LOOK DOWN AND NOT UP
THE engineer was entirely right. There was somebody knocking at the
gate, as they are wont to say in romantic novels, but in this particular
case it was the barn doors where the noise was heard. They were rolled
back and then came the sound of loud voices, or, to be accurate, they
were rather shrill.
"That's the Mexicans," declared Berwick; "they are on our trail."
"We will make them get off," remarked Jim grimly.
"Better throw them off," said the engineer wisely.
"Gosh ding, I don't see how we are going to get out of here now if they
decide to make a search of the premises," remarked Jim; "we are in for
it."
John Berwick was on the point of saying something about "I told you so,"
but he thought better of it, for you remember that it had been his idea
to fasten the stable when they first came in. "I guess the only thing
for us to do is to make a rush for it when they discover us," said Jim,
"and trust to our luck which seems uncommon bad of late."
"Due to turn," said Berwick; "it's run against us long enough."
The men's voices below had suddenly ceased, and then there were signs of
a vigorous search on the lower floor. It was only a question of a little
time when the search would reach the hay loft, where our two friends
were in hiding, and then--
"I'm going to crawl around and see if I can't find some way of getting
out of this trap," declared Jim.
"All right, I'll stay here and guard our common fireside," replied the
engineer with his queer twist of humor.
"Speaking of firesides," remarked Jim; "if they would only set fire to
this place they would surely get us."
"It would be a case of roast pig, as Charles Lamb says," put in John
Berwick.
"The two would go well together, was he a sheep or a mutton," said Jim
coarsely, for be it known James was not much of an authority on English
literature, the only classics with which he was fully acquainted being,
"The Frontier Boys in Every Part of the World," which, with Shakespeare,
forms a complete library.
"I fear you are nothing but a Bravo, James," remarked his friend.
"What's that?" Jim inquired. "Some other time will do just as well," he
declared, "I am going scouting."
Suiting the action to the word, he started to crawl along the wall, and
it did not take him long to get free of the hay, and raising his head,
he saw something that made him draw down hurriedly, and take the trail
back to where his comrade was waiting.
"What luck?" asked Berwick.
"Not a place where a rat could crawl out," remarked Jim, "but you just
wait. I think there is something going to happen."
There did, but it was not exactly what was expected. It was evident that
the search below was over, and after a brief parley, heavy feet could be
heard coming up the ladder. At the moment that the leader's head
appeared through the opening, a gray and ghostly figure rose with its
weird, shrill cry of rage that startled the two comrades safely hidden
in the hay.
The effect upon the intruders can be easily guessed. These superstitious
Mexicans had known vaguely of a woman haunting this castle by the sea.
Sometimes they had seen a gray, creeping figure at the end of the hall
or heard a piercing cry ring out at midnight, and now this creature was
about to spring upon them and curse them to the bottomless pit. There
was a cry of fright, and in leaping back, the man near the top of the
ladder knocked over the one below, and he in turn the next, so that it
was like when a ball hits the King Pin and the others are sent
sprawling.
The searching party fled in panic and dismay out of the barn, and
nothing could have persuaded them to have set foot in those haunted
walls again, no, not even the threats of the redoubtable Captain William
Broome himself. What the outcome would have been had the captain been on
hand, it is difficult to say, for it was commonly supposed that he was
in fear of nothing.
"Well, what did I tell you, Jack?" questioned Jim smiling grimly. "There
was something on hand sure enough."
"What under the canopy was that thing doing?" exclaimed John Berwick.
"It gave me the creeps, and that is a sensation that does not bother me
very much these days."
"That was the story of a haunted house," replied Jim, "but it is safe
enough now since our friends, the enemy, have fled. Let us go out and
see for ourselves if you aren't too timid."
"Anybody who survives the excitement of following your fortunes for a
few weeks cannot be very timid," replied Berwick candidly.
Jim grinned, but made no reply, and in a few moments they emerged from
the hay into the dusk of the loft. For a few seconds they made out
nothing, and then from the deeper shadow a dim figure took shape, and
advanced towards them. Jim was the nearest to her, and Berwick was very
well pleased that this was so. Jim showed no uneasiness.
