Latitude 19 degree Part 32

"Clearly," said I to myself, "I must not try this again." I felt certain that the man had had some dreadful experience. Possibly it was something which had impressed the mother, and had left its mark upon the child. If I continue this sort of thing, I reasoned, it may injure the man more than any other illness could have done. We should need his services often, I knew, and in any case he was a gentle soul, on whom we could rely so far as his good will might go. I looked down upon the unconscious man with sorrow for my part in this sad state of things. I threw some water in his face and shook him gently, calling, "Bo's'n!

Bo's'n!"

He awoke after a few moments and sat up. He put his hand to his neck and felt the water upon his s.h.i.+rt.

"I see how it is, sir," he said with an apologetic smile. "I have been off again, sir. Oh, sir, if you wouldn't let me talk of it, I should not give way so."

I was really remorseful to have teased this unoffending creature.

"Come along, Bo's'n," I said, "and let us go and see your curious sight."

The man's palms were turned outward before his face, as if to ward off some fearful sight. His eyes had that look which expresses all that the human eye can of dread. I took his hands in mine and pulled them down.

"Come along," said I, "before the Skipper awakens."

At this he arose and almost ran out through the archway. As soon as we had got well into the pa.s.sageway the Bo's'n seemed to recover himself.

His tone became more natural, and he lapsed into the vernacular commonly employed on board s.h.i.+p.

"Careful, sir," he said, as he walked ahead. "It's the left hand you want to keep against the wall, so turn after me when you get into the pa.s.sage that leads to the gallery. Softly, please, sir, or we shall scare our bird."

As we drew near the gallery, I heard pistol shots and what I thought were voices. My heart sank down a thousand fathoms below the soles of my shoes. Could those wretches have returned? The lamp was lighted. It had not been extinguished, then, after all. Or perhaps some one had relighted it, some one else who knew the secret of this dreadful place.

I crept after the Bo's'n and raised myself from the floor of the gallery as cautiously as he had done. I parted the leaves as gently. The first thing I noticed was that the liquor in the central bowl was bubbling fiercely. It must have been refreshed, for the spirit would have been burned off by this.

Upon the great block of stone from which the Admiral had ruled and ordered a figure was seated. At first I could distinguish nothing but a blaze of light. Rays seemed to dart from the body and shed their sparkles in every direction. They wavered, they scintillated, they gleamed, they flashed. They sent flecks of brilliancy here, there, everywhere! The body of the person on the throne was covered, in the first instance, by nothing but a thin under garment, and over this was what looked like a garment of jewels. Almost every one has seen a suit of armour. No more completely were the knights of old encased in their coats of mail than was the person who sat upon the great block of stone enveloped in and encrusted with jewels and precious stones. The trunk was a ma.s.s of brilliant points of light. Chains hung across the foundation of the wonderful dress, and from them flashed, in searching rays, all the colours that the rarest gems can give--red, blue, yellow, green, pale pink, and the fire of the diamond. Each one glowed and sparkled and beamed, and made a central spot of light so bewildering, that our eyes were blinded by the sight. The feet of the figure were encased in jewelled shoes, which were pointed at the toe. A single great emerald glittered on each. From ankle to thigh the legs were clasped round with bands, anklets, and chains. There was a belt of gorgeous gems around the waist. The arms were bound with bracelets from wrist to shoulder. The short fingers were loaded with rings of all kinds. Upon the head was an eastern sort of hat, jewelled from crown to brim, and in the front shone a star of diamonds, above which rose an aigrette of sparkling stones.

In the centre of the star was set a gem so large that it might have graced the crown of the proudest potentate the world ever saw. Every movement made by this remarkable figure lighted up the cavern like a thousand jets of gas. I can compare it to nothing else. We had nothing but lamps to compare it with in those days, and I said to myself, "I have never seen anything that would give a stranger to this gorgeous sight an idea of its magnificence."

There was a tall gold flagon standing on the throne near the figure's feet. I saw the steam escaping.

