THE DISCOVERY OF RABEH'S HOARD
Royce spent several hours of the night of his discovery of Goruba's
second entry in cudgelling his brains over his new problem.
Twice had Goruba made his way into the fort; twice had he escaped.
Yet on neither occasion had anyone seen him on the ramparts, nor had
anyone seen him in the interior except Challis and the man who had
now been wounded.
What puzzled Royce almost as much as the secret of Goruba's means of
entry and of exit was the fact that he seemed to make no use of it.
Being able to get in and out without being observed, why did he not
make use of his power, and lead his followers into the fort?
"I wish Tom were here!" thought Royce. "I feel like Robinson Crusoe
before he had Friday to talk to. John is the only Hausa at all equal
to Friday. I almost wish they had not gone."
Next morning he set the men again to work on the ditch, and went
through the fort from corner to corner, searching for some secret
passage. The gaps in the walls had all been filled up. The stone
slabs of the floor all seemed to be solid; none of them gave forth a
hollow sound when he stamped on them. At the bottom of the well the
spring bubbled constantly, the overflow passing away through a narrow
slit through which a rabbit could hardly have crawled.
"It beats me altogether," he said to himself after his thorough
survey.
He walked round inside the wall to see how the men were getting on
with the ditch, and came to the foot or two of brickwork which had
been uncovered.
"I wonder!" he exclaimed, as a sudden thought struck him. "Gambaru,
fetch me the spade."
When the man returned, Royce began to dig away the earth on each side
of the brickwork, which was itself too hard and to firmly imbedded to
be cut into or prised up by the only tools he possessed.
He found, after some little time, that the brick-work was about four
feet wide and very deep, and that it extended inwards. Dropping the
spade, he walked into the fort in the same straight line as the
brickwork.
"This may be the clue," he thought with some excitement. "At any
rate, I must see."
The direction of his walk led him straight to the well.
"A false scent," he said to himself, more puzzled than ever.
He went back to the ditch, to make sure that he had not been mistaken
in his course. No; there was no doubt, about it; he felt sure that
if he uncovered the brickwork completely it would end at or near the
wall of the well.
Just as he was beginning to dig again, another idea occurred to him.
"It would take me a couple of hours to clear all the earth away," he
thought. "Perhaps it would be waste labour. I'll have another look
at the well."
He returned, Gambaru following, much puzzled at his master's strange
proceedings.
Standing on the brink, he peered down into the well, which was wide
and fairly light. He had seen nothing extraordinary about it when he
supervised the clearing out of the rubbish; there was nothing
extraordinary about it now.
In the walls there were rusty iron staples, intended as footholds,
and so used by the men. He descended, examining the walls and the
staples; there was nothing strange about them.
"The brickwork is just about six feet below the surface," he thought.
"I'll measure the same distance here."
At a little more than his own height below the ground he scrutinised
the masonry carefully. There were slight clefts where the separate
stones met, but nothing unusual in their appearance. He pushed and
strained at the stonework, without effect.
Then he noticed, just within arm's reach to his right, a staple quite
out of line with the rest. It seemed to have been fixed in the wall
without purpose. Leaning over, he pulled at it, at first cautiously,
then more and more vigorously.
[Illustration: GAMBARU IS AMAZED]
Suddenly he felt a shock of surprise. Was the staple moving, or was
he himself? He planted his foot firmly on the staple on which he was
standing, and still pulled. There was no doubt about it; he was
slowly swinging round. The huge slab of stone against which he was
supporting himself had moved inwards on his right, outwards on his
left, and he was turning with it.
Now thoroughly excited, he tugged steadily, and in a few moments
found himself looking into a dark aperture in the wall.
"Eureka!" he exclaimed joyfully, and Gambaru, leaning over the brink
of the well above, gasped with terrified amazement as he saw his
master disappearing.
"A candle!" shouted Royce.
The Hausa sprinted away, and returned with the whole garrison at his
heels.
"Back to your places, you idiots!" cried Royce. "Kulana, keep them
at their posts. Give me the candle, Gambaru."
Holding the lighted candle, he stepped from the staple into a low
dark passage, and groped his way stoopingly along it. For some forty
or fifty yards it was narrow; then all at once it opened into a huge
natural cavern, warm and stuffy, with an earthy smell.
Royce looked about him and gasped with astonishment. The candlelight
fell on an enormous store of elephants' tusks, huge and massive
objects ranged in close-packed rows, and filling nearly three parts
of the cavern.
"My word! What a find!" Royce exclaimed.
He began to count the tusks, came to a hundred, and gave it up.
"Five hundred, at a guess," he thought. "They must be worth a
fortune. No wonder Mr. Goruba wanted to strangle me! ... What's that
yonder?"
He went farther into the cavern. Beyond the tusks lay an assortment
of many things--ivory cups, vessels of gold, an old French musket,
swords, scimitars, a kepi or two, a French officer's sash, some
cartridge cases, several native spades and pickaxes--and, at the far
end, objects which caused him to recoil. They were human skeletons.
At this gruesome sight Royce felt that he had had enough for the
moment. The air was stifling, rendered still worse by the smoky
candle. He retraced his steps, stood firmly on the staple in the
slab, and this time pushing at the other staple, caused the stone to
revolve on its pivot and set flush with the wall.
"What does it all mean?" he thought, as he sat in his room above,
eating the frugal dinner which Kulana brought him.
He remembered what the old chief had told him about Goruba--that he
had been lieutenant of Rabeh, the extraordinary negro who had risen
from the position of a slave to the lordship of a great territory in
the Sahara, tyrannised over the natives, and long defied the efforts
of the French to put him down.
Was this secret hoard of wealth Rabeh's? Had he stored it in this
cavern in the side of the hill, hoping some day, when he had defeated
the French, to dispose of it?
"That must be the explanation," Royce concluded. "I don't know
anything about the ivory trade, but those tusks must be of immense
value, and must have represented a vast fortune even to a potentate
like Rabeh. I suppose he let Goruba into the secret. When he was
killed and his empire broken up, Goruba was for years a fugitive, the
old man said. But he was ambitious, like his master. He always
meant to get hold of this treasure. What Rabeh had done, he thought
he could do. No doubt he joined the Tubus because their country is
near this fort, and has gradually made himself a power with them.
That's why he comes on his lonely visits--to see that Rabeh's hoard
is safe. I don't suppose the Tubus know anything about it. It
wouldn't suit his plans to inform them until he has made himself
their absolute master."
Then his thoughts turned in another direction.
"How many villages were sacked, how many thousands of poor wretches
were killed or enslaved in the gathering of this hoard? And Goruba
is like his master in that, too--he is the same blood-thirsty tyrant
and oppressor. But, please God, Tom will give him a shake.
"Ah! those skeletons--how did they come there?"
He pondered for a time without arriving at a conclusion.
"I see!" he said to himself at last. "They are the skeletons of the
poor slaves who dug the passage Rabeh killed them to preserve his
secret. Horrible! ... But I haven't discovered everything yet.
Where is the entrance at the other end, by which Goruba reaches the
cavern? I must go again--but not to-day. I can't face those
skeletons again to-day; to-morrow, perhaps."