I had determined as an offset to my pusillanimous behavior about
the cave to show a dogged industry in the matter of the _Island
Queen_. It would take me a long while to get down through the sand
to the chest, but I resolved to accomplish it, and borrowed of
Cookie, without his knowledge, a large iron spoon which I thought I
could wield more easily than a heavy spade. Besides, Cookie would
be less sleuth-like in getting on the trail of his missing property
than Mr. Shaw--though there would be a certain piquancy in having
that martinet hale me before him for stealing a spade.
But that afternoon I was tired and hot--it really called for a
grimmer resolve than mine to shovel sand through the languor of a
Leeward Island afternoon. Instead, I slept in my hammock, and
dreamed that I was queen of a cannibal island, draped in necklaces
made of the doubloons now hidden under the sand in the cabin of the
derelict.
Later, the wailing of Cookie was heard in the land, and I had to
restore the spoon to free Crusoe of the charge of having stolen it.
I said I had wanted it to dig with. But of course it occurred to
no one that it was the treasure I had expected to dig up with
Cookie's spoon. It was touching to see the universal faith in the
trivial nature of my employments, to know that every one imagined
themselves to be seriously occupied, while I was merely a
girl--there is no common denominator for the qualifying
adjective--who roamed about idly with a dog, and that no one
dreamed that we had thus come to be potentially among the richest
dogs and girls in these latitudes.
A more serious obstacle to my explorations on the _Island Queen_
presented itself next day. Instead of putting to sea, Mr. Shaw and
Captain Magnus hauled the boat up on the beach and set to work to
repair it. The wild work of exploring the coast had left the boat
with leaky seams and a damaged gunwale. The preceding day had been
filled with hardship and danger--so much so that my heart sank a
little at the recountal of it. You saw the little boat threading
its way among the reefs, tossed like seaweed by the white teeth of
gnawing waves, screamed at by angry gulls whose homes were those
clefts and caves which the boat invaded. And all this, poor little
boat, on a hopeless quest--for no reward but peril and wounds.
Captain Magnus had a bruised and bleeding wrist, but refused to
have it dressed, vaunting his hardihood with a savage pride.
Cuthbert Vane, however, had a sprained thumb which could not be
ignored, and on the strength of which he was dismissed from the
boat-repairing contingent, and thrown on my hands to entertain. So
of course I had to renounce all thoughts of visiting the sloop. I
should not have dared to go there anyway, with Mr. Shaw and the
captain able more or less to overlook my motions from the beach,
for I was quite morbidly afraid of attracting attention to the
derelict. It seemed to me a happy miracle that no one but myself
had taken any interest in her, or been inspired to ask by what
chance so small a boat had come to be wrecked upon these desolate
shores. Fortunately in her position in the shadow of the cliff she
was inconspicuous, so that she might easily have been taken for the
half of a large boat instead of the whole of a small one, or she
must before this have drawn the questioning notice of the
Scotchman. As to the captain, his attention was all set on the
effort to discover the cave, and his intelligence was not lively
enough to start on an entirely new tack by itself. And the
Honorable Cuthbert viewed derelicts as he viewed the planetary
bodies; somehow in the course of nature they happened.
So, dissembling my excitements and anxieties, I swung placidly in
my hammock, and near by sat the beautiful youth with his thumb
carried tenderly in a bandage. In my preoccupied state of mind, to
entertain him might have seemed by no means an idle pastime, if he
hadn't unexpectedly developed a talkative streak himself. Was it
merely my being so distrait, or was it quite another reason, that
led him to open up so suddenly about his Kentish home? Strange to
say, instead of panting for the title, Cuthbert wanted his brother
to go on living, though there was something queer about his spine,
poor fellow, and the doctors said he couldn't possibly-- Of course
I was surprised at Cuthbert's views, for I had always thought that
if there were a title in your family your sentiments toward those
who kept you out of it were necessarily murderous, and your tears
crocodile when you pretended to weep over their biers. But
Cuthbert's feelings were so human that I mentally apologized to the
nobility. As to High Staunton Manor, I adored it. It is mostly
Jacobean, but with an ancient Tudor wing, and it has a chapel and a
ghost and a secret staircase and a frightfully beautiful and wicked
ancestress hanging in the hall--I mean a portrait of her--and
quantities of oak paneling quite black with age, and silver that
was hidden in the family tombs when Cromwell's soldiers came, and a
chamber where Elizabeth once slept, and other romantic details too
numerous to mention. It is all a little bit run down and shabby,
for lack of money to keep it up, and of course on that account all
the more entrancing. Naturally the less money the more
aristocracy, for it meant that the family had never descended to
marrying coal miners and brewers--which comment is my own, for
Cuthbert was quite destitute of swank.
