HIS FORTUNE UNDER HIS FEET
Notwithstanding the fact that the captain had, for the present, closed
his account with the treasure in the lake cave, and had determined not to
give another thought to further drafts upon it, he could not prevent all
sorts of vague and fragmentary plans for getting more of the gold from
thrusting themselves upon him; but his hand was strong upon the tiller of
his mind, and his course did not change a point. He now began to consider
in what condition he should leave the caves. Once he thought he would go
there and take away everything which might indicate that the caves had
been inhabited, but this notion he discarded.
"There are a good many people," he thought, "who know that we lived
there, and if that man who was there afterwards should come back, I would
prefer that he should not notice any changes, unless, indeed,"--and his
eyes glistened as a thought darted into his mind,--"unless, indeed, he
should find a lake where he left a dry cave. Good! I'll try it."
With his hands in his pockets, the captain stood a few moments and
thought, and then he went to work. From the useless little vessel which,
had belonged to the Rackbirds he gathered some bits of old rope, and
having cut these into short pieces, he proceeded to pick them into what
sailors call oakum.
Early the next morning, his two canvas bags filled with this, he started
for the caves. When he reached the top of the mound, and was just about
to hold his lantern so as to take a final glance into its interior, he
suddenly turned away his head and shut his eyes.
"No," he said. "If I do that, it is ten to one I'll jump inside, and what
might happen next nobody knows."
He put the lantern aside, lifted the great lid into its place, and
then, with a hammer and a little chisel which he had brought with him
from the tools which had been used for the building of the pier, he
packed the crevices about the lid with oakum. With a mariner's skill he
worked, and when his job was finished, it would have been difficult for
a drop of water to have found its way into the dome, no matter if it
rose high above it.
It was like leaving behind a kingdom and a throne, the command of armies
and vast navies, the domination of power, of human happenings; but he
came away.
When he reached the portion of the cave near the great gap which opened
to the sky opposite the entrance to the outer caves, the captain walked
across the dry floor to the place where was situated the outlet through
which the waters of the lake had poured out into the Rackbirds' valley.
The machine which controlled this outlet was situated under the
overhanging ledge of the cave, and was in darkness, so that the captain
was obliged to use his lantern. He soon found the great lever which he
had clutched when he had swum to the rescue of Ralph, and which had gone
down with him and so opened the valve and permitted egress of the water,
and which now lay with its ten feet or more of length horizontally near
the ground. Near by was the great pipe, with its circular blackness
leading into the depths below.
"That stream outside," said the captain, "must run in here somewhere,
although I cannot see nor hear it, and it must be stopped off by this
valve or another one connected with it, so that if I can get this lever
up again, I should shut it off from the stream outside and turn it in
here. Then, if that fellow comes back, he will have to swim to the
mound, and run a good chance of getting drowned if he does it, and if
anybody else comes here, I think it will be as safe as the ancient
Peruvians once made it."
With this he took hold of the great lever and attempted to raise it. But
he found the operation a very difficult one. The massive bar was of
metal, but probably not iron, and although it was not likely that it had
rusted, it was very hard to move in its socket. The captain's weight had
brought it down easily, but this weight could not now be applied, and he
could only attempt to lift it.
When it had first been raised, it was likely that a dozen slaves had
seized it and forced it into an upright position. The captain pushed up
bravely, and, a few inches at a time, he elevated the end of the great
lever. Frequently he stopped to rest, and it was over an hour before the
bar stood up as it had been when first he felt it under the water.
When this was done, he went into the other caves, looked about to see
that everything was in the condition in which he had found it, and that
he had left nothing behind him during his many visits. When he was
satisfied on these points, he went back to the lake cave to see if any
water had run in. He found everything as dry as when he had left it, nor
could he hear any sound of running or dripping water. Considering the
matter, however, he concluded that there might be some sort of an outside
reservoir which must probably fill up before the water ran into the cave,
and so he came away.
"I will give it time," he thought, "and come back to-morrow to see if it
is flooded."
That night, as he lay on his little pallet, looking through the open
front of his tent at the utter darkness of the night, the idea struck him
that it was strange that he was not afraid to stay here alone. He was a
brave man,--he knew that very well,--and yet it seemed odd to him that,
under the circumstances, he should have so little fear. But his reason
soon gave him a good answer. He had known times when he had been very
much afraid, and among these stood preeminent the time when he had
expected an attack from the Rackbirds. But then his fear was for others.
When he was by himself it was a different matter. It was not often that
he did not feel able to take care of his own safety. If there were any
danger now, it was in the daytime, when some stray Rackbirds might come
back, or the pilferer of the mound might return with companions. But if
any such came, he had his little fort, two pistols, and a repeating
rifle. At night he felt absolutely safe. There was no danger that could
come by land or sea through the blackness of the night.
