Perhaps because of the secret excitement under which I was
laboring, I seemed that evening unusually aware of the emotional
fluctuations of those about me. Violet looked grimmer than ever,
so that I judged her struggles with her mundane consciousness to
have been exceptionally severe. Captain Magnus seemed even beyond
his wont restless, loose-jointed and wandering-eyed, and performed
extraordinary feats of sword-swallowing. Mr. Shaw was very silent,
and his forehead knitted now and then into a reflective frown. As
for myself, I had much ado to hide my abstraction, and turned cold
from head to foot with alarm when I heard my own voice addressing
Crusoe as Benjy.
A faint ripple of surprise passed round the table.
"Named your dog over again, Miss Jinny?" inquired Mr. Tubbs. Mr.
Tubbs had adopted a facetiously paternal manner toward me. I knew
in anticipation of the moment when he would invite me to call him
Uncle Ham.
"I say, you know," expostulated Cuthbert Vane, "I thought Crusoe
rather a nice name. Never heard of any chap named Benjy that lived
on an island."
"When I was a little girl, Virginia," remarked Aunt Jane, with the
air of immense age and wisdom which she occasionally assumed, "my
grandmother--your great-grandmother, of course, my love--would
never allow me to name my dolls a second time. She did not approve
of changeableness. And I am sure it must be partly due to your
great-grandmother's teaching that I always know my own mind
directly about everything. She was quite a remarkable woman, and
very firm. Firmness has been considered a family trait with us.
When her husband died--your great-grandfather, you know, dear--she
rose above her grief and made him take some very disagreeable
medicine to the very last, long after the doctors had given up
hope. As some relation or other said, I think your Great-Aunt
Susan's father-in-law, anybody else would have allowed poor John
Harding to die in peace, but trust Eliza to be firm to the end."
Under cover of this bit of family history I tried to rally from my
confusion, but I knew my cheeks were burning. Looks of deepening
surprise greeted the scarlet emblems of discomfiture that I hung
out.
"By heck, bet there's a feller at home named Benjy!" cackled Mr.
Tubbs shrilly, and for once I blessed him.
Aunt Jane turned upon him her round innocent eyes.
"Oh, no, Mr. Tubbs," she assured him, "I don't think a single one
of them was named Benjy!"
The laughter which followed this gave me time to get myself in hand
again.
"Crusoe it is and will be," I asserted. "Like Great-Grandmother
Harding, I don't approve of changeableness. It happens that a girl
I know at home has a dog named Benjy." Which happened fortunately
to be true, for otherwise I should have been obliged to invent it.
But the girl is a cat, and the dog a miserable little high-bred
something, all shivers and no hair. I should never have thought of
him in the same breath with Crusoe.
That evening Mr. Shaw addressed the gathering at the
camp-fire--which we made small and bright, and then sat well away
from because of the heat--and in a few words gave it as his opinion
that any further search in the cave under the point was useless.
(If he had known the strange confirmatory echo which this awoke in
my mind!) He proposed that the shore of the island to a reasonable
distance on either side of the bay-entrance should be surveyed,
with a view to discover whether some other cave did not exist which
would answer the description given by the dying Hopperdown as well
as that first explored.
Mr. Shaw's words were addressed to the ladies, the organizer and
financier, respectively, of the expedition, to the very deliberate
exclusion of Mr. Tubbs. But he might as well have made up his mind
to recognize the triumvirate. Enthroned on a camp-chair sat Aunt
Jane, like a little goddess of the Dollar Sign, and on one hand Mr.
Tubbs smiled blandly, and on the other Violet gloomed. You saw
that in secret council Mr. Shaw's announcement had been foreseen
and deliberated upon.
Mr. Tubbs, who understood very well the role of power behind the
throne, left it to Violet to reply. And Miss Browne, who carried
an invisible rostrum with her wherever she went, now alertly
mounted it.
"My friends," she began, "those dwelling on a plane where the
Material is all may fail to grasp the thought which I shall put
before you this evening. They may not understand that if a
different psychic atmosphere had existed on this island from the
first we should not now be gazing into a blank wall of Doubt. My
friends, this expedition was, so to speak, called from the Void by
Thought. Thought it was, as realized in steamships and other
ephemeral forms, which bore us thither over rolling seas. How then
can it be otherwise than that Thought should influence our
fortunes--that success should be unable to materialize before a
persistent attitude of Negation? My friends, you will perceive
that there is no break in this sequence of ideas; all is
remorseless logic.
"In order to withdraw myself from this atmosphere of Negation, for
these several days past I have sought seclusion. There in silence
I have asserted the power of Positive over Negative Thought, gazing
meanwhile into the profound depths of the All. My friends, an
answer has been vouchsafed us; I have had a vision of that for
which we seek. Now at last, in a spirit of glad confidence, we may
advance. For, my friends, the chest is buried--in sand."
With this triumphant announcement Miss Higglesby-Browne sat down.
