A SINGULAR COINCIDENCE.
The mere mention of anything being concealed on that desolate key
suggested hidden treasure to Jake, and in an instant he had forgotten
his fears of the cat, concerning whose sudden disappearances there
could now be nothing mysterious, if Ben and Gertie had really found her
place of refuge.
“Come on, aunty!” he cried excitedly. “The youngsters have discovered
what I reckon must be pirates’ gold, for they do say these keys used to
be thick with ’em.”
Chloe had not been able to understand what Ben said, and of Jake’s
invitation it seemed as if she heard nothing save the one word,
“pirate.” The sight of the supposed voodou had frightened her out of
nearly all her senses, and this last announcement completed the work.
“For de Lawd’s sake, don’ go ’way now, Massa Jake!” she cried
imploringly, making several ineffectual efforts to rise to her feet.
“Ef de pirates done gone come we’se dead, suah, an’ what’ll a po’ ole
nigger woman do when she’s lef’ alone?”
It had never flashed across the cook’s mind that even the most timid
could take alarm at his very natural proposition, and he was off before
Chloe began to speak, rushing into the tent in the highest state of
excitement.
“What have you found, lad?” he cried. “Show it to me! Tim Jinks knowed
men who allers said there was plenty of gold buried on these keys, an’
perhaps our gettin’ lost in the fog is goin’ to turn out a mighty lucky
thing for us.”
It was only necessary for Ben to point toward a small hole, which
evidently extended some distance beneath one of the mangrove trees, and
in an instant Jake was on his knees.
“I don’t see any box,” he said impatiently, as he peered into the
aperture.
“Reach your hand in and you can feel it. The place must be pretty big,
’cause we couldn’t see anything of the cat while she was there, an’ we
only knew where she had hidden herself by Gertie’s calling two or three
times.”
Jake began his investigations in the manner suggested by Ben, and
a few seconds later his excitement had increased to such an extent
that it was only after considerable difficulty he could calm himself
sufficiently to speak intelligibly.
“Run after some of them barrel-staves we saw on the beach,” he cried.
“The thing, whatever it is, has been there so long that we’ll have to
do a good deal of diggin’ before we can get it out.”
While Ben was obeying this command the cat left the tent, and old
Chloe’s screams were so loud and piercing that there could be no doubt
as to the direction in which the animal had gone.
“That nigger would provoke the mildest-mannered man who ever lived,”
Jake said angrily, forgetting how short a time had elapsed since he
also was quite as much afraid of the half-starved cat. “I’d like to
lash somethin’ over her mouth so’s we could hear ourselves think.”
“Perhaps Kitty’s tail is sticking straight up like the liberty-pole
on Marsh’s common, and you know such a sight would scare almost any
one,” Gertie said mischievously, as she left the tent to quiet the old
woman’s fears, while Jake’s face grew very red as he muttered, half to
himself:
“Nobody would a’ thought of findin’ a cat in this place, an’ even Tim
Jinks hisself might a’ been flustered for a minute.”
Although there was no one near to hear this apology, the cook appeared
to feel relieved because it had been made, and once more turned his
attention to the supposed treasure. He dug away the sand with his hands
in his eagerness to unearth it, and when Ben arrived with an armful of
broken staves from a cask which had been washed ashore, the aperture
was enlarged until it was possible to have a reasonably good view of
what the children believed to be a small trunk.
“It’s a box strapped with canvas,” he said as Ben entered the tent,
“an’ looks to me as if it had belonged to a sailor-man, consequently we
must a’ struck the pirates’ gold.”
“We sha’n’t be long findin’ out all about it,” Ben replied as he
began to use one of the staves after the manner of a shovel, and Jake
following his example immediately, the sand was soon flying in a cloud.
It was far from being as easy, however, to remove the box as had
been supposed. The smaller roots of the tree covered one end almost
completely, and not until these were cut away could it be pulled to the
surface.
Gertie, with the alleged supernatural cat following close behind,
came into the tent as this portion of the work was accomplished, and
what she saw was not calculated to convey the impression that any very
valuable discovery had been made.
A dilapidated-looking box, about two feet long, half as high and twice
as wide, with one end badly decayed, and the canvas straps which held
it together black and rotten, was on the sand, while Jake bent over it
as if almost afraid to solve the mystery now that it could be done so
easily.
