DIAMONDS GALORE.
Before Carl climbed downward through the conning tower of the
_Grampus_, he shook the fragments of the idol's head out of his coat
upon the rounded deck of the submarine and heard them glide off and
splash into the water.
"Dere vill be some foolishness among der fishes, I bed you!" he
chuckled; "aber, all der same, it vas goot-py to Obboney! Und may
nodding like him efer come oudt oof Africa again."
Cassidy, mate of the _Grampus_, was the only one of the crew aboard. He
had had no idea of the perils through which Townsend had passed, nor of
the troubles encountered by the boys. He knew, of course, that the boys
had arrived, for all up and down the river front the _Hawk_ was the
topic of conversation.
In the conning tower of the _Grampus_, that evening, there was a
spread. Cassidy opened canned goods and made coffee on an alcohol
stove. The guests at the "feed" sat around with their tin plates in
their laps, and while they ate they talked over recent exciting events.
Carl offered information of value by telling how the iron chest had
been stolen from Townsend, placed on a boat in the river, and had then
vanished while Jurgens and Whistler were dodging the watchmen.
"That boat must have been adrift on the river for two days!" exclaimed
Townsend. "Strange that some one else did not find the chest instead of
you boys."
"I reckon she caught in the eddies below the town and drifted back and
forth until she finally got out in the current," surmised Dick. "That's
the only way you can account for the fact that she wasn't picked up."
"You vas bot' wrong," asserted Carl, solemnly. "Dere vas a gaptain on
dot rowpoat all der time. It vas Captain Obboney, in der chest. Nodding
could habben py dot poat mit dot itol's headt apoard."
"There may be something in that," observed Townsend, half smiling and
half serious. "This New Orleans affair appears to be wrapped up in
a great deal of occultism. Personally, I never took much stock in
occultism, but I don't know how I can dodge the facts developed by
those smoke pictures."
"And then there's a whole lot more to Yamousa than just those smoke
pictures," said Dick. "Whistler went to see her to find out if she
couldn't tell him what had become of the chest."
"Voodooism used to be quite strong in New Orleans, among credulous
blacks and superstitious whites," said Townsend. "Of course, there's
nothing in voodooism as it is usually practiced, but this Yamousa seems
versed in many peculiar things. Really, I don't know what to think of
her."
"Well," asserted Carl, "she makes a misdake vonce in a vile."
"How so, Carl?"
"Vy, she gave Matt a charm vich vasn't no charm ad all, but a hootoo.
I tried it oudt, und I know. Tick," and here Carl faced his chum, "dot
dried frog don'd vas any goot as a luck pringer. It got me indo lods
oof drouple. I safed dot from you, bard," and Carl shifted his gaze to
Matt.
"Where is that charm now, Carl?" inquired Matt.
"Pangs dook it avay from me," chuckled Carl, "und I bed you someding
for nodding dot it made all der drouple for Pangs, Jurgens und
Whistler."
"We might just as well explain it that way as in any other," said
Townsend. "Many things have happened which defy explanation, so Carl's
guess is just as good as any one's else."
"I can tell you somet'ing vich ain'd a guess," continued Carl, "und dot
iss dot Jurgens hat a feller vatching Cassidy, und ven Cassidy sent dot
delegram to Modor Matt, Jurgens' man vas aple to findt oudt vat vas in
it. Dot's der vay Pangs habbened to be on der levee ven der air ship
come down on der dock. He knowed dot ve vas coming."
"Where were you this afternoon, Cassidy?" inquired Matt.
"I took the _Grampus_ over to Algiers yesterday," answered the mate,
"and didn't get back until about four this afternoon."
"That's the reason we didn't see you," put in Dick. "If you had been
around the levee Bangs would never have been able to pull off that game
of his."
"I told Cassidy to drop over to Algiers if he thought best," said
Townsend. "It was unlucky that he happened to be there at just the time
he might have been of service to Matt and his friends. However, as I
told you in the rooms over the antique shop, it's just as well events
turned out as they have. We have won out against Jurgens and Whistler,
and if they know when they're well off they'll steer clear of all of us
in future."
