W3 waited nine days for the coming of the _Rufus Smith_. During
that time an episode occurred as a result of which I sat one
morning by myself on the rocks beside the sloop, on which such
ardent hopes had been centered, only like the derelict itself to be
wrecked at last. It was a lonely spot and I wanted to be alone. I
felt abused, and sad, and sore. I realized that I was destined to
do nothing but harm in this world, and to hurt people I was fond
of, and be misunderstood by every one, and to live on--if I wasn't
lucky enough to meet with a premature and sudden end--into a sour,
lonely, crabbed old age, when I would wish to goodness I had
married anybody, and might even finish by applying to a Matrimonial
Agency.
As I sat nursing these melancholy thoughts I heard a footstep. I
did not look up--for I knew the footstep. I should have known it
if it had trodden over my grave.
"I take it you are not wanting company, you have come so far out of
the way of it," said Dugald Shaw.
Still I did not look up.
"Nobody seemed to want _me_," I remarked sulkily, after a pause.
He made no reply, but seated himself upon the rocks. For a little
there was silence.
"Virginia," he said abruptly, "I'm thinking you have hurt the lad."
"Oh," I burst out, "that is all you think of--the lad, the lad!
How about me? Don't you suppose it hurt me too?"
"No," he made deliberate answer. "I was not sure of that. I
thought maybe you liked having men at your feet."
"Liked it? Liked to wound Cuthbert--_Cuthbert_? Oh, if only it
had not happened, if we could have gone on being friends! It was
all my fault for going with him into the cave. It was after you
had buried the skeleton, and I wanted to see poor Peter's
resting-place. And we spoke of Helen, and it was all frightfully
melancholy and tender, and all at once he--he said it. And I meant
he never should!" In the soreness of my heart I began to weep.
"There, lassie, there, don't cry!" he said gently. "The boy didn't
speak of it, of course. But I knew how it must be. It has hit him
hard, I am afraid."
"I suppose," I wept, "you would have had me marry him whether I
wanted to or not, just to keep from hurting him."
"No," he answered quickly. "I did not say that--I did not say that
I would have had you marry him. No, lass, I did not say that."
"Then why are you scolding me?" I asked in a choked whisper.
"Scolding you? I was not. It was only that--that I love the
lad--and I wish you both so well--I thought perhaps there was some
mistake, and--it would not matter about me, if I could see you both
happy."
"There is a mistake," I said clearly. "It is a great mistake,
Dugald Shaw, that you should come to me and court me--for some one
else."
There was silence for a while, the kind of silence when you hear
your heartbeats.
When he spoke his voice was unsteady.
"But the boy has everything to offer you--his ancient name, his
splendid unstained youth, a heart that is all loyalty. He is
strong and brave and beautiful. Virginia, why couldn't you love
him?"
"I could not love him," I replied, very low, "because my love was
not mine any more to give. It belongs to--some one else. Is his
name ancient? I don't know. It is his, and he ennobles it.
Cuthbert has youth, but youth is only promise. In the man I love I
find fulfilment. And he is loyal and brave and honest--I am afraid
he isn't beautiful, but I love him the better for his scars--"
After that I sat quite still, and I knew it depended on the next
half minute whether I went all the days of my life crowned and
glorious with happiness, or buried my shame and heartbreak under
the waters of the cove.
And then Dugald Shaw took me in his arms.
By and by he said huskily:
"Beloved, I had no right to ask you to share such a life as mine
must be--the life of a poor sailor."
At this I raised my head from its nestling-place and laughed.
"Ask me? Silly, I asked you! Of course you could have refused me,
but I depended on your not having the courage."
"And indeed that is a charge I'll not allow--that I am so little of
a man as to let my courting be done for me. No, no, it was my love
compelling you that made you speak the words you did--the love of a
selfish man who should have thought only of shielding you from the
hardships of such a wandering, homeless life as mine."
"Well, Heaven reward you for your selfishness," I said earnestly.
"I am thankful you were not so noble as to let me throw myself at
your head in vain. I have been doing it for ever so long, in fact,
but it is such a thick Scotch head that I dare say I made no
impression."
"Sweet imp! You'll pay for that--oh, Virginia, if I had only
something to offer you!"
"You can offer me something that I want very much, if you will, and
at no cost but to your strong right arm."
"It is an arm which is at your service for life--but what am I to
do with it now? And indeed I think it is very well employed at
this moment."
"But it must be employed much more strenuously," I remarked, moving
a little away, "if you are to get me what I want. Before you came,
I was meditating possible ways of getting it for myself. I wanted
it for a melancholy relic--a sort of mausoleum in which all my
hopes were buried. Now its purpose is quite different; it is to be
my bride's chest and hold the dowry which I shall bring to one
Dugald Shaw."
"You mean _the_ chest--the chest that held the Spanish
doubloons--that lies under the sand in the sloop?"
"Exactly. And now I shall know whether you are the true prince or
not, because he always succeeds in the tasks he undertakes to win
the princess."
It was low tide, such a tide as had all but lured me to my death in
the cave. One could go and come from the beach along the rocks,
without climbing the steep path up the cliff. It was not long
before Dugald was back again with spade and pick. He tore off the
shrunken, sun-dried boards from the cabin roof, and fell to work.
It was not, after all, a labor of Hercules. The cabin was small
and the chest large. I watched with the pride of proprietorship
the swift ease with which the steel-sinewed arms of the Scot made
the caked sand fly. Then the spade struck something which sent
back a dull metallic sound through the muffling sand.