Chloe gazed at this evidence that the key had been visited by man at
least once before, with such absorbing interest that she failed even to
see the cat, who was rubbing against her dress in a friendly fashion,
and the others appeared as if fascinated by the not particularly
pleasant-looking sight, until Ben cried impatiently:
“Why don’t you open it, Jake? What’s the use of standin’ here starin’
at a thing when it won’t take two minutes to find out what’s inside?”
The cook started suddenly, as if for the moment he had forgotten where
he was, and then with his pocket-knife proceeded to cut such of the
bands as yet remained whole, the cover falling off as the last one was
severed.
An exclamation of disappointment burst from Jake’s lips as the contents
of the box were revealed. He had fully expected to find it filled with
gold or valuables of some kind, despite the fact that it was far from
being heavy, and when nothing but mouldy clothing met his eager gaze it
appeared as if he believed he had just cause for complaint because his
anticipations were not realized.
“I call that a mighty mean piece of business,” he said indignantly.
“Nobody had any right to bury old duds as if they was gold.”
“Perhaps there is something in it besides clothes,” Ben suggested.
“Then hunt for it if you want to, I’m through,” and Jake seated himself
on the sand in a very grief stricken attitude.
“But how could clothes be buried under the trees if no one lives here?”
Gertie asked curiously as Ben begun to pull the musty garments from the
box.
“I reckon some sailor got wrecked on this key,” Jake replied in an
angry tone, “an’ he was sich a howlin’ swell that he thought more of
his duds than he did of hisself. He mighter knowed they’d a sp’iled in
two or three months. Tim Jinks once----”
“There _is_ something else here!” Ben exclaimed as he held up a small
but heavy canvas bag and shook it. “That sounds like money, anyway.”
Jake was on his feet in an instant, and breaking the string which was
around the mouth of the bag, poured its contents on the sand in front
of Gertie, the gloomy look on his face changing to one of satisfaction
as a large number of gold coins were exposed to view.
“I reckon there’s nigh onto a thousand dollars in the pile, which ain’t
so bad considerin’ that it looked one spell as if what we’d found
wasn’t worth the trouble of luggin’ it away.”
“There’s something besides money here,” Gertie said as she took a paper
from the bag which Jake had thrown aside, believing it to be empty.
“It’s a letter, and directed to ‘Whoever finds my dun--dun--’ I can’t
exactly make out some of the writing, but it looks like ‘dunnage.’”
“I reckon that’s what it is. A sailor allers calls his traps dunnage;
but go ahead an’ read what he says. I’d like to know why he left his
money here when most folks would a’took it away--that is,” Jake added
solemnly, “if they could get off theirselves.”
“It’s dated eight years ago,” Gertie said as she deciphered the faded
writing only after the greatest difficulty, while the others stood
close beside her that not a word should be lost. “It’ll take a good
while to read it because some of the words are almost rubbed out.”
“Go ahead the best you can,” Ben said impatiently, “an’ skip the part
that’s hard.”
Slowly, hesitating now and then over some portion, the meaning of which
was obscure, or spelling here and there an entire sentence, Gertie read
what was in reality a message from the dead, while Ben’s face exhibited
alternately the varying emotions of astonishment, grief and something
very nearly approaching fear.
“I am writing this with but little hope that it will ever be read,” the
letter, manuscript or whatever it should be called, began, “and yet I
pray that God may send--not as I came, but from motives of curiosity or
pleasure--some one to this desolate key who will convey these, my last
words, to my wife and little ones. My name is Isaac Clark, and I did
live in Savannah.”
At this point Jake looked toward Ben, whose face had grown very pale,
and who said in a low tone, much as if the cook had asked a question:
“That was my father’s name, and he was lost at sea a good many years
ago.”
“Go on, Gertie,” Jake said with a gesture of impatience, and then he
added half to himself: “It would be the most curious thing I ever heard
about if the boy had been cast away on the very key where his father
died.”
“I am, or was, first mate of the brig Flying Scud,” Gertie continued,
reading in a low, solemn tone, “which left Savannah on the fourth of
last month, just forty days ago, bound for Key West. Off Cape Florida
we run into a nor’easter. In eighteen hours the brig was dismasted,
and while trying to clear away the wreckage every soul except me was
swept overboard. My left arm had been broken two hours before, when
both boats were stove, and I was in the cabin at the time of the last
disaster, which accounts for my being the only survivor, spared from
the sea to die miserably on this coral reef alone. For two days the
wreck was tossed about just outside the chain of keys, and then she
came ashore here, thrown broadside on the southerly end, hanging there
only twenty-four hours before being carried away again by a norther
which destroyed every vestige of her except the few things I had
managed to drag into this clump of mangroves. I have rigged up a decent
kind of a tent from some spare canvas, and would have every reason
to believe I could reach the main land by means of a raft but for my
broken arm. I tried to set the bones, but a man with one arm cannot
make much of a fist at playing the surgeon on himself, and the end is
now very near. Mortification has already begun, and I am doomed to lie
here seeing my body die slowly while my mind is sufficiently active to
note every change.”
