A PILE OF FUEL
Four days had passed, and nothing had happened. The stone mound in the
lake had not been visited, for there had been no reason for sending the
black men away, and with one of them nearer than a mile the captain would
not even look at his treasure. There was no danger that they would
discover the mound, for they were not allowed to take the lantern, and no
one of them would care to wander into the dark, sombre depths of the
cavern without a light.
The four white people, who, with a fair habitation in the rocks, with
plenty of plain food to eat, with six servants to wait on them, and a
climate which was continuously delightful, except in the middle of the
day, and with all fear of danger from man or beast removed from their
minds, would have been content to remain here a week or two longer and
await the arrival of a vessel to take them away, were now in a restless
and impatient condition of mind. They were all eager to escape from the
place. Three of them longed for the return of Rynders, but the other one
steadily hoped that they might get away before his men came back.
How to do this, or how to take with him the treasure of the Incas, was a
puzzling question with which the captain racked his brains by day and by
night. At last he bethought himself of the Rackbirds' vessel. He
remembered that Maka had told him that provisions were brought to them by
a vessel, and there was every reason to suppose that when these
miscreants went on some of their marauding expeditions they travelled by
sea. Day by day he had thought that he would go and visit the Rackbirds'
storehouse and the neighborhood thereabout, but day by day he had been
afraid that in his absence Rynders might arrive, and when he came he
wanted to be there to meet him.
But now the idea of the boat made him brave this possible contingency,
and early one morning, with Cheditafa and two other of the black fellows,
he set off along the beach for the mouth of the little stream which,
rising somewhere in the mountains, ran down to the cavern where it had
once widened and deepened into a lake, and then through the ravine of the
Rackbirds on to the sea. When he reached his destination, Captain Horn
saw a great deal to interest him.
Just beyond the second ridge of rock which Maka had discovered, the
stream ran into a little bay, and the shores near its mouth showed
evident signs that they had recently been washed by a flood. On points of
rock and against the sides of the sand mounds, he saw bits of debris from
the Rackbirds' camp. Here were sticks which had formed the timbers of
their huts; there were pieces of clothing and cooking-utensils; and here
and there, partly buried by the shifting sands, were seen the bodies of
Rackbirds, already desiccated by the dry air and the hot sun of the
region. But the captain saw no vessel.
"Dat up here," said Cheditafa. "Dey hide dat well. Come 'long, captain."
Following his black guide, the captain skirted a little promontory of
rocks, and behind it found a cove in which, well concealed, lay the
Rackbirds' vessel. It was a sloop of about twenty tons, and from the
ocean, or even from the beach, it could not be seen. But as the captain
stood and gazed upon this craft his heart sank. It had no masts nor
sails, and it was a vessel that could not be propelled by oars.
Wading through the shallow water,--for it was now low tide,--the captain
climbed on board. The deck was bare, without a sign of spar or sail, and
when, with Cheditafa's help, he had forced the entrance of the little
companionway, and had gone below, he found that the vessel had been
entirely stripped of everything that could be carried away, and when he
went on deck again he saw that even the rudder had been unshipped and
removed. Cheditafa could give him no information upon this state of
things, but after a little while Captain Horn imagined the cause for this
dismantled condition of the sloop. The Rackbirds' captain could not trust
his men, he said to himself, and he made it impossible for any of them to
escape or set out on an expedition for themselves. It was likely that the
masts and sails had been carried up to the camp, from which place it
would have been impossible to remove them without the leader knowing it.
When he spoke to Cheditafa on the subject, the negro told him that after
the little ship came in from one of its voyages he and his companions had
always carried the masts, sails, and a lot of other things up to the
camp. But there was nothing of the sort there now. Every spar and sail
must have been carried out to sea by the flood, for if they had been left
on the shores of the stream the captain would have seen them.
This was hard lines for Captain Horn. If the Rackbirds' vessel had been
in sailing condition, everything would have been very simple and easy for
him. He could have taken on board not only his own party, but a large
portion of the treasure, and could have sailed away as free as a bird,
without reference to the return of Rynders and his men. A note tied to a
pole set up in a conspicuous place on the beach would have informed Mr.
Rynders of their escape from the place, and it was not likely that any of
the party would have thought it worth while to go farther on shore. But
it was of no use to think of getting away in this vessel. In its present
condition it was absolutely useless.