"Dose fellers hat two hang-oudts," remarked Carl. "Vone vas ad
Rigolette's blace, vere der chest vas dook from der tock, und der
odder vas ofer der antique shop. Vone, I reckon, vas vere dey dook us
in, und der odder vas vere dey viped us oudt. But der itol's headt
fooled der lod oof us. I vish, py shinks, you couldt haf seen Jurgens
und Pangs ven der chest vas obened und dey saw nodding more as sawdust!"
Carl threw back his head and laughed till he shook.
"I vasn't in der blace vere I could enchoy dot, at der time," he went
on, "but I can haf fun mit it now. Id vas a derriple tissapointment.
Den, ven Jurgens kicked der headt oudt oof der sawdust, eferypody vas
scart, including me. Yah, I vas as afraidt as anypody. Den, pympy, I
tropped ashleep und I vasn't affraidt no more."
"You were tied, weren't you, Carl, while you were in that room at
Rigolette's?"
"You bed you I vas, Matt, handt und feet."
"How did you get clear of the ropes?"
"Dot vas some mysderies. I don'd know dot, onless I vorked meinseluf
loose ven I come to und vas grazy. Anyvay, ven I vas aple to know vere
I vas I vas in der shdreed und dere vasn't any ropes on me. Vat you say
Rigolette call dot monkey?"
"Joujou," replied Dick.
"Den I vas mooch opliged to Chouchou. How t'ings fall oudt mit
demselufs oof you leaf dem alone! Dere vas me, und Jurgens, und Pangs,
lying in dot room mit der itol's headt, und passing oudt oof der game
py inches, ven along comes Chouchou. He hat dook my hat, pefore dot,
und I oxbect he vas looking for me to gif it pack. Anyvay, he leafs
der hat und goes off mit der itol's headt, safing me, und dose odder
fellers, aber killing himseluf in der oberations. Yah, Chouchou vas a
goot monkey, I tell you dot. Dit you see der barrot?"
"No," said Dick. "Has Rigolette a parrot?"
"Yah, so, und dot barrot make some foolishness mit me aboudt der time
der monkey shdeal my cap. Vell, anyhow, it vas all ofer now, und I feel
dot I can laugh at some t'ings vich ditn't blease me pefore."
"What will you and your chums do now, Matt?" inquired Townsend.
"We seem to have wound up our business in New Orleans in short order,"
laughed Matt, "so I suppose we had better bear away for Atlantic City."
"You haven't helped me, yet, in the work for which I wired you to come
on here."
All three of the boys were startled.
"Wasn't it to help you recover that chest?" asked Matt.
"Not at all. At the time I requested Cassidy to send you the telegram,
I had the chest safely in my hands and hadn't the least idea that
Jurgens and Whistler were around and still had designs on it. You got
here in good time to be of invaluable assistance to me, and fate so
played the cards that I couldn't have won out without you--but I wanted
you for something else."
"In that event," returned Matt, "we'll have to stay and give you our
assistance."
"The _Hawk_ has an excellent berth on the big dock and will be amply
protected in case of high winds or bad weather; and, so far as I can
see, you and your friends will be as well off as though you were in
Atlantic City. So far as profit is concerned, there will be diamonds
galore for all of you, and by this one trip to New Orleans you will
have cleaned up more than you could possibly have made in a dozen years
at Atlantic City."
"Tiamonts galore!" caroled the Dutch boy. "Dot soundts goot. I like
tiamonts pedder as anyt'ing else, und ven you ged a whole lod, all in
a punch, it makes you feel like you vas somepody. I vould like to haf
some oof dem set in pins, und rings, und pud dem all ofer me. I vant to
be a prilliant feller," he grinned, "und I guess dot's der only vay vat
I can be dot."
"To-morrow morning," went on Townsend, "I will hunt up this lady about
whom the Man from Cape Town told me. Following the division of the
gems, I will call on this Rigolette and, if he has not already released
Bangs, will have him do so. Then, when we have a clear slate, I will
lay before you the business which I have in prospect."
"Iss it easy?" queried Carl.
