UNDER THE RED STONE
When I opened my eyes Watkins was bending over me.
"Ah, there, Mister Jack," he said, "'ave a drink of this. Thank you,
sir." And as I struggled to a sitting position: "No need of 'aste,
sir. All's well. And you 'ad a bit of a knock, if I may say so,
sir."
"It seems as though you and I were the Jonahs, Watty," I answered.
"This is the third time I've passed out cold.
"Quite right, sir. The same thought was in me own 'ead. If Mrs.
Prouty and 'Awkins--the butler, sir--and the others in the Servants'
'All could 'ave seen me last night, they would 'ave been startled,
sir. I do assure you they would. There was that Russian young lady,
now. I give you my word, sir, she cursed like a maniac, and 'er
brother was no better when 'e came from 'is faint. A fair rowdy lot
of people we 'ad on our 'ands--including the young person in whom
Mister Nikka happears to be interested, as the saying goes, sir."
"You said 'last night,' I believe," I interrupted.
"Yes, sir. It's close to noon, Mister Jack. But Lord bless you,
sir, there's been no rest. We 'ad a largish hundertaker's job, let
alone tidying up and minding the prisoners."
"What have we done with the bodies?"
"In the garden, sir. The prisoners did the work--except the Russian
persons, sir. 'E couldn't, account of 'is leg, and she, being a
lady, so to speak, was hexcused."
"Well, I'm going to get up," I announced. "My shoulder feels better."
"If you wish, sir. Miss Betty thought you would be fit after a nap.
She and Mister Nikka's uncle, the tall old gentleman who looks like
Pantaloon in the Drury Lane pantos, they looked you over. They said
your shoulder bone was bruised and the muscle torn, sir; but they've
wrapped you up to the king's taste. My instructions were to get you
anything you required, but with submission, sir, might I suggest you
sleep a little longer? There's nothing--oh, 'ere's Mister Nikka."
Nikka strolled in from the courtyard--I was lying in the apse at the
end of the large chamber on the ground floor of the House of the
Married--with Kara trailing him.
"Hullo, Jack!" he greeted me. "Tough luck you had to stop a bullet.
We're all more or less cut up, but you had the worst of it, although
my uncle, who is a practical surgeon in a crude way, claims the
bullet missed the bone."
"So Watkins told me. Any news? The police--"
"No, the storm covered the shooting. Hugh has been to Pera with
Betty in the _Curlew_ this morning, and they heard no comments. One
of Wasso Mikali's men stopped in at the corner coffee-shop, and made
sure there was no local gossip. The only danger, I think, is from
Mrs. Hilyer. We've got to risk that."
"Aren't you all worn out?"
"No. Too much excitement, I expect. We're just going to eat. Then
Betty insists on going after the treasure again."
Kara sidled up to him, with a venomous glance at me, and ejaculated a
remark sotto voice. Nikka laughed, and pushed her behind him. She
heeded him like a dog that is contented with a rebuke, so long as
notice is taken by its master.
"She said," Nikka translated, "that I ought not to talk with you any
longer. She wants me to pay attention to her."
"Humph!" I growled, returning Kara's look with interest. "Help me
up, will you? Thanks! What are you going to do with her?"
"Tame her, I expect," he answered cheerfully. "I've begun by taking
her knife away from her. She wanted to stick Betty because I talked
more than five minutes to Bet about you."
"A sweet job! She'll end by sticking you."
"Perhaps," agreed Nikka equably. "Come and get some breakfast. A
cup of coffee will help you to take a more charitable view of a wild
little Gypsy girl."
Hugh, Betty and Vernon King welcomed us as we entered the atrium,
where a low table of packing-boxes had been rigged. Wasso Mikali and
his men were either guarding the prisoners or else keeping watch on
the street entrance. Kara scowled at all of us, but squatted
determinedly behind Nikka. Watkins proceeded to serve, and I was
amused to observe that Kara, much against her will, was secretly awed
by the matter-of-fact pomp with which Watkins was able to invest a
meal under such impromptu conditions.