Suddenly he sat up. His forehead was moist with perspiration. A shiver
ran through him, not of cold, but of fear. Never in his life had he been
so thoroughly frightened; never before had he felt his hands and legs
tremble. Involuntarily he rose and stood up in the tent. He was
terrified, not by anything real, but by the thought of what might happen
if that lake cave should fill up with water, and if the ancient valves,
perhaps weakened by his moving them backward and forward, should give way
under the great pressure, and, for a second time, a torrent of water
should come pouring down the Rackbirds' ravine!
As the captain trembled with fear, it was not for himself, for he could
listen for the sound of the rushing waters, and could dash away to the
higher ground behind him; but it was for his treasure-bags, his fortune,
his future! His soul quaked. His first impulse was to rush out and carry
every bag to higher ground. But this idea was absurd. The night was too
dark, and the bags too heavy and too many. Then he thought of hurrying
away to the caves to see if the lake had risen high enough to be
dangerous. But what could he do if it had? In his excitement, he could
not stand still and do nothing. He took hold of one end of his trunk and
pulled it out of his tent, and, stumbling and floundering over the
inequalities of the ground, he at last got it to a place which he
supposed would be out of reach of a sudden flood, and the difficulties of
this little piece of work assured him of the utter futility of
attempting to move the bags in the darkness. He had a lantern, but that
would be of little service on such a night and for such a work.
He went back into his tent, and tried to prevail upon himself that he
ought to go to sleep--that it was ridiculous to beset himself with
imaginary dangers, and to suffer from them as much as if they had been
real ones. But such reasoning was vain, and he sat up or walked about
near his tent all night, listening and listening, and trying to think of
the best thing to do if he should hear a coming flood.
As soon as it was light, he hurried to the caves, and when he reached the
old bed of the lake, he found there was not a drop of water in it.
"The thing doesn't work!" he cried joyfully. "Fool that I am, I might
have known that although a man might open a valve two or three
centuries old, he should not expect to shut it up again. I suppose I
smashed it utterly."
His revulsion of feeling was so great that he began to laugh at his own
absurdity, and then he laughed at his merriment.
"If any one should see me now," he thought, "they would surely think I
had gone crazy over my wealth. Well, there is no danger from a flood,
but, to make all things more than safe, I will pull down this handle, if
it will come. Anyway, I do not want it seen."
The great bar came down much easier than it had gone up, moving, in fact,
the captain thought, as if some of its detachments were broken, and when
it was down as far as it would go, he came away.
"Now," said he, "I have done with this cave for this trip. If possible, I
shall think of it no more."
When he was getting some water from the stream to make some coffee for
his breakfast, he stopped and clenched his fist. "I am more of a fool
than I thought I was," he said. "This solitary business is not good for
me. If I had thought last night of coming here to see if this little
stream were still running, and kept its height, I need not have troubled
myself about the lake in the cave. Of course, if the water were running
into the caves, it would not be running here until the lake had filled.
And, besides, it would take days for that great lake to fill. Well, I am
glad that nobody but myself knows what an idiot I have been."
When he had finished his breakfast, Captain Horn went to work. There was
to be no more thinking, no more plans, no more fanciful anxieties, no
more hopes of doing something better than he had done. Work he would, and
when one thing was done, he would find another. The first thing he set
about was the improvement of the pier which had been built for the
landing of the guano. There was a good deal of timber left unused, and he
drove down new piles, nailed on new planking, and extended the little
pier considerably farther into the waters of the cove. When this was
done, he went to work on the lighter, which was leaky, and bailed it out,
and calked the seams, taking plenty of time, and doing his work in the
most thorough manner. He determined that after this was done, and he
could find nothing better to do, he would split up the little vessel
which the Rackbirds had left rudderless, mastless, and useless, and make
kindling-wood of it.
But this was not necessary. He had barely finished his work on the
lighter, when, one evening, he saw against the sun-lighted sky the
topmasts of a vessel, and the next morning the _Finland_ lay anchored off
the cove, and two boats came ashore, out of one of which Maka was the
first to jump.
In five hours the guano had been transferred to the ship, and, twenty
minutes later, the _Finland_, with Captain Horn on board, had set sail
for Acapulco. The captain might have been better pleased if his
destination had been San Francisco, but, after all, it is doubtful if
there could have been a man who was better pleased. He walked the deck of
a good ship with a fellow-mariner with whom he could talk as much as he
pleased, and under his feet were the bags containing the thousands of
little bars for which he had worked so hard.