"No, very difficult."
"Dot's vat ve like. Anypody can do der easy t'ings, aber it dakes Modor
Matt to do der hard vones."
"Carl has an armful of bouquets, to-night," laughed Matt, "and he don't
care where he throws them."
"Iss id t'rilling vork?" continued Carl.
"Likely to be," smiled Townsend, "and perhaps a bit dangerous."
"Den be sure und keep id for us. All vat I ask iss, dot you cut out der
foodoos. A leedle oof dose iss more as enough."
THE END.
THE NEXT NUMBER (14) WILL CONTAIN
MOTOR MATT'S PROMISE;
OR,
THE WRECK OF THE _HAWK_.
On the Levee--Mixed Identities--Double Trouble--Tricked--Motor
Matt's Promise--Dashington Dashed--A Hot Starter--A Bullet from
Below--The Wreck--The Unexpected--A Friend from the Enemy's Camp--The
Bag of Diamonds--A Daring Plot--On the Road--A New Man Takes a
Hand--Conclusion.
MOTOR STORIES
THRILLING ADVENTURE MOTOR FICTION
NEW YORK, May 22, 1909.
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THE MASKED LIGHT.
San José Lighthouse shone from the back of a tunnel-like creek on a
barren stretch of the Chilian seaboard. Passing ships caught its secret
rays most suddenly; much in the same manner as a lonely wayfarer might
be startled at a swift glance of a light far down a secret entrance.
The moment the light of San José fell upon a ship, that vessel at once
hugged the land and crept warily along the inshore water. A false
order, a mistake at the helm, and the "Devil's Teeth," the offshore
reef, would grind her ribs to matchwood.
The light was built on top of an old chapel whose ponderous walls
could have carried the Eddystone itself. This building crouched in the
left-hand corner of the creek, with its back built into the angle of
the cliff, which, on that side, rose plumb as a wall and ran out into
deep soundings. There was, however, one break in it about eighty yards
in front of the lighthouse. From this opening an overhead traveling
cable passed across the creek to the mid-level of "Cassandra Mine,"
which honeycombed the right bank.
This latter side, though rocky, was fairly easy of ascent by means
of buttress-like masses of rock jutting out from the cliff, and the
rubbish shot out from the mine.
Such was the lonely creek of San José when the revolution broke out
against President Balmaceda, and left us, Gilbert and myself, stranded
helplessly on a foreign shore.
Nine months before, we had departed from our homes in the States,
appointed engineers to the Cassandra Coppermining Company, Limited.
Nine months before! and now our situation was worse than any Bowery
loafer's; he, at all events, could try the station house when the
nights grew colder.
"I knew it was too good to last," cried Gilbert, one morning as we
awoke to find ourselves in a dismal plight. The mine was deserted:
every man had gone to shoulder a musket on the principle of "compulsory
volunteering." We transferred our worries by means of a letter to the
head office, and then fell to unlimited euchre, awaiting instructions.
Meanwhile, our funds melted away.
At last came one day of maddening heat that drove us to the shade of
the mid-level of the mine. There we did what we ought to have done a
month before: we held a council of war.
"We've just three and a half pesos left--that's about three dollars,"
quoth Gilbert sourly.
"Then we've got to tramp."
"Tramp!" echoed Gilbert, "in _that_!" and he cast an exasperated glance
at the landscape. It was an open oven. Below us, the lighthouse lenses
flashed back the sunlight in such brightness that if we had not known
that all the lights on the coast had been extinguished by order, we
might have thought the lamps were still burning. The village huts
seemed to shrink and huddle from the glare. Not a creature was abroad;
the very air seemed to have swooned in the heat of that narrow creek.
And yet, over the hill crest where the village path cut the upland,
a tiny speck rose to sight, and without a pause descended the slope
toward us.
"Impossible!" gasped my chum, starting up in amazement. "He's stark,
staring mad!"
It was a man running at a sling trot.
"Madman number two," cried Gilbert, and another speck breasted the
crest, and hurriedly descended on the heels of the first comer. And
then, by ones and twos, more men appeared and swung downward, hurriedly
and without a halt, until we counted twenty-one of them on the slope.
