THE SCREAM ON THE CLIFF.
"A boat?" said Captain Branscome, staring again, and slowly rubbing
the back of his head.
He took a step forward, to descend to the beach and examine her, but
Dr. Beauregard laid a hand on his arm.
"Not so fast, my friend! _Qui dit canot dit canotier_--a glance will
assure you that she did not beach herself in that position, above
high-water mark, still less furl her own sail and stow it.
Further, if you study the country behind us, you will see that, while
we came unobserved and stand at this moment in excellent cover, by
crossing the beach we expose ourselves to observation and the risk of
a bullet."
"I take it, sir," answered Captain Branscome, still puzzled, "you
knew this boat to be here, and have brought us with some purpose."
"I knew it, to be sure, and my purpose is simple. We cannot have a
rival party of treasure-seekers on the island. We have ladies in our
charge--gentle, well-bred ladies--and of the crew of that boat, one
man, to my knowledge, is a pretty desperate ruffian. The other
two--"
"You have seen them, then?"
Dr. Beauregard lifted his shoulders slightly, and took snuff.
"My good friend," he answered, "as lord proprietor of Mortallone, I
pay attention to all my visitors. Well, as I was saying, to cross
the beach just now would be venturesome and foolish to boot, seeing
that we hold all the cards and have only to wait."
"What of the ladies?" asked the Captain.
"We can return at once and join them at luncheon. But the ladies, as
you remind me, complicate the affair. Before you arrived, I had laid
my plans to let these rascals have the run of the island and amuse me
by their activities. I had, in fact, prepared a little deception for
them--oh, a very innocent little trick! I don't know, my dear sir,
if it has struck you how much simpler our amusements tend to become
as we grow older. I had promised myself to watch them, lying perdu,
and in the end to dismiss them with a quiet chuckle. You have read
your _Tempest_, Captain Branscome? Well, I have no obedient Ariel to
play will-o'-the-wisp with such gentry; yet I would have led them a
very pretty dance. But the ladies--the ladies, to be sure!
We cannot expose them to dangers, nor even to alarms. We must use
more summary methods." He stood for a moment or two reflective,
tapping his snuff-box. "Mr. Goodfellow is a carpenter, I
understand."
"At your service, sir."
Mr. Goodfellow's hand went halfway to his waistcoat pocket, as if to
produce his business card.
"I seem to remember, Mr. Goodfellow that you carry a bag of tools in
the boat?"
"Yes, sir."
"Including, no doubt, an auger, or, at any rate, a fair-sized
gimlet?"
"Both, sir."
"You will greatly oblige me, then, Mr. Goodfellow--always with
Captain Branscome's leave--by returning to the boat and fetching your
auger; if possible, without attracting the ladies' observation.
With this instead of returning direct to us, you will make your way
to the left, towards the head of the beach, keeping well under the
rocks, which will serve you from landward. At the head of the beach
you will bring us into sight a pace or two before you come abreast of
the boat. There, at a signal from me, you will creep down to the
boat--on hands and knees, or on your stomach if you will--and bore me
three small holes close alongside her keelson, using as much
expedition as may consist with neatness. You understand? Then the
quicker you set about it, the less will be the risk."
Mr. Goodfellow touched his forelock, and sped on his errand.
Dr. Beauregard seated himself on the rocks, and loosing the gun from
his bandolier, laid it across his knees.
"A simple job," he remarked. "Any one of us could do it as well as
Goodfellow. But it is a practice of mine to take the smallest risks
into account; and if the honest fellow _should_ be detected, why, I
imagine he can be the most easily spared of the party."
Mr. Goodfellow, however, reached the boat without misadventure.
"Ah, he displays intelligence!" commented Dr. Beauregard, watching
him as, before setting to work, he lifted the boat's gunwale and
heaved her over on her other side, exposing the bilgepiece on which
she had been resting. "Yes, decidedly, he displays intelligence."
Mr. Goodfellow having stripped off his coat, picked up his auger and
bored his three holes very neatly. This done be rubbed them over
with a handful of sand, and smoothed over with sand all traces of
sawdust, heaved the boat back, so that she rested again in her
original position; and retired, sweeping his coat behind him, and
obliterating his footprints as he went.
"Couldn't be bettered!" said Dr. Beauregard, smiling cheerfully and
smoothing his gun-barrel. "And now I think we may rejoin the ladies
and pray that these rascals will put off disturbing us until after
luncheon. At one time I feared they might have taken a panic
yesterday morning at sight of your schooner; but they calculated,
maybe, that the chances were all against your discovering their
presence, which, of course, you never suspected."
"I suspected something fast enough," said Captain Branscome, "for in
running along the coast I caught sight of smoke rising among the
hills--from a camp-fire, as I reckoned--and no doubt from here or
hereabouts, though I should have put it a mile or two farther south."
"The born fools!" said Dr. Beau-regard, laughing. "Well, it's even
possible that in their furious preoccupation they let the schooner
come close without spying her. Ah, Captain, you can hardly imagine--
you, fresh from a civilized country, where folks must keep up
appearances, while they prey upon one another--how this lust of gold
brutalizes a man when, as here, he pursues it without restraint.
And what, after all, will gold purchase?"
"Not happiness, I verily believe," said the Captain, "though to the
poor--and I speak as one who has been bitterly poor--it may bring
happiness for a while in the shape of relief from grinding
discomfort."