"He was down a-drawin' it, sir, when I was here before, sir," whispered the Bo's'n.

"His throat must be made of metal," said I.

I saw the figure bend over and lift the flagon from its place by his feet. I saw the head thrown back and the scalding liquor put to the lips. I saw the wince of the body as some of it ran down. I watched the strange antics of this wild figure with bated breath, and not until I heard the words, given with all the pomp and air of command that a monarch would have used, "Bring in the prisoners!" did I discover the ident.i.ty of this marvel. I looked at the Bo's'n to see if he also suspected the personality which underlay all this magnificence. He nodded his head.

"Yes, sir," he whispered.

It was the Minion, whose voice, seldom heard, was never forgotten.

He raised the flagon again to his lips, he took a deeper draught, now that the liquor was losing some of its heat. It was a deep potation for so small a body, and then he squeaked in imitation of the Admiral of the Red:

"Turn me round! Turn me round!"

We watched this ridiculous child, wondering at his powers of imitation and art, the desire for display which lay buried beneath that utterly expressionless exterior.

For want of a pirate band to turn him upon his throne, the Minion twisted himself about so that he faced the niches in the wall. He drew a pistol from his jewelled belt. This I recognised as a spare one of mine.

He c.o.c.ked it and began firing at the skeletons. The bullets flew, not with the precision of those of the Admiral of the Red. He whom the Minion had taken as his prototype would have put a bullet through the heart of so poor a copyist.

"Through the left eye, my jolly braves!" shouted the Minion in, I must confess, a more hearty voice than that of the Admiral. And at once he sent a bullet flying up to the arched roof.

"Through the right eye! The right eye for a thousand pounds!" roared the Minion, and his bullet took a toe off one of the hapless skeletons.

"Our safety lies in the fact that he is turned the other way," whispered I.

I shall never forget the glitter of that arm as it was raised to fire.

With each movement it threw a band of light across our eyes which almost blinded us. The small back flashed in a thousand brilliant jets of flame, and made the cavern to seem as if it were illumined by the morning sun.

"Those are valuable jewels," I whispered to the Bo's'n. "A fortune is there, Bo's'n--a fortune for all of us. We must steal round and capture that young rascal and discover where he found them."

I glanced at the Bo's'n as I spoke. My glance was arrested by the utterly avaricious look which had come over his face at my words. His eyes seemed to swell from out their sockets, and even at that distance to gloat on the fortune of which I had told him.

"Let us go quickly, sir," he said, "before any one else gets there."

As we left the gallery the lad had again raised the flagon to his lips, and was drinking deep of the potent fluid. The small body wavered, and I thought that the Minion would not long preserve his dignity, for he was guzzling the clear liquor as if it were so much water. We pushed out through the tunnel and then through the home pa.s.sage, and finally reached the hillside. My feet were lame and sore, and the Bo's'n had to accommodate his pace to mine. We reached the top of the hill, and then descended as fast as I was able to walk. We entered the archway after a slow journey, and were at last within the great hall. We looked with amazement at the throne and then at each other. There was no shooting, there were no orders, no commands, no Minion! We advanced cautiously until we got abreast of the rock. Our eyes fell upon the same object at the same moment, and I for one was not surprised at what I saw. Lying in a heap upon the floor, his brilliant form rolled ingloriously in the dust, lay the Minion. By his side was the flagon, drained dry. Rubies, sapphires, emeralds, diamonds, and pearls, chains of gold and corselet bestudded with stones fit setting for an empress of the Orient, encased the unconscious form of the young rascal. The Minion was helplessly drunk. We rolled the sodden little heap over and looked into his face.

He was breathing stertorously, and I feared for his life. Not that the Minion's life was of any possible use to any living being, but because of a prejudice, inborn in each one of us, against allowing a creature made in G.o.d's image to die without some attempt at succour.

We unbuckled his belts and his bracelets, his collars and his anklets.