They came nearer and lower, and we saw sparkles of light breaking off
them as they ran; then we both cried together: "Soldiers!" And at that
word all the world was of interest.
By this time they were up to the first huts, and at a cry every soul
rushed outside.
Some of the runners had fallen by the houses, and people began to carry
water to them.
"Poor beggars," cried Gilbert, "but if they _will_ run on a day like
this--why on earth don't they go inside and rest peacefully?"
But that was the last thing they gave us any impression of so doing. We
saw Henrico, the old sailor with the earrings and Spanish handkerchief
for a cap, talking among a group of the soldiers. Now and again they
looked back to the crest, and then toward our side of the creek.
Something of great interest was meanwhile passing from hand to hand.
Suddenly Henrico turned to the villagers, addressing them in no little
heat. The soldiers seized their guns, and then, led by Henrico, the
whole crowd, villagers and soldiers, began to ascend the talus of the
mine. Halfway up, Henrico turned and called back to the women, "All you
in siesta again." But one of them, Chloe, the sharp-tongued beauty of
the village, broke away, and headed the whole crowd.
Striding along with her buoyant energy, she soon outstripped them all,
and in a few minutes she appeared on the ledge in front of us, two
hundred feet above the creek. For a moment she stood silent, a swarthy
black-eyed beauty, holding the two plaits of her hair in outstretched
hands: just in the same attitude and with just the same smile on her
arched lips we saw her every morning when she called us to breakfast;
for she was Henrico's niece and we lodged with him.
"Fortune, señors!" cried she. "Here are soldiers with a message; we do
not read in our village; we come to you to speak it to us." And now the
soldiers filed in, and Henrico proffered me a crumpled paper. I read on
it: "To Capitan Barras." "Here!" cried I, "this is not for us."
"No," said a dusty, sweat-soaked soldier, "Capitan Barras is killed. I
am his sergeant. Read, señor, I am the next."
"I nodded and read on:
"The enemy are reënforcing by sea. Have correct information that they
intend capturing the lighthouse at San José on the 12th, and light
it to guide the transports which are due to pass the inshore channel
of the Devil's Teeth. Detail a command to destroy the lighthouse
beyond repair. I have wired to the cruisers; latter will be able to
overtake and capture transports if delayed off San José on the night
of the 12th. You have six (6) hours start of the enemy.
"RODRIQUE GOMEZ."
As I finished this terse and emphatic message the sergeant cried "Ho!"
and "Is that the lighthouse?"
"Yes," sang out the villagers as one man.
"Advance!" cried the sergeant, shouldering to the front of the crowd;
Chloe was already on her way out, but with a sharp, smothered cry
she stopped dead in the opening, turned round, and thrust back the
following men, hissing the while through her teeth:
"Silence! not a breath; the enemy!"
There came a sudden metallic rattling, a rapid snapping of rifle
breeches, then dead, nervous silence.
The lighthouse was in possession of the enemy! Already a couple of
soldiers leaned over the balcony round the lenses, and we could hear
their voices as they sang out to a mounted officer below. About this
latter, and standing at ease, were some eighty men.
"And the videttes," growled the sergeant, as he pointed to the hill
crest. At this an angry murmur arose about us. They were completely
outnumbered by the Balmacedians; and outmaneuvred by the fatal
mischance to their captain in a skirmish at daybreak. He had been shot
through the throat. With a last effort he had thrust the note into the
sergeant's hands and bade him haste to San José, halting neither to
fight nor to rest. This we learned afterward.
From the first appearance of the soldiers in the mine, Gilbert had been
eying them with undisguised irritation. He now called out in a sharp
voice for their attention.
"If you stay here those other soldiers will attack you and 'gastado'
the whole set of you. And this mine being American property and not a
battle field, the best you can do is to clear out by the level on the
far side before they discover you."
At this the sergeant looked blankly in his face.
"It's no good," quoth Gilbert, "you must clear out."
