THE SIEGE
"Trouble?" repeated Claire, questioningly. "You mean--?"
"I mean I've pieced it out, partly from reports and partly
from my own deductions and from the sight of that man, back
there," said Brice. "I may be wrong in all or in part of it.
But I don't think I am. I figure that that chap we saw half
under ground, is one of a clique or gang that is after
something which Standish and Hade have--or that these fellows
think Hade and Standish have. I figure they think your
brother has wronged them in some way and that they are even
more keen after him than after Hade. That, or else they think
if they could put him out of the way, they could get the thing
they are after. That or both reasons."
"I learned that Standish has hired special police to patrol
the main road, after dark, under plea that he's afraid tramps
might trespass on his groves. But he didn't dare hire them to
patrol his grounds for fear of what they might chance to stumble
on. And, naturally, he couldn't have them or any one patrol the
hidden path. That's the reason he armed you and told you to
look out for any one coming that way. That's why you held me
up, when I came through here, yesterday. These must be people
you know by sight. For you told me you took me for some one
else. This chap, back yonder, knows the hidden path. And now
it seems he knows the tunnel, too. If I'm right in thinking
that tunnel leads to the secret orchard enclosure, back of
your house, then I fancy Standish may be visited during the
next half hour. And, unless I'm mistaken, I heard more than
one set of bare feet scurrying down that tunnel just now. Our
friend with the bashed-in face was apparently the last of
several men to slip into the tunnel, and we happened along as
he was doing it. If he recognized you and saw you had a man
as an escort, he must know we're bound for your house. And he
and the rest are likely to hurry to get there ahead of us.
That's why I've been walking you off your feet, in spite of
the darkness, ever since we left him."
"I--I only saw him for the tiniest part of a second," said
Claire, glancing nervously through the darkness behind her.
"And yet I'm almost sure he was a Caesar. He--"
"A Caesar?" queried Gavin, in real perplexity.
"That's the name the Floridian fishermen give to the family
who live on Caesar's Estuary," she explained, almost
impatiently. "The inlet that runs up into the mangroves,
south of Caesar's Rock and Caesar's Creek. Caesar was an
oldtime pirate, you know. These people claim to be descended
from him, and they claim squatter's rights on a tract of
marsh-and-mangrove land down there. They call themselves all
one family, but it is more like a clan, Black Caesar's clan.
They have intermarried and others have joined them. It's a
sort of community. They're really little better than conchs,
though they fight any one who calls them conchs."
"But what--?"
"Oh, Milo and Rodney Hade leased some land from the
government, down there. And that started the trouble."
Brice whistled, softly.
"I see," said he. "I gather there had been rumors of
treasure, among the Caesars--there always are, along the
coast, here--and the Caesars hadn't the wit to find the stuff.
They wouldn't have. But they guarded the place and always
hoped to trip over the treasure some day. Regarded it as
their own, and all that. 'Proprietary rights' theory, passed
on from fathers to sons. Then Standish and Hade leased the
land, having gotten a better hint as to where the treasure
was. And that got the Caesars riled. Then the Caesars get an
inkling that Standish and Hade have actually located the
treasure and are sneaking it to Standish's house, bit by bit.
And then they go still-hunting for the despoilers and for
their ancestral hoard."
"Why!" cried Claire, astounded. "That's the very thing you
stopped me from telling you! If you knew, all the time--"
"I didn't," denied Brice. "What you said, just now, about the
Caesars, gave me the clew. The rest was simple enough to any
one who knew of the treasure's existence. There's one thing,
though, that puzzles me--a thing that's none of my business, of
course. I can understand how Standish could have told you he
and Hade had stumbled onto a hatful of treasure, down there,
somewhere, among the bayous and mangrove-choked inlets. And I
can understand how the idea of treasure hunting must have stirred
you. But what I can't understand is this:--When Standish
found the Caesars were gunning for him, why in blue blazes did
he content himself with telling you of it? Why didn't he send
you away, out of any possible danger? Why didn't he insist on
your running into Miami, to the Royal Palm or some lesser
hotel, till the rumpus was all over? Even if he didn't think
the government knew anything about the deal, he knew the
Caesars did. And--"
"He wanted me to go to Miami," she said. "He even wanted me
to go North. But I wouldn't. I was tremendously thrilled
over it all. It was as exciting as a melodrama. And I
insisted on staying in the thick of it. I--I still don't see
what concern it is of the United States Government," she went
on, rebelliously, "if two men find, on their own leased land,
a cache of the plunder stolen more than a hundred years ago by
the pirate, Caesar. It is treasure trove. And it seems to me
they had a perfect right--"
"Have you seen any of this treasure?" interposed Brice.
