ocean.
Nought but tradition remains of the beautiful village of Grand Pré.
Now, the idea of the boys was not by any means so absurd as may be
supposed. It was within the bounds of possibility that a pot of money
might be in a French cellar. These Acadians had some wealth; they had
been in the habit of hoarding it by burying it in the earth, and the
bottom of the cellar was by no means an unlikely place. So sudden had
been their seizure, that none of them had any time whatever to exhume
any of their buried treasure, so as to carry it away with him. All
had been left behind--cattle, flocks, herds, grain, houses, furniture,
clothes, and of course money. Vague tradition to this effect had long
circulated about the country, and there was a general belief that money
was buried in the ground, where it had been left by the Acadians. So,
after all, the boys were only the exponents of a popular belief.
The cellar might have originally been five or six feet in depth, but the
falling of the walls and the caving in of the earth had given it a shape
like a basin; and the depth at the centre was not more than four feet
below the surrounding level. Around the edge were some stones which
marked the old foundation.
The boys came up to Captain Corbet, and watched him quietly, yet very
curiously. As for the illustrious captain, he felt to the utmost the
importance of the occasion. He was now no longer the captain of a
gallant bark. He had become transformed into a species of necromancer.
Instead of the familiar tiller, he held in his hand the rod of the
magician. All the solemnity of such a position was expressed in his
venerable features. After throwing a benignant smile upon the boys, his
eyes reverted to the rod, which was still balanced on his finger, and
he walked about, with a slow and solemn pace, to different parts of the
cellar. First he went around the sides, stopping at every third step,
and looking solemnly at the rod. But the rod preserved its balance, and
made no deflection whatever towards any place.
“Go down to the middle, captain,” said Bart, who, in common with the
other boys, had been watching these mysterious proceedings with intense
curiosity.
Captain Corbet shook his head solemnly, and lifted up his unoccupied
hand with a warning gesture.
“H-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-h!” said Tom; “don’t interrupt him,
Bart.”
Captain Corbet moved slowly about a little longer, and then descended to
the middle of the cavity. Here he planted himself, and his face assumed,
if possible, an expression of still profounder solemnity.
And now a strange sight appeared. The rod began to move!
Slowly and gradually one end of it lowered, so slowly, indeed, that at
first it was not noticed; but at last they all saw it plainly, for it
went down lower, yet in that gradual fashion; and the boys, as they
looked, became almost breathless in suspense.
They drew nearer, they crowded up closer to Captain Corbet, and watched
that rod as though all their future lives depended upon the vibration of
that slender and rather dirty stick.
Not a word was spoken. Lower and lower went the rod.
It trembled on its balance! It quivered on Cap tain Corbet’s forefinger,
as the lower end went down and dragged the rod out of its even poise. It
slipped, and then--it fell.
It fell, down upon the very middle of the cellar, and lay there,
marking that spot, which to the minds of the boys seemed now, beyond the
possibility of a doubt, to be the place where lay the pot of gold.
“Thar,” said Captain Corbet, now breaking the silence. “Thar. You see
with your own eyes how it pints. That thar is the actool indyvidool
place; an this here’s the dozenth time it’s done it with me. O! it’s
thar. I knowed it.”
As the rod fell, a thrill of tremendous excitement had passed through
the hearts of the boys, and their belief in its mystic properties was
so strong, that it did not need any assurances from Captain Corbet to
confirm it. Yes, beyond a doubt, there it was, just beneath, a short
distance down--the wonderful, the mysterious, the alluring pot of gold.
At last the silence was broken by Tom.
“Well, boys,” said he, “what are we going to do about it?”
“The question is,” said Phil, “shall we dig it or not? I move that we
dig it.”
“Of course,” said Bruce, “we’ll dig it. There’s only one answer to that
question. But when? The fellows are around here all the time.”
“We’ll have to do it after dark,” said Arthur.
“Early in the morning would be the best time, I think,” said Bruce, a
little anxiously.
“No,” said Bart; “there’s only one time, and one hour, to dig money, and
that time is midnight, and the hour twelve sharp. If we’re going to dig
for a pot of money, we’ll have to do it up in proper shape.”
“Nonsense,” said Bruce, who still spoke in a rather anxious tone. “What
are you talking about? Early morning is the time.”