The present Lord Grasmere lived up to his position so completely
that he had the gout and sat with his foot on a cushion exactly
like all the elderly aristocrats you ever heard of, only when I
inquired if his lordship cursed his valet and flung plates at the
footmen when his foot hurt him his son was much shocked and pained.
He did not realize so well as I--from an extensive course of
novel-reading--that such is the usual behavior of titled persons.
It was delightful, there in the hot stillness of the island, with
the palms rustling faintly overhead, to hear of that cool, mossy,
ancient place. I asked eager questions--I repeated gloatingly
fragments of description--I wondered enviously what it would be
like to have anything so old and proud and beautiful in your very
blood--when suddenly I realized that, misled by my enthusiasm,
Cuthbert was saying something which must not be said--that he was
about to offer the shelter of that ancient roof to me. To me,
whose heart could never nest there, but must be ever on the wing, a
wild bird of passage in the track of a ship--
I sat up with a galvanic start. "Oh--listen--didn't you hear
something?" I desperately broke in. For somehow I must stop him.
I didn't want our nice jolly friendship spoiled--and besides, fancy
being cooped up on an island with a man you have refused!
Especially when all the while you'd be wanting so to pet and
console him!
But with his calm doggedness Cuthbert began again--"I was a bit
afraid the old place would have seemed too quiet and dull to you--"
when the day was saved and my interruption strangely justified by a
shrill outcry from the camp.
I knew that high falsetto tone. It was the voice of Mr. Tubbs, but
pitched in a key of quite insane excitement. I sprang up and ran,
Crusoe and the Honorable Cuthbert at my heels. There in the midst
of the camp Mr. Tubbs stood, the center of a group who were
regarding him with astonished looks. Mr. Shaw and the captain had
left their tinkering, Cookie his saucepans, and Aunt Jane and
Violet had come hurrying from the hut. Among us all stood Mr.
Tubbs with folded arms, looking round upon the company with an
extraordinary air of complacency and triumph.
"What is it, oh, what is it, Mr. Tubbs?" cried Aunt Jane,
fluttering with the consciousness of her proprietorship.
But Mr. Tubbs glanced at her as indifferently as a sated
turkey-buzzard at a morsel which has ceased to tempt him.
"Mr. Tubbs," commanded Violet, "speak--explain yourself!"
"Come, out with it, Tubbs," advised Mr. Shaw.
Then the lips of Mr. Tubbs parted, and from them issued this
solitary word:
"Eureka!"
"What?" screamed Miss Higglesby-Browne. "_You have found it_?"
Solemnly Mr. Tubbs inclined his head.
"Eureka!" he repeated. "I have found it!"
Amidst the exclamations, the questions, the general commotion which
ensued, I had room for only one thought--that Mr. Tubbs had somehow
discovered the treasure in the cabin of the _Island Queen_.
Indeed, I should have shrieked the words aloud, but for a
providential dumbness that fell upon me. Meanwhile Mr. Tubbs had
unfolded his arms from their Napoleonic posture on his bosom long
enough to wave his hand for silence.
"Friends," he began, "it has been known from the start that there
was a landmark on this little old island that would give any party
discovering the same a line on that chest of money right away.