"Thank you for driving them away," he said quietly, peering down at the
strange face that looked up at him from its hooded gray, and then she
laughed at him with insane mirth. It would have done severe damage to
less hardy nerves than those which our "hero" possessed. Jim regarded
her with unwavering kindness, which seemed to reach through the gray
cloud of her unhappy condition, much as the clear sun penetrates the
mist.
"The old devil has gone," she volunteered.
"Ah, the captain," said Jim to Berwick quietly.
"She could mean no other," agreed his friend. "Perhaps we had better
follow his example."
"And the young lady?" questioned Jim.
There was a nod of the head, and even while they were speaking, the
woman had faded back into the shadows. They did not disturb her, for it
would be to no purpose.
"How had we better get out of here, that is the question," continued
Berwick.
"I thought we might go out the back way," remarked Jim.
"How, jump?" inquired Berwick, who remembered the cliff, one hundred
feet sheer descent, that bounded the precincts of the castle, except
that shut in by the iron fence.
"It won't be hard," said Jim, "if we can find a rope around here, and I
think we can."
"If we do, we will keep enough to hang the captain with," said Berwick
grimly.
"There's a souvenir hanging from the chimney," said Jim with a grin.
"Better leave that for Santa Claus," remarked the engineer thoughtfully.
"Santa Claus doesn't come to California," replied James; "they don't
have Christmas weather here."
"Get lost in the fog, that's a fact," remarked Berwick.
"Come," cried Jim, "let us find some rope."
Down the stairs they went, and it did not take them long to discover a
tar-hued rope coiled in one of the empty feed bins.
"Here's our treasure," said Berwick; "it belongs to the old sea dog
evidently. I suppose you want me to hold it, while you climb gracefully
down."
"Hardly," mocked Jim. "I'd land so suddenly that it would drive my heels
into my head. Here's a sliding window at the back here. Let's see how it
looks below."
At the word, Jim pushed back the window and poking his head out took a
good long look.
"Overhangs the water," exclaimed Jim as he pulled back.
"Let me have a peek," said the engineer, and looking down he saw the
waves rushing in against the black rock of the cliff a hundred feet or
more beneath. When the water withdrew there was a wet stretch of sandy
cove, and then the waves came in with a foaming rush.
"It's pretty near high now," said Berwick, as he pulled his head in.
"I don't think it would be much of a trick to get around that projection
of the cliff to the beach," remarked Jim.
"Maybe," replied Berwick noncommittally, with a slight shrug of his
shoulders.
"You can swim like a fish," put in Jim who had noted the shrug of his
comrade's shoulders.
"But I was thinking of you, my poor friend," replied the engineer. "What
would become of you if the hungry ocean should seize upon you with its
white and foaming teeth?"
"Oh, I'd wade out," remarked Jim nonchalantly.
"Humph," grunted Berwick; "by the way, Jim, I think I can find something
of real interest here."
He got down on his knees and began very carefully to brush away with his
hands the débris on the floor.
"You ain't lost that diamond ring I gave you?" questioned Jim in mock
anxiety.
He, too, got down on the floor and began to dust for himself.
"I've found it," cried Berwick; "just get your hulk off this door."
Jim obeyed promptly, exclaiming, "Hully Gee, it's a trap!"
"What would you expect?" replied the engineer. "The captain could use
this nicely in his line of trade I'm thinking."
"That is where that poor fellow would have been sent, whom we found in
the gulch," exclaimed Jim.
"Certain thing," agreed his friend.
"I've got an idea," said Jim, lying flat on the floor. He stuck his head
through the trap door while his friend held him solicitously by his legs
so he could not do the sudden disappearance act.
"I can fix it," declared Jim as he pulled his head back; "just let me
have the end of that rope."
The engineer did as requested, and Jim slipped the rope's end around one
of the log joists and tied it securely.
"It will be a good thing to have this fastened here, in case we should
have to come back," remarked Jim.
"Which I hope we won't until we get something to eat," said Berwick, who
was not so young and enthusiastic as to find sufficient food in an
adventure as Jim did.
"Might fish through here," remarked Jim.
"Yes, with a bent pin," replied the engineer caustically, "as far as
getting anything to eat."
Jim laughed gleefully.
"Well, I'm off, or down rather," he said, his face growing sober.
"You're next, Chief."