey, this life's but a day, Then live it free as a rover may.

Then leave toil and cold to the lubbers that will bear it.