"No," she admitted. "Once or twice, bags of it have been
brought into the house, very late at night. But Milo
explained to me it had to be taken away again, right off, for
fear of fire or thieves or--"
"And you don't know where it was taken to?"
"No. Except that Rodney has been shipping it North. But they
promised me that as soon--"
"I see!" he answered, as a stumble over a root cut short her
words and made her cling to him more tightly. "You are an
ideal sister. You'd be an ideal wife for a scoundrel. You
would be a godsend to any one with phoney stock to sell. Your
credulity is perfect. And your feminine curiosity is under
lots better control than most women's. I suppose they told
you this so-called treasure is in the form of ingots and
nuggets and pieces-of-eight and jewels-so-rich-and-rare, and
all the rest of the bag of tricks borrowed from Stevenson's
'Treasure Island'? They would!"
She showed her disrelish for his flippant tone, by removing
her hand from his arm. But at once the faint hiss of a snake
as it glided into the swamp from somewhere just in front of
them made her clutch his wet sleeve afresh. His hints as to
the nature of the treasure had roused her inquisitiveness to a
keen point. Yet, remembering what he had said about her
praiseworthy dearth of feminine curiosity, she approached the
subject in a roundabout way.
"If it isn't gold bars and jewels and old Spanish coins, and
so forth," said she, seeking to copy his bantering tone, "then
I suppose it is illicit whiskey? It would be a sickening
anticlimax to find they were liquor-smugglers."
"No," Brice reassured her, "neither Standish nor Hade is a
bootlegger--nor anything so petty. That's too small game for
them. Though, in some parts of southern Florida, bootleggers
are so thick that they have to wear red buttons in their
lapels, to keep from trying to sell liquor to each other. No,
the treasure is considerably bigger than booze or any other
form of smuggling. It--Hello!" he broke off. "There's your
lawn, right ahead of us. I can see patches of starlight
through that elaborate vine-screen draped so cleverly over the
head of the path. Now, listen, Miss Standish. I am going to
the house. But first I am going to see you to the main road.
That road's patroled, and it's safe from the gentle Caesars.
I want you to go there and then make your way to the nearest
neighbor's. If there is any mixup, we'll want you as far out
of it as possible."
As he spoke, he held aside the curtain of vines, for her to
step out onto the starlit lawn. A salvo of barking sounded
from the veranda, and Bobby Burns, who had been lying
disconsolately on the steps, came bounding across the lawn, in
rapture, at scent and step of the man he had chosen as his
god.
"Good!" muttered Brice, stooping to pat the frantically
delighted collie. "If he was drowsing there, it's a sign no
intruders have tried to get into the house yet. He's been
here a day. And that's long enough for a dog like Bobby to
learn the step and the scent of the people who have a right
here and to resent any one who doesn't belong. Now, what's
the shortest way to the main road?"
"The shortest way to the house," called the girl, over her
shoulder, "is the way I'm going now."
"But, Miss Standish!" he protested. "Please--"
She did not answer. As he had bent to pat the collie, she had
broken into a run, and now she was half way across the lawn,
on her way to the lighted veranda. Vexed at her disobedience
in not taking his advice and absenting herself from impending
trouble, Gavin Brice followed. Bobby Burns gamboled along at
his side, leaping high in the air in an effort to lick Brice's
face, setting the night astir with a fanfare of joyous
barking, imperiling Gavin's every step with his whisking body,
and in short conducting himself as does the average high-strung
collie whose master breaks into a run.