We lifted the magnificent hat with its jewelled plume from the dust where it had tumbled. We drew from the childish and dirty fingers twenty or more gorgeous rings. We laid the gem-encrusted chains, the lockets, and watches with which he had decorated himself upon the rock which had been his throne. And then we bent down and raised the pitiful little figure. He did for once point a moral, this wretched mite of a cabin boy. His gorgeous trappings gone, shorn of what for the moment he dreamed was authority, though brief and suddenly terminated, he was simply a drunken little lad--his only clothing a very ragged and very dirty unders.h.i.+rt.

CHAPTER XI.

THE BO'S'N HIDES THE TREASURE

Our first thought was for the Minion. Although the magnificence of this grand fortune dazzled us, we saw that the lad was like to die from the amount of his potations, and felt him to be our first care. We carried him to the outer air, and down the hill we went, quite to the beach and close to the stream which issued from the archway in the rock. Here we bathed his head and face with cold water. Then we laid him in the shade, where the gentle breeze blew not too strongly upon him. His face was crimson, his body like a bed of coals, and I truly feared for his life.

The Bo's'n tore off his one remaining sleeve and drenched it with the cold water. This he laid upon the boy's forehead. He went often to him during the hours that he slept and continued this kind office, and perhaps it is to the Bo's'n that the Minion owes his life, and possibly the rest of us, arguing from cause to effect. There was no sail in sight, no creature or thing. The sweet breezes were laden with the spicy odours of that magic land, and they fell soft as a lady's fingers upon the rough skin of our weather-beaten faces.

We now returned to the cave to gather up the jewels. When we came again to the place where we had disrobed the Minion, we could hardly believe the evidence of our eyes. The ma.s.s of wealth was too overwhelming in its quant.i.ty, its variety, and its value for us to feel that the stones could be real or of great price. But close scrutiny forced me to believe that they were what we had at first thought, and I hastened to urge upon the Bo's'n the necessity of secreting them at once. There were several reasons for this. In the first place, the buccaneers might return, and then we, instead of Mauresco, should be their agents. In the next place, I had no intention that Captain Schuyler or Lacelle, or even Cynthia, should know of the presence of the jewels in the cave. The Skipper loved to talk, and there were times when his tongue was more loosened than at others. Furthermore, there was no knowing whom we might run across in this spot. No surmising what unwelcome guest was at present journeying to meet us, unknown to himself or to us, led on by that fate which rules the destinies of us all. I determined at once that this fortune, of which I could make no estimate, should be shared eventually by all alike. It would make us rich beyond what had ever been dreamed of the Belleville copper mines. The secret was not my own; the Bo's'n shared it. But a secret has no right to its name when it is shared by more than one person. I felt that I could trust the Bo's'n. He would not, I knew, forget his promise to me, or, leaving that out of the question, his real personal interest in this great source of wealth. I had sometimes been known to talk in my sleep. I was nervous and irritable since my horrid experience in the cavern, and felt that it would be well for me to try to forget the fact of the existence of the jewels for the present, and act as if the discovery were the Bo's'n's own.

We stood by the table, picking up and turning over the various wonderful pieces studded with gems of all colours, shades, and degrees of brilliancy.

"These must be what the pirates were searching for, Mr. Jones, sir,"

said the Bo's'n.

"Yes," said I in answer. "Evidently Mauresco alone possessed the secret.

That, after all, is the only way to have, or rather keep, a secret. I wonder now where we can stow these away until we can come for them in safety?"

"What is your plan, sir, Mr. Jones?" asked the Bo's'n.

"Well, Bo's'n," said I, "I feel this way about these things. As whatever one of us suffers, the rest suffer, so whatever benefit one of us enjoys, all must share. If Captain Schuyler had found anything of value here, I should feel that you and I ought to share in it. Now we have found these jewels, and----"

"The Minion rather, sir, begging your pardon, sir."

"The Minion doesn't count," said I, "though, of course, he shall have as much as is good for him. There is an enormous fortune there----"

"Yes, sir," said the Bo's'n, with wandering gaze.