“Early morning!” said Bart; “why, man alive, we’ll want several hours,
and it’ll be early morning before we’re done. If we begin at early
morning we can’t do anything. Some of the fellows are always up here
before breakfast. No! From midnight to cock-crow, that’s the orthodox
time. Besides,” added Bart, mysteriously, “there are certain ceremonies
we’ll have to perform, that can only take place at night.”
“Nonsense!” said Bruce; “let’s tell the other fellows, and we’ll all dig
together in broad day.”
“Tell the other fellows! What in the world do you mean?” cried Bart.
“Bruce Rawdon, are you crazy?”
No! Bruce Rawdon was not crazy. He was only a little superstitious, and
had a weakness with regard to ghosts. He had as brave and stout a heart
as ever beat, with which to confront visible dangers and mortal enemies;
but his stout heart quailed at the fanciful terrors of the invisible.
Yet he saw that there was no help for it, and that he would have to
choose the midnight hour. So he very boldly made up his mind to face
whatever terrors the enterprise might have in store.
“The fact is,” said Bart, “we ourselves--we, the ‘B. O. W. C.’--must do
it. It would be dishonor to invite the other boys. This belongs to
us. We’re a secret and mystic order. We’ve never yet had anything in
particular to do. Now’s our time, and here’s our chance. We’re bound to
get at that pot of gold. The captain, of course, must be with us, and
one other only; that is old Solomon. As Grand Panjandrum, he must be
here, and share our labors.”
“We’ll have to get spades,” said Arthur. “I suppose Solomon can manage
that.”
“Spades?” said Bart; “I should think so, and fifty other things. We must
have lights. We’ll have to make a row of them around the edge of the
hole.”
“A row of them?” said Phil. “Nonsense! Two will do.”
“No,” said Bart. “You must always have a row of burning lamps around
whenever you dig for money. They must be kept burning too. One of us
must watch the lamps: woe to us if any one of them should go out! You
see it isn’t an ordinary work. It’s magic! Digging up a pot of gold must
be done carefully. Every buried pot of gold can only be got up according
to a regular fashion. I’ve got a book that tells all about it--how many
lights, how many spades, the proper time, and all that. Above all, we’ll
have to remember to keep as silent as death when we’re working, and
never speak one word. Why, I’ve heard of cases where they touched the
pot of gold, and just because they made a sort of cry of surprise, the
pot at once sunk down ever so much farther. And so they had to do it all
over again.” Did Bart believe all this nonsense that he was talking? It
is very difficult to say. He was not at all superstitious; that is to
say, his fancies never affected his actual life. He would walk through
a graveyard at midnight as readily as he would go along a road. At the
same time his brain contained such an odd jumble of wild fancies, and
his imagination was so vivid, that his ordinary common sense was lost
sight of. He could follow the leadings of a very vivid imagination
to the most absurd extent. If he had been really, in his heart,
superstitious, he would have shrunk from the terrors of this enterprise.
But his real faith was not concerned at all. He was playing--very
earnestly indeed, and with immense excitement, yet still he was only
playing--at digging for money, just as he had been playing at being a
bandit, or a pirate. He was quite ready, therefore, to comply with any
amount of superstitious forms. The rest, also, were very much the same
way, except Bruce. He alone looked upon the matter with anxiety; but he
fought down his fear by an effort of pure courage.
It was only imagination, then; but still, so strong was their
imagination, that it made the whole plan one of sober reality, and they
discussed it as though it were so.
“You see,” said Bart, as he threw himself headlong into the excitement
of the occasion--“you see, we’ve got to be careful. The pot of gold has
been revealed by the mineral rod. If we had dug it up by accident,
of course we could have got it without any trouble. But it has been
revealed by magic, and must be gained by the laws of magic. I’ve got
that Book of Magic, you know, and it tells all about it. Lights around,
in number any multiple of three, or seven. Those are magic numbers. Our
number inside the magic circle will be seven. That’s one reason why I
want old Solomon. We’ll have to keep silent, and not say a word. We must
not begin till midnight, and we cannot go on after cock-crow. O, we’ll
manage it. Hurrah for the ‘B. O. W. C’!”
And so, after some further discussion, they decided to make the attempt
that night. It was to be the last night of the holidays, and was more
convenient than any other. Captain Corbet was to meet them with his rod
and a spade. They were to come up with old Solomon, and all the other
requisites.
With these arrangements they parted solemnly from Captain Corbet, and
went back to the Academy, bowed down by the burden of a most tremendous
secret.