"Yes, yes; as pleasure lies in mere cessation from pain. But that
does not meet my question. We will take Master Harry here, who seems
a good, ordinary healthy boy. We will suppose him in possession of
the treasure you are here to seek. What in the end can he purchase
with it better than the fun he is getting out of this expedition?
He can indulge all his senses, but for a while only; in the end
indulgence brings satiety, dulls the appetite, takes the savour from
the feast, and so destroys itself. He can purchase power, you say?
But that again moves one difficulty but a step further. For what
will his power give him when he has won it? These are questions,
Captain, which I have asked myself daily here on this island.
I have been asking them ever since, and while I was yet a young man
they came to wear for me a personal application. 'Vanity of
vanities,' Captain--what the Preacher discovered long ago I
discovered again and of my own experience."
"The Christian religion, sir--" began Captain Branscome. But here
our strange host laid a hand on his arm.
"We forget our politeness," he interrupted, yet gently, and without
suspicion of offence. "We keep the ladies waiting."
"Captain Branscome and I," said our host, as he seated himself
beside Miss Belcher, and uncorked one of the green-sealed bottles,
"have been talking platitudes, to which, however, our present
business lends a certain fresh interest. You are here, many
thousands of miles from home, on a hunt for treasure. Now, Heaven
forbid that I should criticise your intentions, seeing that
incidentally I am in debt to them for this delightful picnic; but
before I help you--as, believe me, I am disposed to help--may I ask
what you propose to do with this wealth when you get it?"
"Why, sir," answered Miss Belcher, candidly, "we discussed that, you
may be sure, before starting. The bulk of it, after paying expenses,
was to go to young Brooks, here. Circumstances had given him, as we
supposed--and for the matter of that, as we still believe--the clue
to the treasure--"
"Pardon me, ma'am, for interrupting you; but did that clue take the
form of a map of the island?"
"It did, sir."
"A map with three red crosses upon it and some writing on the back?
Nay, I will not press the question. Your faces answer it."
"I ought to tell you, Dr. Beauregard, in justice to the boy, that he
came by it honestly, though in very tragic circumstances."
"Again, ma'am, your faces would answer for the honesty of your
business. As for the circumstances you speak of, it may save time if
I tell you that I know the whole story. Why, truly," he went on, as
we stared, "there is no mystery about it. I dare say, ma'am, the boy
has found an opportunity to whisper to you that he and I have met
before. It was at Minden Cottage, in his father's garden, and by the
very spot where his father was murdered. He found me there taking
measurements; for I had a theory about the crime--a theory of which I
need only say here that, though right in the main, it missed certain
details of which Harry's engaging conversation put me on the scent.
I had read of the murder quite accidentally; but it happened that I
knew something of Coffin--enough to explain his fate--and of the man
who had murdered him. But of Major Brooks I knew nothing; and what I
gathered by inquiry made the whole affair more and more puzzling.
At length I hit on the explanation that Coffin--who had reasons, and
strong ones, for going in deadly terror of Aaron Glass--had in some
way chosen this Major Brooks for his confessor, and journeyed to
Minden Cottage to deposit the secret with him; and that Glass,
following in pursuit, had surprised and murdered the both of them.
The exact catena of the two crimes mattered less to me than the
question: Had Glass possessed himself of the secret before making
off? At first I saw no room to doubt it. But your young friend's
account of himself sent me to Falmouth, and at Falmouth I began to
have my doubts. My earliest inquiries there were addressed to the
pedagogue--the Reverend Something-or-other Stimcoe--a drunken idiot,
who yielded no information at all; and to his wife, a lady who
persisted in regarding me as sent from heaven for no other purpose
than to discharge her small debts. From her, again, I learned
nothing. But from a talk with one of her pupils--his name was Bates,
if I remember--I discovered that Master Harry had been a particular
crony of Coffin's, and this, of course, threw light on Coffin's visit
to Minden Cottage. Still, there remained the question: Had Glass
managed to lay hands on the chart, or had it found its way, after
all, into the possession of Master Harry Brooks? You'll excuse me,
young sir"--Dr. Beauregard turned to me--"but during our talk in the
garden, your manner suggested to me that you had a card up your
sleeve. Well, whatever the answer, my obvious course was to return
to Mortallone and await it, as for fifteen years already I have been
awaiting it, though question and answer were but now beginning to
take definite form. Here you are then at last, and here am I--
_tout vient a point a qui sait attendre_."
"Then our arrival, sir, did not altogether surprise you?" said Miss
Belcher.
"On the contrary, ma'am--though for reasons you will not easily
guess--it surprised me as I have never been surprised in all my life
before; it confounded me, dumfounded me, made chaos of my plans,
and--and--I am delighted to welcome you, ma'am! I desire to be
allowed the honour of taking wine with you."
"Willingly!" assented Miss Belcher, holding out her glass to be
replenished; "and the more so because I never drank better Rhone wine
in my life."
Dr. Beauregard stood up and bowed, his fine features overspread with
a flush of pleased astonishment.
"Madam--" began Dr. Beauregard, and I have no doubt he had a
compliment on his lips. But at that moment the hills and the
amphitheatre of cliff behind us, rang out--rang out and echoed--with
two terrible screams.