"Up with you!" I whispered, hoarsely. "The hour has come!"
I knew that drastic measures must be taken with The Seraph, so I just
grasped him under the armpits and stood him on his feet without a word. He
wobbled for a space, digging his knuckles in his eyes.
The hands of the clock pointed to ten minutes to twelve.
Angel and I hastily pulled on our trousers; and he, who liked to dress the
part, stuck a knife in his belt, and twisted a scarlet silk handkerchief
(borrowed from Mary Ellen) round his head. His dark eyes glistened under
its folds.
The Seraph and I went unadorned, save that he girt his trusty sword about
his stout middle and I carried a toy bayonet.
Down the inky-black stairs we crept, scarcely breathing. The lower hall
seemed cavernous. I could smell the old carpets and the haircloth covering
of the chairs. We sidled down the back hall among goloshes, umbrellas, and
Turk's Head dusters. The back door had a key like that of a gaol.
Angel tried it with both hands, but though it grated horribly, it stuck.
Then I had a try, and could not resist a triumphant click of the tongue
when it turned, for Angel was a vain fellow and took a rise out of being
the elder.
And when the moonlight shone upon us in the yard!--oh, the delicious
freedom of it! We hopped for joy.
In the passage we awaited our leader. Between the roofs we could see the
low half-moon, hanging like a tilted bird's nest in the dark blue sky,
while a group of stars fluttered near it like young birds. The Cathedral
clock sounded the hour of midnight.
Soon we heard the stealthy steps of Captain Pegg, and we gasped as we saw
him, for in place of his flowered dressing-gown, he wore breeches and top
boots, a loose shirt with a blue neckerchief knotted at the throat, and,
gleaming at his side, a cutlass.
He smiled broadly when he saw us.
"Well, if you aren't armed--every man-jack of you--even to the bantling!"
he cried. "Capital!"
"My sword, she's _weal_," said The Seraph with dignity. "Sometimes I fight
giants."
Captain Pegg then shook hands with each of us in turn, and we thrilled at
being treated as equals by such a man.
"And now to work!" he said heartily. "Here is the plan of the yard as sent
by Jenks."
We could see it plainly by the moonlight, all neatly drawn out, even to the
ash barrel and the clothes dryer, and there, on the fifth plank from the
end was a cross in red ink, and beside it the magic word--Treasure!
Captain Pegg inserted the crowbar in a wide crack between the fourth and
fifth boards, then we all pressed our full weight upon it with a "Yo heave
ho, my hearties!" from our chief.
The board flew up and we flew down, sprawling on the ground. Somehow the
Captain, versed in such matters, kept his feet, though he staggered a bit.
Then, in an instant, we were pulling wildly at the plank to dislodge it.
This we accomplished after much effort, and a dark, dank recess was
disclosed.
Captain Pegg dropped to his knees and with his hand explored cautiously
under the planks. His face fell.
"Shiver my timbers if I can find it!" he muttered.
"Let me try!" I cried eagerly.
Both Angel and I thrust our hands in also and fumbled among the moist lumps
of earth. I felt an earth-worm writhe away.
Captain Pegg now lighted a match and held it in the aperture. It cast a
glow upon our tense faces.
"Hold it closer!" implored Angel. "This way--right here--don't you see?"
At the same moment we both had seen the heavy metal ring that projected,
ever so little, above the surface of the earth. We grasped it
simultaneously and pulled. Captain Pegg lighted another match. It was
heavy--oh, so heavy!--but we got it out--a fair-sized leather bag bound
with thongs. To one of these was attached the ring we had first caught
sight of.
Now, kneeling as we were, we stared up in Captain Pegg's face. His wide,
blue eyes had somehow got a different look.
"Little boys," he said gently, "open it!"
There in the moonlight, we unloosed the fastenings of the bag and turned
its contents out upon the bare boards. The treasure lay disclosed then, a
glimmering heap, as though, out of the dank earth, we had digged a patch of
moonshine.
We squatted on the boards around it, our heads touching, our wondering eyes
filled with the magic of it.
"It is the treasure," murmured Angel, in an awe-struck voice, "real
treasure-trove. Will you tell us, Captain Pegg, what all these things are?"
Captain Pegg, squatting like the rest of us, ran his hands meditatively
through the strange collection.
"Why, strike me purple," he growled, "if that scamp Jenks hasn't kept most
of the gold coins and left us only the silver! But here's three golden
doubloons, all right, one apiece for ye! And here's ducats and silver
florins, and pieces of eight--and some I can't name till I get the daylight
on them. It's a pretty bit of treasure all told; and see here--" he held up
two old Spanish watches, just the thing for gentlemen adventurers.
We boys were now delving into the treasure on our own account, and brought
to light a brace of antiquated pistols, an old silver flagon, a compass, a
wonderful set of chess men carved from ivory, and some curious shells, that
delighted The Seraph. And other quaint things there were that we handled
reverently, and coins of different countries, square and round, and some
with holes bored through.
We were so intent upon our discovery that none of us heard the approaching
footsteps till they were fair upon us. Then, with a start, we turned, and
saw to our horror Mrs. Handsomebody and Mary Ellen, with her hair in
curl-papers, and, close behind them, Mr. and Mrs. Mortimer Pegg, scantily
attired, the gentleman carrying a revolver.
"David! John! Alexander!" gobbled Mrs. Handsomebody.
"Now what d'ye think of that!" came from Mary Ellen.
"Father! Have you gone quite mad?" cried Mrs. Pegg.
