As the only person who had yet discovered anything on the island, I
was now invested with a certain importance. Also, I had a
playfellow and companion for future walks, in lieu of Cuthbert
Vane, held down tight to the thankless toil of treasure-hunting by
his stem taskmaster. But at the same time I was provided with an
annoying, because unanswerable, question which had lodged at the
back of my mind like a crumb in the throat:
By what strange chance had the copra gatherer gone away and left
Crusoe on the island?
Since the discovery of Crusoe the former inhabitant of the cabin in
the clearing had been much in my thoughts. I had been dissatisfied
with him from the beginning, first, because he was not a pirate,
and also because he had left behind no relic more fitting than a
washtub. Not a locket, not a journal, not his own wasted form
stretched upon a pallet--
I had expressed these sentiments to Cuthbert Vane, who replied that
in view of the washtub it was certain that the hermit of the island
had not been a pirate, as he understood they never washed. I said
neither did any orthodox hermit, to which Mr. Vane rejoined that he
probably was not orthodox but a Dissenter. He said Dissenters were
so apt to be peculiar, don't you know?
One morning, instead of starting directly after breakfast for the
cave, Mr. Shaw busied himself in front of the supply tent with
certain explosives which were to be used in the digging operations
later. The neighborhood of these explosives was a great trial to
Aunt Jane, who was constantly expecting them to go off. I rather
expected it too, and used to shudder at the thought that if we all
went soaring heavenward together we might come down inextricably
mixed. Then when the Rufus Smith returned and they tried to sort
us out before interment, I might have portions of Violet, for
instance, attributed to me. In that case I felt that, like Bill
Halliwell, I should walk.
Having inquired of the Honorable Cuthbert and found that for an
hour or two the boat would not be in requisition, I permitted the
beautiful youth to understand that I would not decline an
invitation to be rowed about the cove. Mr. Shaw had left his
marine glasses lying about, and I had been doing some exploring
with them. Under the great cliffs on the north shore of the bay I
had seen an object that excited my curiosity. It seemed to be the
hull of a small vessel, lying on the narrow strip of rocks and sand
under the cliff. Now wreckage anywhere fills me with sad and
romantic thoughts, but on the shore of a desolate island even a
barrel-hoop seems to suffer a sea-change into something rich and
strange. I therefore commanded the b. y. to row me over to the
spot where the derelict lay.
I lay back idly in the stern as the boat skimmed over the smooth
water beneath the strokes of my splendid oarsman. More than ever
he looked like the island god. Every day he grew more brown and
brawny, more superb in his physical vigor. But his hands, once so
beautiful, were getting rough and hard with toil. There was a
great raw bruise on his arm. I exclaimed pityingly.
"Oh, it's nothing. We get knocked about a bit by the sea in the
cave now and then."
"You mean you are risking your lives every day for the sake of this
legendary treasure that you have no _reasonable_ reason to suppose
is there."
"Perhaps not," he admitted, "but then it's such good fun looking,
you know."
"That's according to one's idea of fun," I said ironically.
"Oh, well, a chap can't spend his days on flowery beds of ease, of
course. Really, I find this story-book kind of thing we're doing
is _warm stuff_, as you Americans say. And then there's
Shaw--think of the difference it will make to the dear old chap if
we find the gold--buy a ship of his own and snap his fingers at the
P. & O."
"And you'll go along as cabin-boy or something?" "'Fraid not," he
said quite simply. "A chap has his bit to do at home, you know."
The cliffs on the north shore of the cove were considerably higher
than on the other side. The wreck lay close in, driven high upon
the narrow shelf of rocks and sand at the base of the sheer ascent.
Sand had heaped up around her hull and flung itself across her deck
like a white winding-sheet. Surprisingly, the vessel was a very
small one, a little sloop, indeed, much like the fragile
pleasure-boats that cluster under the Sausalito shore at home. The
single mast had been broken off short, and the stump of the
bowsprit was visible, like a finger beckoning for rescue from the
crawling sand. She was embedded most deeply at the stem, and
forward of the sand-heaped cockpit the roof of the small cabin was
still clear.
"Poor forlorn little boat!" I said. "What in the world do you
suppose brought such a mite of a thing to this unheard-of spot?"
"Perhaps she belonged to the copra chap. One man could handle her."
"What would he want with her? A small boat like this is better for
fishing and rowing about the cove."
"Perhaps she brought him here from Panama, though he couldn't have
counted on taking back a very bulky cargo."
"Then why leave her strewn about on the rocks? And besides"--here
the puzzle of Crusoe recurred to me and seemed to link itself with
this--"then how did he get away himself?"
But my oarsman was much more at home on the solid ground of fact
than on the uncharted waters of the hypothetical.
"Don't know, I'm sure," he returned uninterestedly. Evidently the
hermit had got away, so why concern one's self about the method? I
am sure the Light Brigade must have been made up of Cuthbert Vanes.
"Theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do or die--"
We rowed in close under the port bow of the sloop, and on the rail
I made out a string of faded letters. I began excitedly to spell
them out.
"I--s--l--oh, _Island Queen_! You see she did belong here.
Probably she brought the original porcine Adam and Eve to the
island."
"Luckily forgot the snake, though!" remarked the Honorable Bertie
with unlooked-for vivacity. For so far Aunt Jane's trembling
anticipations had been unfulfilled by the sight of a single snake,
a fact laid by me to the credit of St. Patrick and by Cookie to
that of the pigs.
"Snakes 'd jes' be oysters on de half shell to dem pigs," declared
Cookie.