The noise brought a man out of the hallway onto the veranda,
to see the cause of the racket. He was tall, massive, clad in
snowy white, and with a golden beard that shone in the
lamplight. Milo Standish, as he stood thus, under the glow of
the veranda lights, was splendid target for any skulking
marksman. Claire seemed to divine this. For, before her
astonished brother could speak, she called to him:
"Go indoors! Quickly, please!"
Bewildered at the odd command, yet impressed with its stark
earnestness, Milo took a wondering step backward, toward the
open doorway. Then, at sight of the running man, just behind
his sister, he paused. Claire's lips were parted, to repeat
her strange order, as she came up the porch steps, but Gavin,
following her, called reassuringly:
"Don't worry, Miss Standish. They don't use guns. They're
knifers. The conchs have a holy horror of firearms. Besides,
a shot might bring the road patrol. He's perfectly safe."
As Gavin followed her up the steps and the full light of the
lamps fell on his face, Milo Standish stared stupidly at him,
in blank dismay. Then, over his bearded face, came a look of
sharp annoyance.
"It's all right, Mr. Standish," said Gavin, reading his
thoughts as readily as spoken words. "Don't be sore at Roke.
He didn't let me get away. He did his best to keep me. And
my coming back isn't as unlucky for you as it seems. If the
snakes had gotten me, there's a Secret Service chap over there
who would have had an interesting report to make. And you'd
have joined Hade and Roke in a murder trial. So, you see,
things might be worse."
He spoke in his wonted lazily pleasant drawl, and with no
trace of excitement. Yet he was studying the big man in front
of him, with covert closeness. And the wholly uncomprehending
aspect of Milo's face, at mention of the snakes and the
possible murder charge, completed Brice's faith in Standish's
innocence of the trick's worst features.
Claire had seized her brother's hand and was drawing the
dumfounded Milo after her into the hallway. And as she went
she burst forth vehemently into the story of Brice's afternoon
adventures. Her words fairly fell over one another, in her
indignant eagerness. Yet she spoke wellnigh as concisely as
had Gavin when he had recounted the tale to her.
Standish's face, as she spoke, was foolishly vacant. Then, a
lurid blaze began to flicker behind his ice-blue eyes, and a
brickish color surged into his face. Wheeling on Gavin, he
cried, his voice choked and hoarse:
"If this crazy yarn is true, Brice, I swear to God I had no
knowledge or part in it! And if it's true, the man who did it
shall--"
"That can wait," put in Brice, incisively. "I only let her
waste time by telling it, to see how it would hit you and if
you were the sort who is worth saving. You are. The Caesar
crowd has found where the tunnel-opening is,--the masked
opening, back in the path. And the last of them is on his way
here, underground. The tunnel comes out, I suppose, in that
high-fenced enclosure behind the house, the enclosure with the
vines all over it and the queer little old coral kiosk in the
center, with the rusty iron door. The kiosk that had three
bulging canvas bags piled alongside its entrance, this
morning,--probably the night's haul from the Caesar's Estuary
cache, waiting for Hade to get a chance to run it North.
Well, a bunch of the Caesars are either in that enclosure by
now, or forcing a way out through the rusty old rattletrap
door of the kiosk. They--"
"The Caesars?" babbled Standish. "What what 'kiosk' are you
talking about?--I--That's a plantation for--"
"Shut up!" interrupted Brice, annoyed by the pitiful attempt
to cling to a revealed secret. "The time for bluffing is
past, man! The whole game is up. You'll be lucky to escape a
prison term, even if you get out of to-night's mess. That's
what I'm here for. Barricade the house, first of all. I
noticed you have iron shutters on the windows, and that
they're new. You must have been looking for something like
this to happen, some day."