We talked very little. The one idea in the mind of each of us was to
get at the red stone, which we could see from where we sat, and we
choked down our food as rapidly as possible. I forgot completely my
injured shoulder. Watkins actually hurried himself in passing the
eggs. Betty and Hugh crumbled a few bits of toast, and strangled
over their coffee. Vernon King alone ate placidly, with the zest of
a man who feels he has done a good job well. At last, Betty could
stand it no longer, and she sprang up with an imitation of Kara's
scowl so faithful that everybody, except Kara, laughed.
"Daddy, you've had time for two breakfasts," she decreed. "That's
enough. Besides, I won't have you getting fat in your old age.
Come! Everybody! We've got our chance, our chance that we began to
think was gone aglimmering. The treasure of the Bucoleon is at our
feet--under our feet, I mean. Up with the red stone!"
"Up she goes!" assented Hugh.
Crowbars, chisels, mallets, picks and shovels appeared, and Hugh
paced the distance from the Fountain of the Lion. His calculations
indicated the stone that I had roughly estimated on our first visit
to the garden. We all watched him with madly beating hearts. It was
really true! We were going to lay bare the secret covered by the red
stone, to grasp the prize that the Emperor Andronicus had concealed
seven centuries before, the prize that generation after generation of
men had striven for in vain.
The thought exhilarated us, and when Hugh stepped aside and seized a
chisel and mallet we all set to with superhuman energy. I was unable
to do much, but I experienced a sharp pleasure in the mere act of
holding with my one hand the head of a chisel upon which one of the
others rained blows with a mallet. We could not take time for
conversation. We worked. Even Vernon King, who had millions at his
command, succumbed to the lure of the red stone's secret, and panted
as he chipped the rotten mortar from the interstices between the red
stone and those surrounding it.
Working at such a pace and with so many willing hands, it was only a
matter of a few minutes before the stone was detached from its
neighbors, and Nikka thrust the tip of a crowbar under its edge.
Followed then a struggle of some duration, but in the end it sagged
up and was overturned. Below it was a second stone of equal
dimensions, granite, unmortared, although the dust of ages had sifted
into the cracks around it. This yielded to our efforts much sooner
than had the cap-stone, and Hugh, kneeling amongst the debris, peered
down into a yawning hole in the pavement.
"Careful!" warned King. "A compartment which has been sealed for
centuries will be full of carbonic-acid gas."
Hugh sniffed.
"It's as damp as--as--that beastly drain," he said. "But it smells
reasonably sweet."
We poked our torches into the hole. All they showed was a steep
flight of stairs descending straight into blackness.
"Most extraordinary!" mumbled Vernon King. "Byzantine masonry,
beyond a doubt. Observe the squaring of the blocks, and the
composition of the mortar. This is no such slovenly work as Turkish
masons do. The master-builders of old laid these stones."
"If it's safe, what are we waiting for?" I barked.
Our nerves were on edge.
"Oh, take your time," said Hugh impatiently, and he lowered himself,
feet first.
The others followed him, one by one, and I brought up the rear,
ashamed of myself for the temper I had exhibited. The pitch of the
stairs was so sharp that we had to bend only a little in passing
under the rim of the opening. They were barely wide enough for one
man, and I counted thirty of them before they terminated in a passage
that led off at right angles, with an appreciable downward slope.
"Hold up!" Hugh called back to us a moment later. "Here's an opening
into another passage. There's a step down. Why, this is the drain
again!"
We joined him, incredulous, only to be convinced at once that he was
right. The passage debouched on the sewer some distance inland from
the grating of the dungeon.
"My God!" groaned Hugh. "And we've gone through everything for this!
Was there ever such a sell!"
The vaulted roof echoed his words. The "drip-drip" of slime and
fungi was a melancholy punctuation for them. But the reaction
loosened our taut nerves. The one thought of all of us was to
comfort Hugh.
"There may be some explanation," said Nikka.
"Perhaps we overlooked something," I volunteered.
"It is a most unusual archæological discovery," offered King.
"There is an explanation," cried Betty. "We have overlooked
something. I know it. There must be."
"It's no go," answered Hugh despondently. "I've brought you on a
wild-goose chase."
We all looked rather white and wan in the cold light of the electric
torches.