There's been some that was too high up in the exploring business to
waste time looking for landmarks. They had ruther do more fancy
stunts, where what with surf, and sharks, and bangin' up the boat,
they could make a good show of gettin' busy. But old Ham Tubbs, he
don't let on to be a hero. Jest a plain man o' business--that's
old H. H. Consequence is, he leaves the other fellers have the
brass band, while he sets out on the q. t. to run a certain little
clue to earth. And, ladies and gentlemen, he's run it!"
"You have found--you have found the treasure!" shrilled Aunt Jane.
Contrary to his bland custom, Mr. Tubbs frowned at her darkly.
"I said I found the _clue_," he corrected. "Of course, it's the
same thing. Ladies and gentlemen, not to appear to be a hot-air
artist, I will tell you in a word, that I have located the
tombstone of one William Halliwell, deceased!"
Of course. Not once had I thought of it. Bare, stark, glaring up
at the sun, lay the stone carved with the letters and the
cross-bones. Forgetting in the haste of my departure to replace
the vines upon the grave, I had left the stone to shout its secret
to the first comer. And that had happened to be Mr. Tubbs.
Happened, I say, for I knew that he had not had the slightest
notion where to look for the grave of Bill Halliwell. This running
to earth of clues was purely an affair of his own picturesque
imagination.
I wondered uneasily what he had made of the uprooted vines--but he
would lay them to the pigs, no doubt. In the countenance of Mr.
Tubbs, flushed and exultant, there was no suspicion that the secret
was not all his own.
Miss Higglesby-Browne had been settling her helmet more firmly upon
her wiry locks. She had a closed umbrella beneath her arm, and she
drew and brandished it like a saber as she took a long stride
forward.
"Mr. Tubbs," she commanded, "lead on!"
But Mr. Tubbs did not lead on. He stood quite still, regarding
Miss Browne with a smile of infinite slyness.
"Oh, no indeed!" he said. "Old H. H. wasn't born yesterday. It
may have struck you that to possess the sole and exclusive
knowledge of the whereabouts of a million or two--ratin' it low--is
some considerable of an asset. And it's one I ain't got the least
idee of partin' with unless for inducements held out."
Aunt Jane gave a faint shriek. I had been silently debating what
my own course should be in the face of this unexpected development.
Suddenly I saw my way quite clear. I would say nothing. Mr. Tubbs
should reveal his own perfidy. And the curtain should ring down
upon the play, leaving Mr. Tubbs foiled all around, bereft both of
the treasure and of Aunt Jane. Oh, how I would enjoy the farce as
it was played by the unconscious actors! How I would step in at
the end to reward virtue and punish guilt! And how I would point
the moral, later, very gently to Aunt Jane, an Aunt Jane all
penitence and docility!
Little I dreamed what surprises ensuing acts of the play were to
hold for me, or of their astounding contrast with the farce of my
joyous imagination.
I took no part in the storm that raged round Mr. Tubbs. It is said
that in the heart of the tempest there is calm, and this great
truth of natural philosophy Mr. Tubbs exemplified. His face
adorned by a seraphic, buttery smile, he stood unmoved, while Miss
Higglesby-Browne uttered cyclonic exhortations and reproaches,
while Aunt Jane sobbed and said, "_Oh, Mr. Tubbs_!" while Mr. Shaw
strove to make himself heard above the din. He did at least
succeed in extracting from the traitor a definite statement of
terms. These were nothing less than fifty per cent. of the
treasure, secured to him by a document signed, sealed and delivered
into his own hands. To a suggestion that as he had discovered the
all-important tombstone so might some one else, he replied with
tranquillity that he thought not, as he had taken precautions
against such an eventuality. In other words, as I was later to
discover, the wily Mr. Tubbs had contrived to raise the boulder
from its bed and push it over the cliff into the sea, afterward
replacing the mass of vines upon the grave.
As to the entrance to the tunnel, it was apparent to me that Mr.