As he spoke, Brice had been moving swiftly from one window to
another, of the rooms opening out from the hallway, shutting
and barring the metal blinds. Claire, following his example,
had run from window to window, aiding him in his
self-appointed task of barricading the ground floor. Milo
alone stood inert and dazed, gaping dully at the two busy
toilers. Then, dazedly, he stumbled to the front door and
pushed it shut, fumbling with its bolts. As in a drunken
dream he mumbled:
"Three canvas bags, piled--?"
"Yes," answered Brice busily, as he clamped shut a long French
window leading out onto the veranda, and at the same time
tried to keep Bobby Burns from getting too much in his way.
"Three of them. I gather that Hade had taken them up to the
path in his yacht's gaudy little motorboat and carried them to
the tunnel. I suppose you have some sort of runway or hand
car or something in the tunnel to make the transportation
easier than lugging the stuff along the whole length of
stumbly path, besides being safer from view. I suppose, too,
he had taken the stuff there and then came ahead, with his
mocking-bird signal, for you to go through the tunnel with him
from the kiosk, and bring them to the enclosure. Probably
that's why I was locked into my room. So I couldn't spy on
the job. The bags are still there, aren't they? He couldn't
move them, except under cover of darkness. He'll come for
them to-night .... He'll be too late."
Working, as he cast the fragmentary sentences over his
shoulder, Gavin nevertheless glanced often enough at
Standish's face to make certain from its foolishly dismayed
expression that each of his conjectures was correct. Now,
finishing his task, he demanded:
"Your servants? Are they all right? Can you trust them?
Your house servants, I mean."
"Y--yes," stammered Milo, still battling with the idea of
bluffing this calmly authoritative man. "Yes. They're all
right. But where you got the idea--"
"How many of them are there? The servants, I mean."
"Four," spoke up Claire, returning from her finished work, and
pausing on her way to do like duty for the upstairs windows.
"Two men and two women."
"Please go out to the kitchen and see everything is all right,
there," said Brice. "Lock and bar everything. Tell your two
women servants they can get out, if they want to. They'll be
no use here and they may get hysterical, as they did last
night when we had that scrimmage outside. The men-servants
may be useful. Send them here."
Before she could obey, the dining room curtains were parted,
and a black-clad little Jap butler sidled into the hallway,
his jaw adroop, his beady eyes astare with terror, his hands
washing each other with invisible soap-and-water.
"Sato!" exclaimed Claire.
The Jap paid no heed.
"Prease!" he chattered between castanet teeth. "Prease, I hear.
I scare. I no fight man. I go, prease! I s-s-s-s, I--"
Sato's scant knowledge of English seemed to forsake him, under
the stress of his terror. And he broke into a monkeylike
mouthing in his native Japanese. Milo took a step toward him.
Sato screeched like a stuck pig and crouched to the ground.
"Wait!" suggested Brice, going toward the abject creature.
"Let me handle him. I know a bit of his language. Miss
Standish, please go on with closing the rest of the house.
Here, you!" he continued, addressing the Jap. "Here!"
Standing above the quivering Jap, he harangued him in halting
yet vehement Japanese, gesticulating and--after the manner of
people speaking a tongue unfamiliar to them--talking at the
top of his voice. But his oration had no stimulating effect
on the poor Sato. Scarce waiting for Brice to finish speaking,
the butler broke again into that monkey-like chatter of appeal
and fright. Gavin silenced him with a threatening gesture, and
renewed his own harangue. But, after perhaps a minute of it, he
saw the uselessness of trying to put manhood or pluck into the
groveling little Oriental. And he lost his own temper.
"Here!" he growled, to Standish. "Open the front door. Open
it good and wide. So!"
Picking up the quaking and chattering Sato by the collar, he
half shoved and half flung him across the
hallway, and, with a final heave, tossed him bodily down the
veranda steps. Then, closing the door, and checking Bobby
Burns's eager yearnings to charge out after his beloved
deity's victim, Brice exclaimed:
"There! That's one thing well done. We're better off without
a coward like that. He'd be getting under our feet all the
time, or else opening the doors to the Caesars, with the idea
of currying favor with them. Where did you ever pick up such
an arrant little poltroon? Most Japs are plucky enough."