The sergeant's face changed. He slapped the breech of his rifle, swore
a round oath, and cried heartily: "This place is our last stand; I
shoot the first of my men that leaves!"
Gilbert dropped his eyelids in his tired way, and pulled out his watch.
"I give you five minutes," he said, in a level, matter-of-fact voice.
"And we," cried the sergeant, "have to destroy that lighthouse!"
Here Chloe thrust herself into the front of the gathering storm.
"The soldier has it," she cried, "the lighthouse must be destroyed.
You, señors, engineer chiefs will show us the way; it will be done."
"I'll see you all hanged first," broke in Gilbert in terse English.
Then he added in Spanish: "Clear out! only another two minutes." Chloe
lifted her head in a passion, and her black eyes narrowed.
"Señors," she cried with scorn, "have we idled in the fetching of water
when water was so scarce, for the big 'tub' every morn? and you have
had meat and your coffee roasted to the hour. All; and not one pesos
these months. Have we cried 'clear out' to you when you could not no
more than these soldiers?"
Gilbert thrust his watch back in his shirt. We both flushed hotly, and
we both found it disconcerting to look in one another's faces. But it
had to be done.
"That's a bitter pill to swallow," growled he.
"It's true enough," I said.
Gilbert, with a short, grim laugh in his throat, growled out, "Well,
let us begin to earn our grub."
Chloe read our decision in our faces. "Huzza," she cried, "the engineer
chiefs--capitanos--will show us how to destroy it. We are the legs, the
arms; they are the head. The lighthouse shall not be there to-night!"
In this manner Gilbert and I became "capitanos" in the Revolutionary
army. From an inert and baffling position we were lifted on a wave, and
flung into a rushing current. There was work for our hands and brains:
a problem to solve, a thing to accomplish. And we were no longer weary.
Henrico and the sergeant joined us in a short council of war. And as
at any moment the enemy's scouts might blunder on us and bring on a
fight, we decided to retreat to a lower level, where we could hold an
army corps at bay. Safe in this, Gilbert and I sat apart; the soldiers
scooped out resting places, and, with their knapsacks for pillows, fell
instantly asleep.
"Confound that girl," said Gilbert, "and confound the whole place and
their tin-pot armies too! But it is a fine problem, eh? I suppose the
only way to do it is by--well, anything else but fighting."
I quite agreed with him. But as hour after hour passed, and scheme
after scheme was rejected, we began to think a little less of our
abilities. We wrestled with the problem till our heads reeled. If only
we could get a side glance even at a workable scheme. But no. At last
Gilbert pulled out his Waterbury. "Five o'clock!" he cried, "we are
undiluted frauds if we can't do it in another hour. It will be dark by
six!"
Chloe had, in the meantime, crawled out by another level to report
what was doing in the creek. She had just come back. The enemy were
bivouacked round the lighthouse. On the upland, and commanding every
approach, sentries and videttes marked the land as far as she could see.
However, she had brought one piece of comfort in the shape of a cool
jar of water. As she served us she asked for news of our scheme.
"How soon do the hands and legs begin to work, capitanos?" she asked
with a complacent smile. Gilbert, with a diplomatic, Spanish-fashion
wave of his hand, replied: "So! so!"
"Ah, señors," said she, "I should want to do it--how? Why, shut up that
lighthouse like flinging a blanket over it: so!"
"And," cried Gilbert, "that's just what we are going to do! Tell the
men to be ready on the instant." As she departed he turned to me with
dancing eyes.
"See?" he whispered.
"No; not an atom."
"No? Well, old man, she has struck the only plan possible! Observe the
overhead traveling wire. It lands on the flat just outside the other
opening, doesn't it? Well, suppose we hang a curtain--even Chloe's
skirt, if it were big enough--on that wire, and run it out, and cut off
the light from flashing out to seaward."
"But," I objected, "we can't make a screen big enough to intercept all
the light at a hundred feet distance--it is impracticable."
He laughed in my face, and cried out:
"My boy, rays of light from lighthouses are _parallel_!"
I had forgotten this elementary fact. I cried "Eureka!" and then we
faced our task: a race against time.