Gertie’s eyes were so full of tears that she was forced to stop a
moment, and it appeared as if the brief interruption in this record of
suffering was a welcome one to the listeners. Jake opened the flap of
the tent to hide his face by looking out over the angry waters, while
Ben crouched on the sand sobbing, for it seemed as if he was by the
side of his dying father, as he had been with his mother and brother in
their last moments.
“Is there any more of it?” Jake asked after a long silence, during
which the thunder of the surf as it beat against the coral shore filled
the air with a sound as of impotent grief.
“Only a few lines,” Gertie replied, and then brushing the moisture from
her eyes again, she continued:
“I shall inclose this letter in the money-bag which contains all my
earnings, taken from home with the intention of investing them in Key
West, and place the box in a hole which I have scraped out under the
roots of this tree. Probably it will never be found, since if this
lonely place is ever visited, it is hardly likely there will be a
thought of searching beneath the surface, but it is the only chance,
for during the next high wind every movable article, including my
poor body, must necessarily be swept from the key. If it should be
discovered, however, I charge the finder, if he would aid the widow and
fatherless, to send the money to Mrs. Isaac Clark, care of Gibson and
Deane, Savannah, Georgia, and may God in His infinite goodness reward
him.
“To my beloved wife and darling children I send the blessing of a dying
husband and father, praying now, as I shall with my last breath, that
they may be kept from sorrow and all bodily suffering, after the first
pangs occasioned by my death shall have passed away.”
The letter, discolored by age and dampness, as with the tears of the
unfortunate man who wrote it, was finished, while the three castaways
sat around the box from which it had been taken looking mutely at each
other, and the silence was not broken until a voice of distress could
be heard in the distance, calling feebly:
“Gertie! Honey! Whar is you? Hab de pirates done gone lugged you off
for suah? Don’ yer hear po’ ole Aunty Chloe?”
Ben paid no attention to this cry, which under other circumstances his
ears would have been open to so quickly, and Jake motioned for Gertie
to leave the tent, saying when they were a short distance away:
“It’s kinder like as if he was to his father’s funeral, an’ the best
thing we can do is leave the poor little feller alone while we try to
make Chloe stop her yellin’.”
The last portion of the self-imposed task was not so easy of
accomplishment. Even when the old woman saw the two before her, she was
still almost frantic with fear, and not until after at least fifteen
minutes had been spent trying to explain the situation of affairs could
she be reduced to a condition of partial quietude.
She finally came to understand what had been found, and then more than
ever was she convinced that supernatural influences were at work on the
island; but her terror was less noisy, and this, to Jake at least, was
a decided change for the better.
“Let’s you and I hunt for the tea and the pot,” Gertie said as she took
the withered black hand in hers. “We shall all feel ever so much better
after a hot breakfast, for it must be nearly noon.”
The old woman suffered herself to be led toward the place where the
tent had been pitched on the previous day. Jake crept softly under the
canvas, where Ben still sat beside his father’s box in silent grief,
got two of the staves, and then went back to dig among the furrows of
sand in the hope of finding provisions.
By the greatest good fortune, so far as Aunt Chloe was concerned, the
tea canister was unearthed after half an hour’s work, and not far from
it was the battered tin pot.
“Now we can begin housekeepin’ once more,” Jake said, trying to speak
cheerfully, but in vain; the message from the dead had oppressed every
one visibly, for it told what might be their own fate. “Aunty, you
build a fire, while I hunt for more stuff, and after breakfast is ready
we’ll call Ben, but not till then. Don’t get to feelin’ down-hearted,
for if his father did die here it was cause he couldn’t help hisself,
owin’ to a broken arm; but we’ll rig up some way to leave this place.”
Occupation for the hands was needed quite as much as anything else,
and even old Chloe appeared to understand this, for she bustled around
quite briskly, regardless alike of the wind which was yet strong and
cold, and the cat who persisted in following Gertie wherever she went.