And--"Oh, I say Governor--" stammered the gentleman with the revolver.
Captain Pegg rose to his feet with dignity.
"These young gentlemen," he said, simply, "have with my help been able to
locate some buried treasure, stolen from me years ago by a man named Jenks,
and hidden here since two decades. I hereby renounce all claim to it in
favour of my three brave friends!"
Mr. Pegg was bent over the treasure.
"Now, look here, sir," he said, rather sharply, "some of this seems to be
quite valuable stuff--"
"I know the value of it to a penny," replied his father, with equal
asperity, "and I intend it shall belong solely and wholly to these boys."
"Whatever are you rigged up like that for?" demanded his daughter-in-law.
"As gentlemen of spirit," replied Captain Pegg, patiently, "we chose to
dress the part. We do what we can to keep a little glamour and gaiety in
the world. Some folk--" he looked at Mrs. Handsomebody--"would like to
discipline it all away."
"I think," said our governess, "that, considering it is _my_ back yard, I
have some claim to--"
"None at all, Madam--none at all!" interrupted Captain Pegg. "By all the
rules of treasure-hunting, the finder keeps the treasure."
Mrs. Handsomebody was silenced. She did not wish to quarrel with the Peggs.
Mrs. Pegg moved closer to her.
"Mrs. Handsomebody," she said, winking her white eyelashes very fast, "I
really do not think that you should allow your pupils to accept
this--er--treasure. My father-in-law has become very eccentric of late, and
I am positive that he himself buried these things very recently. Only day
before yesterday, I saw that set of ivory chessmen on his writing table."
"Hold your tongue, Sophia!" shouted Captain Pegg loudly.
Mr. Mortimer Pegg looked warningly at his wife.
"All right, Governor! Don't you worry," he said taking his father's arm.
"It shall be just as you say; but one thing is certain, you'll take your
death of cold if you stay out in this night air." As he spoke, he turned up
the collar of his coat.
Captain Pegg shook hands grandly with Angel and me, then he lifted The
Seraph in his arms and kissed him.
"Good-night, bantling," he said, softly. "Sleep tight!"
He turned then to his son. "Mort," said he, "I haven't kissed a little boy
like that since you were just so high."
Mr. Pegg laughed and shivered, and they went off quite amiably, arm in arm,
Mrs. Pegg following, muttering to herself.
Mrs. Handsomebody looked disparagingly at the treasure. "Mary Ellen," she
ordered, "help the children to gather up that rubbish, and come in at once.
Such an hour it is!"
Mary Ellen, with many exclamations, assisted in the removal of the treasure
to our bedroom. Mrs. Handsomebody, after seeing it deposited there, and us
safely under the bed-clothes, herself extinguished the gas.
"I shall write to your father," she said, severely, "and tell him the whole
circumstance. _Then_ we shall see what is to be done with _you_, and with
the _treasure_."
With this veiled threat she left us. We snuggled our little bodies
together. We were cold.
"I'll write to father myself, tomorrow, an' 'splain everything," I
announced.
"D' you know," mused Angel, "I b'lieve I'll be a pirate, 'stead of a civil
engineer like father. I b'lieve there's more in it."
"I'll be an engineer just the same," said I.
"I fink," murmured The Seraph, sleepily, "I fink I'll jus' be a bishop, an'
go to bed at pwoper times an' have poached eggs for tea."
_Chapter II: The Jilt_
I
The day after the finding of the Treasure, Mary Ellen told us that she had
seen Captain Pegg drive away from his son's house in a closed cab, before
we had emerged from the four-poster. There had been a quarrel, the servants
had told her, and in spite of all his son and daughter-in-law could do, the
peppery Captain had left them, refusing to divulge the name of his
destination.
"And they do say," Mary Ellen declared, "that he's no more fit to be
wanderin' about the world alone than a babe unborn."
We smiled at the ignorance of women-servants, and speculated much on the
Captain's probable new adventure. We were confident that he would return
one day, loaded with fresh booty, and full of tales of the sea.
In the meantime, there was the Bishop. His house, as I have said stood
between us and the Cathedral. It was a benign house, like a sleepy mastiff,
and seemed to tolerate with lazy indifference the presence of its two
narrow, high-backed neighbours, which with their cold, unblinking windows,
looked like sinister, half-fed cats.
We had not been long at Mrs. Handsomebody's before we made friends with
Bishop Torrance. As he walked in his deep, green garden, one morning, we
three watched him enviously over the brick wall, that separated us. We were
balanced precariously on a board, laid across the ash barrel, and The
Seraph, losing his balance, fell headlong into a bed of clove pinks, almost
at the Bishop's feet.
When his yells had subsided and explanations asked, and given, Angel and I
were lifted over the wall, and shaken hands with, and given the freedom of
the garden. We were introduced to the Bishop's niece, Margery, who was his
sole companion, though we regarded, as one of the family, the Fountain Boy
who blew cool jets of water through a shell, and turned his laughing face
always upward toward the spires of the Cathedral.
Thus a quaint friendship sprang up, and, though the Bishop had not the
dash, and boldness of Captain Pegg, he was an understanding and
high-hearted playfellow.
I think The Seraph was his favourite. Even then, the dignified elegance of
the Bishop's life appealed to that infant's love of the comfortable, and it
tickled the Bishop immensely to have him pace solemnly up and down the
garden, at his side, hands clasped behind his back, helping, as he
believed, to "pwepare" the Bishop's sermon.
All three of us were permitted by Mrs. Handsomebody to join the Cathedral
choir.