The men streamed up to us, heard, and set to work immediately. We
requisitioned the tarpaulin covers from the bags of cement; even
emptied the bags themselves. We stripped hundreds of yards of telephone
wires in the galleries. We descended to a still lower level; we were
all tailors, sailmakers, anything, everything. Some patched holes,
while others sewed cover to cover until a sheet, fifty feet square,
grew beneath our hands, sewn together with wire, and impervious to a
single ray of light.
As the last hole was stilettoed with the point of a bayonet, Gilbert
and I sought the upper level. We found the night had fallen. The cold
sea breeze tasted like nectar after the candle-burnt atmosphere in the
workshop below. Our eyes sought the lighthouse; a couple of men were in
the lantern; one held a candle, and was clumsily striving to light the
argand burners.
"Good!" cried Gilbert, "they'll smash some glasses, or I'm an idiot.
Now for the launch!"
We descended to our workshop. The flushed, wet faces of the screen
makers confronted us, and Gilbert spoke.
"We want a volunteer to cross to the other side and clear the wire, and
to signal back when ready for us to haul out the screen. It must be one
of you from the village, one who knows every stone in the darkness. And
one who is not afraid. Who volunteers?"
There was a silence in which we heard the water dripping in far-deep
levels. Gilbert looked from face to face; in vain, it seemed. The
villagers were, however, weighing the risk of failure. Chloe stepped
quietly from the group, and as quietly said: "This is a woman's
business; is it not so, Uncle Henrico? Who knows so well as I the rock
paths through the lines of the sentinels? And if I meet them--well, I
am a woman and I laugh. If I were a man--well, the end of me and our
venture."
"'Tis true," growled Henrico, "Chloe must go."
He had hardly spoken before she had given a swift wave of her hand to
us, and vanished up the adit.
We followed, dragging our great screen, and presently we peered out
into the night. In that little time they had managed to get some at
least of the lamps to burn, and now we saw a glowing circle of light.
Henrico, Gilbert, and myself alone crept on to the ledge outside.
Everything had to be done by touch. Henrico had been a sailor, and to
him fell the delicate task of hooking the screen on to the traveling
wire. Foot by foot it disappeared overhead, and presently Henrico
swarmed back to us and we crept together, and laid our ears on the wire
cable. It sang and hummed in the night wind like a harp string. Little
jars and metallic jingles broke the even rise and fall of sound. Was it
Chloe? Should we hear the signal clear or confused, loud or soft? On
a sudden our doubts were settled. Our ears rang as a clear sharp blow
quivered on the wire.
"Safe," we cried in delight, and soon after that came the arranged
three clear blows across the wire.
In another second we were all heaving hard and fast at the traveler
overhead. Foot by foot it crept along, until we saw, with breathless
delight, a huge blackness slicing into the circle of light. An
unforetold eclipse! It intersected it completely. Not a ray escaped
seaward.
So far we had won.
Dripping with sweat, and nigh breathless, we dropped to the rock
and looked toward the lighthouse. The lantern seemed to be utterly
deserted. Against the lower windows of the chapel we could see the
silhouettes of the guard. They were playing cards. Not an eye had seen
our operations. As we rejoined the sergeant, Gilbert chuckled and said:
"The game is ours! Joker, right bower, and left!"
"Not yet," quoth Henrico grimly, "the fight is at the dawn."
"Across there," added the soldier, nodding his head toward the other
landing place of the wire.
We had much yet to learn of the ups and downs of war; and more, too, to
learn about our mine. For we now found every villager busily polishing
up a rifle; and soon, too, they were dragging up half a dozen cases
of ammunition from secret places in the far levels. And we were the
engineers of this same mine!
Henrico served round the ammunition. The sergeant inspected every new
rifle. He handed one to each of us in such an ordinary way of routine,
that we accepted them and fell immediately into line to wait the coming
of events. Two hours later, the tide had fallen sufficiently to enable
a crossing to be made outside the mine.
Fifteen men were to guard the other landing place of the wire.