"Hade lent him to us," said Milo, evidently impressed by
Brice's athletic demonstration against the little Oriental.
"Sato worked for him, after Hade's regular butler fell ill.
He--"
"H'm!" mused Brice. "A hanger-on of Hade's, eh? That may
explain it. Sato's cowardice may have been a bit of rather
clever acting. He saw no use in risking his neck for you
people when his master wasn't here. It was no part of his spy
work to--"
"Spy work?" echoed Standish, in real astonishment. "What?"
"Let it go at that," snapped Brice, adding as Claire reentered
the room, followed by the lanky house-man, "All secure in the
kitchen quarters, Miss Standish? Good! Please send this man
to close the upstairs shutters, too. Not that there's any
danger that the Caesars will try to climb, before they find
they can't get in on this floor. The sight of the barred
shutters will probably scare them off, anyway. They're likely
to be more hungry for a surprise rush, than for a siege with
resistance thrown in. If--"
He ceased speaking, his attention caught by a sight which, to
the others, carried no significance, whatever.
Simon Cameron, the insolently lazy Persian cat, had been
awakened from a nap in a rose-basket on the top of one of the
hall bookcases. The tramping of feet, the scrambling ejection
of the Jap butler, the clanging shut of many metal blinds--all
these had interfered with the calm peacefulness of Simon
Cameron's slumbers.
Wherefore, the cat had awakened, had stretched all four
shapeless paws out to their full length in luxurious flexing,
and had then arisen majestically to his feet and had stretched
again, arching his fluffy back to an incredible height. After
which, the cat had dropped lightly to the floor, five feet
below his resting place, and had started across the hall in a
mincing progress toward some spot where his cherished nap
could be pursued without so much disturbance from noisy
humans.
All this, Brice had seen without taking any more note of it
than had the two others. But now, his gaze fixed itself on
the animal.
Simon Cameron's flowingly mincing progress had brought him to
the dining room doorway. As he was about to pass through,
under the curtains, he halted, sniffed the air with much
daintiness, then turned to the left and halted again beside a
door which flanked the dining room end of the wide hall.
For an instant Simon Cameron stood in front of this. Then,
winding his plumed tail around his hips, he sat down, directly
in front of the door, and viewed the portal interestedly, as
though he expected a mouse to emerge from it.
It was this seemingly simple action which had so suddenly
diverted Gavin from what he had been saying. He knew the ways
of Persian cats, even as he knew the ways of collies. And
both forms of knowledge had more than once been of some slight
use to him.
Facing Milo and Claire, he signed to them not to speak. Then,
making sure the house-man had gone upstairs, he walked up to
Claire and whispered, pointing over his shoulder at the door
which Simon Cameron was guarding:
"Where does that door lead to?"
The girl almost laughed at the earnestness of his question,
following, as it did, upon his urgent signal for silence.
"Why," she answered, amusedly, "it doesn't lead anywhere.
It's the door of a clothes closet. We keep our gardening
suits and our raincoats and such things in there. Why do you
ask?"
By way of reply, Gavin crossed the hall in two silent strides,
his muscles tensed and his head lowered. Seizing the knob, he
flung the closet door wide open, wellnigh sweeping the indignant
Simon Cameron off his furry feet.
At first glance, the closet's interior revealed only a more or
less orderly array of hanging raincoats and aprons and
overalls. Then, all three of the onlooking humans focused
their eyes upon a pair of splayed and grimy bare feet which
protruded beneath a somewhat bulging raincoat of Milo's.
Brice thrust his arm in, between this coat and a gardening
apron, and jerked forth a silently squirming youth, perhaps
eighteen years old, swarthy and undersized.
"Well!" exclaimed Gavin, holding his writhing prize at arm's
length, "Simon Cameron must have a depraved taste in
playmates, if he tries to choose this one! A regular beach
combing conch! Probably a clay-eater, at that."