I gave a little shriek of excitement. Hardly could I have been
more thrilled if I had believed the chest still to contain the
treasure of which it had been ravished. It was filled to its
brass-bound lid with romance, if not with gold.
A little more and it lay clear to our view, a convex surface of
dark smoky brown, crossed by three massive strips of tarnished
brass. Dugald dug down until the chest stood free to half its
height; then by its handles--I recognized the "great hand-wrought
loops of metal," of the diary--we dragged it from its bed, and drew
it forth into the cockpit.
For a little while we sat before it in happy contemplation. It was
indeed for its own sake quite well worth having, that sturdy old
chest. Even in an antique shop I should have succumbed to it at
once; how much more when we had dug it up ourselves from a wrecked
sloop on a desert island, and knew all its bloody and delightful
history.
At length, kneeling before it, I raised with an effort the heavy
lid.
"Empty, of course--no more brown bags. But oh, Dugald, had ever a
girl such a wonderful bride's chest as this? O--oh!"
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing, only there is a crack in the bottom, running all the way
along where it joins the side."
"Warped a bit, I suppose. No matter, it can be easily
repaired--crack? I say, lassie, look here!"
Under the pressure of Dugald's fingers the floor of the chest was
swinging upward on an invisible hinge. Between it and the true
bottom was a space of about three inches in depth. It seemed to be
filled with a layer of yellowed cotton-wool.
For a long moment we held our breath, gazing at each other with
eyes which asked the same question. Then Dugald lifted a corner of
the sheet of cotton and plucked it away.
At once all the hues of the rainbow seemed to be flashing and
sparkling before us. Rubies were there like great drops of the
blood that the chest and its treasure had wrung from the hearts of
men; sapphires, mirroring the blue of the tropic sky; emeralds,
green as the island verdure; pearls, white as the milk of the
cocoanuts and softly luminous as the phosphorescent foam which
broke on the beach in the darkness. And there were diamonds that
caught gleams of all the others' beauty, and then mocked them with
a matchless splendor.
Some of the stones lay loose upon their bed of cotton; others were
in massive settings of curious old-time workmanship. Every gem was
of exceptional size and beauty, the pearls, I knew at once, were
the rarest I had ever looked upon. They were strung in a necklace,
and had a very beautiful pendant of mingled pearls and diamonds.
There were nine heavy bracelets, all jewel-set; twenty-three rings,
eight of them for the hand of a man. Some of these rings contained
the finest of the diamonds, except for three splendid unset stones.
There were numbers of elaborate old-fashioned earrings, two
rope-like chains of gold adorned with jewels at intervals, and
several jeweled lockets. There was a solid gold snuff-box,
engraved with a coat of arms and ornamented with seventeen fine
emeralds. There were, besides the three diamonds, eighty-two unset
stones, among them, wrapped by itself in cotton, a ruby of
extraordinary size and luster. And there was a sort of coronet or
tiara, sown all over with clear white brilliants.
There is the inventory, not entirely complete, of the treasure
which we found hidden under the false bottom of the chest, a
treasure whose existence none of those who had striven and slain
and perished for the sake of the Spanish doubloons can have
suspected. The secret of it died with the first guardian of the
chest, the merchant of Lima who went overboard from the _Bonny
Lass_ on that stormy night ninety years ago. Now sea and sun and
sand had done their work and warped the wood of the chest enough to
make us masters of its mystery. And we sat in the sand-heaped
cock-pit of the wrecked sloop, playing like children with our
sparkling toys.
Ours? Yes, for whether or not there were an infection of piracy in
the very air of the island, so that to seize with the high hand, to
hold with the iron grasp, seemed the law of life, we decided
without a qualm against the surrender of our treasure-trove to its
technical owners. Technical only; for one felt that, in essence,
all talk of ownership by this man or that had long ago become idle.
Fate had held the treasure in fee to give or to withhold. Senor
Gonzales had had his chance at the chest, and he had missed the
secret of the hidden hoard, had left it to lie forgotten under the
sand until in some tropic storm it should be engulfed by the waters
of the cove. More than this, had he not most specifically made
over to me the _Island Queen_ and all that it contained? This was
a title clear enough to satisfy the most exacting formalist. And
we were not formalists, nor inclined in any quibbling spirit to
question the decrees of Fortune. As treasure-hunters, we had been
her devotees too long.
So after all it was not my scornful skepticism but the high faith
of Miss Higglesby-Browne which was justified by the event, and the
Harding-Browne expedition left the island well repaid for its toils
and perils. Plus the two bags of doubloons, which were added to
the spoils, the treasure brought us a sum so goodly that I dare not
name it, for fear of the apparition of Senor Gonzales and the Santa
Marinan navy looming up to demand restitution. Like true comrades,
we divided share and share alike, and be sure that no one grudged
Cookie the percentage Which each was taxed for his benefit.
Certain of the rarest; jewels were not sold, but found their way to
me as gifts of the Expedition severally and collectively. The
brightest of the diamonds now shines in my engagement ring.
Cuthbert, by the way, showed up so splendidly when I explained to
him about the engagement--that the responsibility was entirely
mine, not Dugald's--that I earnestly wished I were twins so that
one of me could have married the beautiful youth--which indeed I
had wished a little all the time.
And now I come to the purpose of this story--for though well
concealed it has had one from the beginning. It is to let Helen,
whoever and wherever she may be, if still of this world, know of
the fate of Peter, and to tell her that when she asks for them she
is to have my most cherished relics of the island, Peter's journal
and the silver shoe-buckle which he found in the sand of the
treasure-cave and was taking home to her.
Only, she must let me keep Crusoe, please.