They passed out in single file, five soldiers and ten villagers, the
sergeant in command. He carried two rifles. "One for our 'advance
guard,' Chloe," he said, with a laugh wrinkling his brown face as he
passed us. The next instant he stepped through the opening. And so he
passed from our life: a little, sinewy man, of few words, but of most
prompt decision; following his trade cheerfully, and uncomplaining if
in the day's march bad tools or adverse luck befell him. He died across
there in the dawn; perhaps he saw the sun rise, and knew the end of the
night's work; I hoped so.
It was now close upon ten o'clock, and there were about seven hours for
us to keep most vigilant and secret watch upon the lighthouse. From
time to time we saw a man enter the lantern and trim the lamps. Once he
stepped out on the balcony, and, leaning over the rail, quietly smoked
his cigarette.
Gilbert clutched my arm like a vise. "If that man moves to the other
side we are done! He will see his shadow on the screen!"
But, to our infinite joy, he passed in and down to join his comrades.
Below, in the chapel, they played cards, changed sentries, and slept;
all in complete unconsciousness of the ill trick we had played them.
Night was waning. Henrico pointed to a paler shadow on the crest above
the creek. The wind had dropped; the air was filled with the sound of
the tide seething in the rocks and weeds below us. Save that, all was
still. Everything seemed to be watching and waiting.
Presently we could see one another's hands and faces. Henrico at once
mustered all the defenders and posted them among the serried rocks on
the talus.
It was an ambuscade in an amphitheatre. Some one dropped a musket,
and, at the sound, we all glanced nervously at the lighthouse; no one
stirred within, and we were crouching down--when a most horrid crash
and volleying of shots broke out across the creek.
"On guard!" cried Henrico; "the patrol has found our outpost."
Even while he spoke, and even above the din, we caught the ring of
quick hoarse cries of command from the lighthouse. The door was flung
open and a stream of soldiers sallied forth--to instant death. From
every stone of our ambuscade, spitting flashes converged on the open
door. It was a butchery at such a point-blank range, and with a light
behind to show the mark. The crash of our volley died away as swiftly
as it commenced. For a moment I thought that not a man had escaped
uninjured. Nothing but a tumbled, dark heap filled the doorway and
the little circle of light. But, suddenly, from the shelter of the
interior, some one struck down the candle inside with the butt end of a
musket, and the darkness swallowed all up, for it was as night yet down
there.
Then we became aware of the hushed silence that was about us. Not a
shot resounded from the direction of our outpost. Had the attack failed
or had they captured our post? Involuntarily I glanced at our screen.
It was still there, now just dimly outlined on the paling sky. Gilbert
called softly to Henrico to know what he thought of the silence at
the other side. We saw Henrico craning over his rock, and striving
to pierce the blackness at the foot of the creek; his hand was up to
keep silent. At last, out of the vagueness of empty sounds, we caught
a faint patter of footsteps, and, as we heard it, it came nearer and
nearer: men running in desperate haste. In a trice they were below us
in the shadows. Some one cried "Up here"; another called to Henrico:
"They have left the post," and all in the same breath we were fighting
for our lives!
TO BE CONCLUDED.
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Transcriber's Notes:
Added table of contents.
Italics are represented by _underscores_, bold by =equal signs=.
All oe ligatures have been expanded to "oe" for this text edition; the
ligatures are retained in the HTML edition.
Page 1, changed "se" to "see" in "I can see dot meinseluf."
Page 4, added missing apostrophe to "an', I do planty."
Page 8, changed "srceech" to "screech" in "screech of warning."
Page 10, changed "all sail sets" to "all sails set." Added missing
quote after "into smithereens."
Page 11, changed "anwered" to "answered" after "knew of Archibald
Townsend." Changed "handkerchif" to "handkerchief" ("fumbled in his
pocket for a...").
Page 17, added missing open quote to "The more he talks."
Page 21, added missing open quote to "A pocketful."
Page 28, changed "Indentities" to "Identities."
Page 30, changed "matallic" to "metallic" ("metallic rattling").
Changed "fact" to "face" in "The sergeant's face changed."
End of Project Gutenberg's Motor Matt's Queer Find, by Stanley R. Matthews