He spoke the words with seeming carelessness, but really with
deliberate intent. For the glum silence of a conch is a hard
thing for any outsider to break down. He recalled what Claire
had said of the Caesars' fierce distaste for the word "conch."
Also, throughout the South, "clay-eater," has ever been a
fighting word.
Brice had not gauged his insults in vain. Instantly, the
captive's head twisted, like that of a pinioned pit terrier,
in a frenzied effort to drive his teeth into the hand or arm
of his captor. Failing this, he spluttered into rapid-fire
speech.
"Ah'm not a conch!" he rasped, his voice sounding as rusty as
an unused hinge. "Ah'm a Caesar, yo' dirty Yank! Tuhn me
loose, yo'! Ah ain't hurt nuthin'."
"How did you get in here?" bellowed Milo, advancing threateningly
on the youth, and swinging aloft one of his hamlike fists.
The intruder stiffened into silence and stolid rigidity.
Unflinchingly, he eyed the oncoming giant. Brice motioned
Standish back.
"No use," said he. "I know the breed. They've been kicked
and beaten and hammered about, till a licking has no terrors
for them. This sweet soul will stay in the silences, till--"
Again, he broke off speaking. And again on account of Simon
Cameron. The cat, recovering from the indignity of being
brushed from in front of the opening door, had returned to his
former post of watching, and now stood, tail erect and back
arched, staring up at the prisoner out of huge round green
eyes. The sight of a stranger had its wonted lure for the
Persian.
The lad's impotently roving glance fell upon Simon Cameron.
And into his sullen face leaped stark terror. At sight of it,
Gavin Brice hit on a new idea for wringing speech from the
captive.
He knew that the grossly ignorant wreckers and fisherfolk of
the keys had never set eyes on such an object as this, nor had
so much as heard of Persian cats' existence. The few cats
they had seen were of course of the alley-variety, lean and of
short and mangy coat. Simon Cameron's halo of wide-fluffing
silver-gray fur gave him the appearance of being double his
real size. His plumed cheeks and tasseled ears and dished
profile and, above all, the weirdly staring green eyes--all
combined to present a truly frightful appearance to a youth so
unsophisticated as this and to any one as superstitious and as
fearful of all unknown things as were the conchs in general.
"Standish," said Brice, "just take my place for a minute as
holder of this conch's very ragged shirt collar. So! Now
then:"
He stepped back, and picked up Simon Cameron in his arms. The
cat did not resent the familiarity, Gavin still being enough
of a stranger in the house to be of interest to the Persian.
But the round green eyes still remained fixed with unwinking
intensity upon the newer and thus more interesting arrival.
Which is the way of a Persian cat.
Brice held Simon Cameron gingerly, almost respectfully,
standing so the huge eyes were able to gaze unimpeded at the
gaping and shaking boy. Then, speaking very slowly, in a deep
and reverent voice, he intoned:
"Devil, look mighty close at that conch, yonder. Watch him, so's
you'll always remember him! Put the voodoo on him, Devil. Haunt
him waking, haunt him sleeping. Haunt him eating, haunt him
drinking. Haunt him standing and sitting, haunt him lying and
kneeling. Rot his bones and his flesh and--"
A howl of panic terror from the youth interrupted the solemn
incantation. The prisoner slumped to his knees in Standish's
grasp, weeping and jabbering for mercy. Brice saw the time
was ripe for speech and that the captive's stolid nerve was
gone. Turning on him, he said, sternly:
"If you'll speak up and answer us, truthfully, I'll make this
ha'nt take off the curse. But if you lie, in one word, he'll
know it and he'll tell me, and--and then I'll turn him loose on
you. It's your one chance. Want it?"
The youth fairly gabbled his eagerness to assent.
"Good!" said Brice, still holding Simon Cameron, lest the
supposed devil spoil everything by rubbing against the
prisoner's legs and purring. "First of all:--how did you get
in here?"