As we rowed away from the melancholy little derelict I saw that
near by a narrow gully gave access to the top of the cliff, and I
resolved that I would avail myself of this path to visit the
_Island Queen_ again. My mind continued to dwell upon the unknown
figure of the copra gatherer. Perhaps the loss of his sloop had
condemned him to weary months or years of solitude upon the island,
before the rare glimmer of a sail or the trail of a steamer's smoke
upon the horizon gladdened his longing eyes. Hadn't he grown very
tired of pork, and didn't his soul to this day revolt at a ham
sandwich? What would he say if he ever discovered that he might
have brought away a harvest of gold instead of copra from the
island? Last but not least, did not his heart and conscience, if
he by chance possessed them, ache horribly at the thought of the
forsaken Crusoe?
Suddenly I turned to Cuthbert Vane.
"How do you know, really, that he ever did leave the island?" I
demanded.
"Who--the copra chap? Well, why else was the cabin cleared out so
carefully--no clothes left about or anything?"
"That's true," I acknowledged. The last occupant of the hut had
evidently made a very deliberate and orderly business of packing up
to go.
We drifted about the cove for a while, then steered into the dim
murmuring shadow of the treasure-cavern. It was filled with
dark-green, lisping water, and a continual resonant whispering in
which you seemed to catch half-framed words, and the low ripple of
laughter. Mr. Vane indicated the point at which they had arrived
in their exploration among the fissures opening from the ledge.
The place held me with its fascination, but we dared not linger
long, for as the tide turned one man would have much ado to manage
the boat. So we slid through the archway into the bright sunshine
of the cove, and headed for the camp.
As we neared the beach we saw a figure pacing it. I knew that free
stride. It was Dugald Shaw. And quite unexpectedly my heart began
to beat with staccato quickness. Dugald Shaw, who didn't like me
and never looked at me--except just sometimes, when he was
perfectly sure I didn't know it. Dugald Shaw, the silent,
unboastful man who had striven and starved and frozen on the
dreadful southern ice-fields, who had shared the Viking deeds of
the heroes--whom just to think of warmed my heart with a safe,
cuddled, little-girl feeling that I had never known since I was a
child on my father's knee. There he was, waiting for us, and
splashing into the foam to help Cuthbert beach the boat--he for
whom a thousand years ago the skalds would have made a saga--
The b. y. hailed him cheerfully as we sprang out upon the sand.
But the Scotchman was unsmiling.
"Make haste after your tools, lad," he ordered. "We'll have fine
work now to get inside the cave before the turn."
Those were his words; his tone and his grim look meant, _So in
spite of all my care you are being beguiled by a minx_--
It was his tone that I answered.
"Oh, don't scold Mr. Vane!" I implored. "Every paradise has its
serpent, and as there are no others here I suppose I am it. Of
course all lady serpents who know their business have red hair.
Don't blame Mr. Vane for what was naturally all my fault."
Not a line of his face changed. Indeed, before my most vicious
stabs it never did change. Though of course it would have been
much more civil of him, and far less maddening, to show himself a
little bit annoyed.
"To be sure it seems unreasonable to blame the lad," he agreed
soberly, "but then he happens to be under my authority."
"Meaning, I suppose, that you would much prefer to blame _me_," I
choked.
"There's logic, no doubt, in striking at the root of the trouble,"
he admitted, with an air of calm detachment.
"Then strike," I said furiously, "strike, why don't you, and not
beat about the bush so!" Because then he would be quite hopelessly
in the wrong, and I could adopt any of several roles--the coldly
haughty, the wounded but forgiving, etc., with great enjoyment.
But without a change in his glacial manner he quite casually
remarked:
"It would seem I had struck--home."
I walked away wishing the dynamite would go off, even if I had to
be mixed with Violet till the last trump.
Fortunately nobody undertook to exercise any guardianship over
Crusoe, and the little white dog bore me faithful company in my
rambles. Mostly these were confined to the neighborhood of the
cove. I never ventured beyond Lookout ridge, but there I went
often with Crusoe, and we would sit upon a rock and talk to each
other about our first encounter there, and the fright he had given
me. Everybody else had gone, gazed and admired. But the only
constant pilgrim, besides myself, was, of all people, Captain
Magnus. Soon between us we had worn a path through the woods to
the top of the ridge. The captain's unexpected ardor for scenery
carried him thither whenever he had half an hour to spare from the
work in the cave. Needless to say, Crusoe and I timed our visits
so as not to conflict with his. A less discreet beast than Crusoe
would long ere this have sampled the captain's calves, for the
sailor missed no sly chance to exasperate the animal. But the wise
dog contented himself with such manifestations as a lifted lip and
twitching ears, for he had his own code of behavior, and was not to
be goaded into departing from it.
One day, as Crusoe and I came down from the ridge, we met Captain
Magnus ascending. I had in my hand a small metal-backed mirror,
which I had found, surprisingly, lying in a mossy cleft between the
rocks. It was a thing such as a man might carry in his pocket,
though on the island it seemed unlikely that any one would do' so.
I at once attributed the mirror to Captain Magnus, for I knew that
no one else had been to the ridge for days. I was wondering as I
walked along whether by some sublime law of compensation the
captain really thought himself beautiful, and sought this retired
spot to admire not the view but his own physiognomy.
When the captain saw me he stopped full in the path. There was a
growth of fern on either side. I approached slowly, and, as he did
not move, paused, and held out the mirror.
"I think you must have dropped this, Captain Magnus. I found it on
the rocks."
For an instant his face changed. His evasive eyes were turned to
me searchingly and sharply. He took the glass from my hand and
slipped it into his pocket. I made a movement to pass on, then
stopped, with a faint dawning of discomfort. For the heavy figure
of the captain still blocked the path..
A dark flush had come into the man's face. His yellow teeth showed
between his parted lips. His eyes had a swimming brightness.
"What's your hurry?" he remarked, with a certain insinuating
emphasis.