A heavy silence succeeded. It was broken by a murmur from Mr.
Tubbs.
"Wonderful--that's what I call wonderful! Talk about the eloquence
of the ancients--I believe, by gum, this is on a par with
Congressional oratory!"
"A vision, Miss Browne," said Mr. Shaw gravely, "must be an
interesting thing. I have never seen one myself, having no talents
that way, but in the little Scotch town of Dumbiedykes where I was
born there was an old lady with a remarkable gift of the second
sight. Simple folk, not being acquainted with the proper terms to
fit the case, called her the Wise Woman. Well, one day my aunt had
been to the neighboring town of Micklestane, five miles off, and on
the way back to Dumbiedykes she lost her purse. It had three
sovereigns in it--a great sum to my aunt. In her trouble of mind
she hurried to the Wise Woman--a thing to make her pious father
turn in his grave. The Wise Woman--gazed into the All, I suppose,
and told my aunt not to fret herself, for she had had a vision of
the purse and _it lay somewhere on the food between Micklestane and
Dumbiedykes_.
"Now, Miss Browne, I'll take the liberty of drawing a moral from
this Story to fit the present instance: _where on the road between
Micklestane and Dumbiedykes is the chest_?"
Though startled at the audacity of Mr. Shaw, I was unprepared for
the spasm of absolute fury that convulsed Miss Browne's countenance.
"Mr. Shaw," she thundered, "if you intend to draw a parallel
between me and an ignorant Scotch peasant--!"
"Not at all," said Mr. Shaw calmly, "forebye the Wise Woman was a
most respectable person and had a grandson in the kirk. The point
is, can you indicate with any degree of exactness the whereabouts
of the chest? For there is a good deal of sand on the shores of
this island."
"Oh, but Mr. Shaw!" interposed Aunt Jane tremulously. "In the
sand--why, I am sure that is such a helpful thought! It shows
quite plainly that the chest is not buried in--in a rock, you
know." She gave the effect of a person trying to deflect a
thunderstorm with a palm-leaf fan.
"Dynamite---dynamite--blow the lid off the island!" mumbled Captain
Magnus.
"If any one has a definite plan to propose," said Mr. Shaw, "I am
very ready to consider it. I have understood myself from the first
to be acting under the directions of the ladies who planned this
expedition. As a mere matter of honesty to my employers, I should
feel bound to spare no effort to find the treasure, even if my own
interests were not so vitally concerned. Considering its
importance to myself, no one can well suppose that I am not doing
all in my power to bring the chest to light. Tomorrow, if the sea
is favorable, it is my intention to set out in the boat to
determine the character of such other caves as exist on the island.
I'll want you with me, lad, and you too, Magnus."
Captain Magnus looked more ill at ease than usual. "Did you think
o' rowin' the whole way round the dinged chunk o' rock?" he
inquired.
"Certainly not," said Mr. Shaw with an impatient frown. So the
man, in addition to his other unattractive qualities, was turning
out a shirk! Hitherto, with his strength and feverish if
intermittent energy, plus an almost uncanny skill with boats, he
had been of value. "Certainly not. We are going to make a careful
survey of the cliffs, and explore every likely opening as
thoroughly as possible. It will be slow work and hard. As to
circumnavigating the island, I see no point in it, for I don't
believe the chest can have been carried any great distance from the
cove."
"Oh--all right," said Captain Magnus.
Mr. Tubbs, who had been whispering with Aunt Jane and Miss Browne,
now with a very made-to-order casualness proposed to the two ladies
that they take a stroll on the beach. This meant that the
triumvirate were to withdraw for discussion, and amounted to notice
that henceforth the counsels of the company would be divided.
Captain Magnus, after an uneasy wriggle or two, said he guessed
he'd turn in. Cookie's snores were already audible between
splashes of the waves on the sands. The Scotchman, Cuthbert Vane
and I continued to sit by the dying fire. Mr. Shaw had got out his
pipe and sat silently puffing at it. He might have been sitting in
solitude on the topmost crag of the island, so remote seemed that
impassive presence. Was it possible that ever, except in the sweet
madness of a dream, I had been in his arms, pillowed and cherished
there, that he had called me _lassie_--
I lifted my eyes to the kind honest gaze of Cuthbert Vane. It was
as faithful as Crusoe's and no more embarrassing. A great impulse
of affection moved me. I was near putting out a hand to pat his
splendid head. Oh, how easy, comfortable, and calm would be a life
with Cuthbert Vane! I wasn't thinking about the title
now--Cuthbert would be quite worth while for himself. For a moment
I almost saw with Aunt Jane's eyes. _Fancy trotting him out before
the girls_! stole insidiously into my mind. How much more dazzling
than a plain Scotch sailor--
I turned in bitterness and yearning from the silent figure by the
fire.
I think in an earlier lifetime I must have been a huntress and
loved to pursue the game that fled.