The boy gulped. Gavin bent his own head toward the cat and
seemed about to resume his incantation. With a galvanic jump,
the youth made answer:
"Came by the path. Watched till the dawg run out in the road
to bark at suthin'. This man," with a jerk of his head toward
his captor, "this man went to the road after him. I cut across
the grass, yonder, and got in. They come back. I hid me in
there."
"H'm! Why didn't you come by way of the tunnel, like the
other Caesars?"
"Pop tol me not to. Sent me ahead. Said mebbe they moughtn't
git in here if the doors was locked early. Tol' me to hide me
in the house an' let 'em in, late, ef they-all couldn't git in
no earlier, or ef they couldn't cotch one of the two cusses
outside the house."
"Good strategy!" approved Brice. "That explains why they
haven't rushed us, Standish. They came here in force, and
most likely (if they've gotten out of the enclosure, yet)
they've surrounded the house, waiting for you or Hade to come
in or go out. If that doesn't work, they plan to wait till
you're asleep, and then get in, by this gallant youngster's
help, and cut your throat at their leisure and loot the house
and take a good leisurely hunt for the treasure. It calls for
more sense than I thought they had .... How did they find the
tunnel?" he continued, to the prisoner.
"They been a-huntin' fer it, nigh onto one-half of a year,"
sulkily returned the boy. "Pop done found it, yest'dy.
Stepped into it, he did, a walkin' past."
"The rumor of that tunnel has been hereabout for over a
century," explained Brice, to the Standishes. "Just as the
treasure-rumors have. I heard of it when I was a kid. The
Caesars must have heard it, a thousand times. But, till this
game started, there was no impetus to look for it, of course.
The tunnel is supposed to have been dug just after that
Seminole warparty cut off the refugees in the path. By the
way, Miss Standish, I didn't mention it while we were still
there, but the mangrove-swamp is supposed to be haunted by the
ghosts of those killed settlers."
Brother and sister glanced at each other, almost in guilt, as
it seemed to the observing Brice. And Claire said, shortly:
"I know. Every one around here has heard it. Some of the
negroes and even some of the more ignorant crackers declare
they have heard screams from the swamp on dark nights and that
white figures have been seen flitting--"
"So?" queried Brice. "Back in the boat, you were starting to
tell me how you sat on the veranda, one night, and heard a cry
in the swamp and then saw a white figure emerge from the path.
Yes? I have a notion that that white figure was responsible
for the cry, and that your brother and Rodney Hade were
responsible for both. Wasn't that a trick to scare off any
chance onlookers, when some of the treasure was to be brought
here?"
"Yes," admitted Claire, shamefacedly, and she added: "Milo
hadn't told me anything about it. And Rodney thought I was at
a dance at the Royal Palm Hotel, that evening. I had expected
to go, but I had a headache. When the cry and the white form
frightened me so, Milo had to tell me what they both meant.
That was how I found out, first, that they--"
"Claire!" cried Standish in alarmed rebuke.
"It's all right, Standish," said Gavin. "I know all about it.
A good deal more than she does. And none of it from her,
either. We'll come to that, later. Now for the prisoner."
Turning to the glumly scowling youth, he resumed:
"How many of them are there in this merry little midnight
murder party?"
"I dunno," grunted the boy.
"Devil, is that true?" gravely asked Gavin, bending again
toward Simon Cameron.
"Six!" babbled the lad, eagerly. "Pop and--"
"Never mind giving me a census of them," said Brice. "It
wouldn't do me any good. I've left my copies of 'Who's Who'
and Burke's Peerage at home. And they figured Mr. Standish
and Mr. Hade would both be here, to-night?"
"Most nights t'other one comes," said the boy. "I laid out
yonder and heern him, one night. Whistles like he's a
mocking-bird, when he gits nigh here. I told Pop an' them
about that. They--"
"By the way," asked Gavin, "when your Pop came back from
finding the tunnel, last night, was he in pretty bad shape?
Hey? Was he?"