While the captain had been thinking and considering the matter, Cheditafa
had been wandering about the coast exploring. Presently Captain Horn saw
him running toward him, accompanied by the two other negroes.
"'Nother boat over there," cried Cheditafa, as the captain approached
him,--"'nother boat, but badder than this. No good. Cook with it,
that's all."
The captain followed Cheditafa across the little stream, and a hundred
yards or so along the shore, and over out of reach of the tide, piled
against a low sand mound, he saw a quantity of wood, all broken into
small pieces, and apparently prepared, as Cheditafa had suggested, for
cooking-fires. It was also easy to see that these pieces of wood had
once been part of a boat, perhaps of a wreck thrown up on shore. The
captain approached the pile of wood and picked up some of the pieces. As
he held in his hand a bit of gunwale, not much more than a foot in
length, his eyes began to glisten and his breath came quickly. Hastily
pulling out several pieces from the mass of debris, he examined them
thoroughly. Then he stepped back, and let the piece of rudder he was
holding drop to the sand.
"Cheditafa," said he, speaking huskily, "this is one of the Castor's
boats. This is a piece of the boat in which Rynders and the men set out."
The negro looked at the captain and seemed frightened by the expression
on his face. For a moment he did not speak, and then in a trembling voice
he asked, "Where all them now?"
The captain shook his head, but said nothing. That pile of fragments was
telling him a tale which gradually became plainer and plainer to him, and
which he believed as if Rynders himself had been telling it to him. His
ship's boat, with its eight occupants, had never gone farther south than
the mouth of the little stream. That they had been driven on shore by the
stress of weather the captain did not believe. There had been no high
winds or storms since their departure. Most likely they had been induced
to land by seeing some of the Rackbirds on shore, and they had naturally
rowed into the little cove, for assistance from their fellow-beings was
what they were in search of. But no matter how they happened to land,
the Rackbirds would never let them go away again to carry news of the
whereabouts of their camp. Almost unarmed, these sailors must have fallen
easy victims to the Rackbirds.
It was not unlikely that the men had been shot down from ambush without
having had any intercourse or conversation with the cruel monsters to
whom they had come to seek relief, for had there been any talk between
them, Rynders would have told of his companions left on shore, and these
would have been speedily visited by the desperadoes. For the destruction
of the boat there was reason enough: the captain of the Rackbirds gave
his men no chance to get away from him.
With a heart of lead, Captain Horn turned to look at his negro
companions, and saw them all sitting together on the sands, chattering
earnestly, and holding up their hands with one or more fingers extended,
as if they were counting. Cheditafa came forward.
"When all your men go away from you?" he asked.
The captain reflected a moment, and then answered, "About two weeks ago."
"That's right! That's right!" exclaimed the negro, nodding violently as
he spoke. "We talk about that. We count days. It's just ten days and
three days, and Rackbirds go 'way, and leave us high up in rock-hole,
with no ladder. After a while we hear guns, guns, guns. Long time guns
shooting. When they come back, it almost dark, and they want supper
bad. All time they eat supper, they talk 'bout shooting sharks. Shot
lots sharks, and chuck them into the water. Sharks in water already
before they is shot. We say then it no sharks they shot. Now we say it
must been--"
The captain turned away. He did not want to hear any more. There was no
possible escape from the belief that Rynders and all his men had been
shot down, and robbed, if they had anything worth taking, and then their
bodies carried out to sea, most likely in their own boat, and thrown
overboard.
There was nothing more at this dreadful place that Captain Horn wished to
see, to consider, or to do, and calling the negroes to follow him, he set
out on his return.
During the dreary walk along the beach the captain's depression of
spirits was increased by the recollection of his thoughts about the
sailors and the treasure. He had hoped that these men would not come back
in time to interfere with his disposal, in his own way, of the gold he
had found. They would not come back now, but the thought did not lighten
his heart. But before he reached the caves, he had determined to throw
off the gloom and sadness which had come upon him. Under the
circumstances, grief for what had happened was out of place. He must keep
up a good heart, and help his companions to keep up good hearts. Now he
must do something, and, like a soldier in battle, he must not think of
the comrade who had fallen beside him, but of the enemy in front of him.
When he reached the caves he found supper ready, and that evening he said
nothing to his companions of the important discoveries he had made,
contenting himself with a general statement of the proofs that the
Rackbirds and their camp had been utterly destroyed by the flood.