Tubbs had not yet discovered it. Even if he had, I am certain that
he would have been no more heroic than myself about exploring it,
though there was no missing Peter to haunt his imagination. But
with the grave as a starting-point, there could be no question as
to the ultimate discovery of the cave.
I was so eager myself to see the inside of the cave, and to know
whatever it had to reveal of the fate of Peter, that I was inclined
to wish Mr. Tubbs success in driving his hard bargain, especially
as it would profit him nothing in the end. But this sentiment was
exclusively my own. On all hands indignation greeted the rigorous
demands of Mr. Tubbs. With a righteous joy, I saw the fabric of
Aunt Jane's illusions shaken by the rude blast of reality. Would
it be riven quite in twain? I was dubious, for Aunt Jane's
illusions have a toughness in striking contrast to the uncertain
nature of her ideas in general. Darker and darker disclosures of
Mr. Tubbs's perfidy would be required. But judging from his
present recklessness, they would be forthcoming. For where was the
Tubbs of yesterday--the honey-tongued, the suave, the anxiously
obsequious Tubbs? Gone, quite gone. Instead, here was a Tubbs who
cocked his helmet rakishly, and leered round upon the company, deaf
to the claims of loyalty, the pleas of friendship, the voice of
tenderness--Aunt Jane's.
Manfully Miss Higglesby-Browne stormed up and down the beach. She
demanded of Mr. Shaw, of Cuthbert Vane, of Captain Magnus, each and
severally, that Mr. Tubbs be compelled to disgorge his secret. You
saw that she would not have shrunk from a regimen of racks and
thumbscrews. But there were no racks or thumbscrews on the island.
Of course we could have invented various instruments of torture--I
felt I could have developed some ingenuity that way myself--but too
fatally well Mr. Tubbs knew the civilized prejudices of those with
whom he had to deal. With perfect impunity he could strut about
the camp, sure that no weapons worse than words would be brought to
bear upon him, that he would not even be turned away from the
general board to browse on cocoanuts in solitude.
Long ago Mr. Shaw had left the field to Violet and with a curt
shrug had turned his back and stood looking out over the cove,
stroking his chin reflectively. Miss Browne's eloquence had risen
to amazing flights, and she already had Mr. Tubbs inextricably
mixed with. Ananias and Sapphira, when the Scotchman broke in upon
her ruthlessly.
"Friends," he said, "so far as I can see we have been put a good
bit ahead by this morning's work. First, we know that the grave
which should be our landmark has not been entirely obliterated by
the jungle, as I had thought most likely. Second, we know that it
is on this side of the island, for the reason that this chap Tubbs
hasn't nerve to go much beyond shouting distance by himself.
Third, as Tubbs has tried this hold-up business I believe we should
consider the agreement by which he was to receive a sixteenth share
null and void, and decide here and now that he gets nothing
whatever. Fourth, the boat is now pretty well to rights, and as
soon as we have a snack Bert and Magnus and I will set out, in
twice as good heart as before, having had the story that brought us
here confirmed for the first time. So Tubbs and his tombstone can
go to thunder."
"I can, can I?" cried Mr. Tubbs. "Say, are you a human iceberg, to
talk that cool before a man's own face? Say, I'll--"
But Cuthbert Vane broke in.
"Three rousing cheers, old boy!" he cried to the Scotchman
enthusiastically. "Always did think the chap a frightful bounder,
don't you know? We'll stand by old Shaw, won't we, Magnus?" Which
comradely outbreak showed the excess of the beautiful youth's
emotions, for usually he turned a large cold shoulder on the
captain, though managing in some mysterious manner to be perfectly
civil all the time. Perhaps you have to be born at High Staunton
Manor or its equivalent to possess the art of relegating people to
immense distances without seeming to administer even the gentlest
shove.
But unfortunately the effect of the Honorable Cuthbert's cordiality
was lost, so far as the object of it was concerned, because of the
surprising fact, only now remarked by any one, that Captain Magnus
had disappeared.