"He were," responded the captive, after another scared look at
Simon Cameron. "He done fell into the tunnel, arter he step
down it. An' he bust hisself up, suthin' fierce, round the
haid an' the th'oat. He--"
"I see," agreed Brice.
Then, to Standish:
"I think we've got about all out of the charming child that we
can expect to. Suppose we throw him out?"
"Throw him out?" echoed Milo, incredulously. "Do you mean,
set him free? Why, man he'd--"
"That's exactly what I mean," said Gavin. "I agree with
Caesar--Julius Caesar, not the pirate. Caesar used to say
that it was a mistake to hold prisoners. They must be fed and
guarded and they can do incalculable mischief. We've turned
this prisoner inside out. We've learned from him that six men
are lurking somewhere outside, on the chance that you or
Rodney Hade may come out or come in, so that they can cut you
both off, comfortably, out there in the dark, and carry on
their treasure-hunt here. Failing that, they plan to get in
here, when you're asleep. All this lad can tell them is that
you are on your guard, and that there are enough of us to hold
the house against any possible rush. He can also tell them,"
pursued Gavin, dropping back into his slowly solemn diction,
"about this devil--this ha'nt--that serves us, and of the
curse--the voodoo--he can put on them all if they try to harm
us. We'll let him go. He was sent on by the path because he
went some time ahead of the rest, and he didn't know the
secret of the tunnel. In fact, none of them could have known
just where it ended here. But they'll know by now. He can
join them, if they're picketing the house. And he can tell
them what he knows."
Strolling over to the front door, he unbarred it and opened it
wide, standing fearlessly in its lighted threshold.
"Pass him along to me," he bade Standish. "Or, you can let
him go. He won't miss the way out."
"But," argued Milo, stubbornly retaining his grip on the
ragged shirt collar, "I don't agree with you. I'm going to
keep him here and lock him up, till--"
He got no further. The sight of the open door leading to
freedom was too much for the youth's stolidity. Twisting
suddenly, he drove his yellow teeth deep into the fleshy part
of Standish's hand. And, profiting by the momentary slackening
of Milo's grasp, he made one wildly scrambling dive across the
hall, vaulting over the excited Bobby Burns (and losing a handful
of his disreputable trousers to the dog's jaws in the process)
and volleying over the threshold with the speed of an express
train.
While Standish nursed his sorely-bitten hand, Brice watched
the lad's lightning progress across the lawn.
Then, still standing in the open doorway, he called back,
laughingly to the two others: "Part of my well-built scheme
has gone to smash. He didn't stop to look for any of his
clansmen. Not even the redoubtable Pop. He just beat it for
the hidden path, without hitting the ground more than about
once, on the way. And he dived into the path like a rabbit.
He'll never stop till he reaches the beach. And then the
chances are he'll swim straight out to sea without even
waiting to find where the Caesars' boats are cached .... Best
get some hot water and iodine and wash out that bite,
Standish. Don't look so worried, Miss Standish! I'm in no
danger, standing here. In the first place, I doubt if they'll
have the nerve to rush the house at all,--certainly not yet,
if they didn't recognize our fast-running friend. In the
second, they're after Hade and your brother. And in this
bright light they can't possibly mistake me for either of
them. Hello!" he broke off. "There went one of them, just
then, across that patch of light, down yonder. And, unless my
eyes are going back on me, there's another of them creeping
along toward the head of the path. They must have seen--or
thought they saw--some one dash down there, even if it was too
dark for them to recognize him. And they are trying to get
some line on who he is .... The moon is coming up. That
won't help them, to any great extent."
He turned back into the room, partly shutting the door behind
him. But he did not finish the process of closing it.
For--sweet, faint, yet distinct to them all--the soaring notes
of a mocking-bird's song swelled out on the quiet of the
night.
"Rodney Hade!" gasped Standish. "It's his first signal. He
gives it when he's a hundred yards from the end. Good Lord!
And he's going to walk straight into that ambush! It's--it's
sure death for him!"