"It's not your fault, old man," I said after a moment's silence,
trying dismally to be cheerful. "The lead looked good. We followed
it because we hoped it would make you rich. We failed, and that's
that."
Betty stared wildly from one to the other of us.
"You all make me tired," she exclaimed. "Why should we give up hope?
How long have we looked, so far? What-- Oh, let me by! I must
think!"
She brushed by me into the fake passage, and the echo of her
footfalls reached us as she ascended to the garden.
"We might as well follow her," said Hugh. "I'm awfully sorry, you
chaps. You risked your lives for this rotten show. My poor deluded
ancestor! I expect most of these buried treasure stories are bunk,
anyway. In fact, I have a dim recollection of telling poor Uncle
James as much. And there's another thing to make the gods laugh! A
fine old cock like Uncle James devoting his whole life to following a
will-o'-the-wisp--and then losing it for nothing. It--it's--oh,
Hell, I suppose it's really funny!"
We climbed wearily up the thirty steps to the garden level. As I
reached the surface the first object my eyes encountered was Betty,
sitting on the red stone and poring over a sheet of paper.
"Hullo!" she called, looking up with all her accustomed vivacity.
"Do you recognize this paper, Hugh?"
She fluttered it at him.
"Looks like my handwriting," he admitted.
"It's the copy of the Instructions you sent me, which I remailed to
myself Poste Restante. I remembered it this morning when we were in
Pera and called for it at the Post Office while you were packing the
bags at the hotel. I thought we might need it."
"What good can it do?" asked Hugh heavily.
"There's an important point in it, which nobody has appreciated up to
this time. It becomes doubly important in view of what we have just
seen."
"The elided portion!" exclaimed Nikka.
"Exactly! Look!"
And she spread the paper before us. Hugh had faithfully copied his
uncle's translation of the old Latin, setting down also the several
lines of dots by which Lord Chesby had indicated the words which had
been smudged out by moisture and handling at some past time. They
appeared, you will recall, at the conclusion of the explicit
directions:
"Underfoot is a red stone an ell square. Raise the--"
And then nothing distinguishable until the concluding line of
farewell.
"Well?" demanded Betty triumphantly as we all studied the cryptic
dots.
Hugh shook his head.
"Betty, you were a brick to remember it," he said, "but honestly,
what use is it? Whatever words are missing are unimportant. They
must have been or somebody would have rewritten them."
"That does not necessarily follow," spoke up Vernon King. "Old
documents, especially those inscribed on parchment, are tricky
records. It frequently happens that some isolated portion will be
spoiled, while the other parts of the same sheet may retain their
integrity. Moreover, we should not lose sight of the possibility
that the person who last concealed the parchment, the Lady Jane
Chesby of whom you have spoken, seems not to have been inclined to
attach much importance to it. She would have been the last one to
attempt to make good its deficiencies."
"But where could the treasure be that we have not looked?" demanded
Hugh. "The directions are explicit. We followed them faithfully.
So far as they exist we have verified their accuracy. But we have
uncovered no place which could have served as a treasure chamber."
"Yes, Hugh, the directions are explicit," retorted Betty. "And as
you say, so far as we have them they have proved correct. They left
us in the passage under the red stone which ends at the drain. And
why was that passage built? Why to get into the drain!"
"And the treasure was in the drain?" protested Hugh. "That's absurd,
Bet."
"It would have been washed away long ago," I scoffed. "That place is
full of water at very high tides."
"I didn't say it was heaped on the floor and left there," returned
Betty.
"Where would it be?" asked Nikka.
"That's what we have to find out."
"What about the grating in the floor of the dungeon?" I cut in. "If
they wanted to get into the drain--"
"But no man who had hidden a treasure in the drain would have relied
on a drainage grating in a dungeon for means of access to it,"
answered Betty.
"That dungeon was a place for getting rid of special prisoners,"
interrupted King. "When the drain was actively in use, the water
must often have backed up into the dungeon. I agree with Elizabeth
that an Emperor hiding a vast treasure would not have utilized the
grating for access to it."
Nikka closed the argument.
"I am on Betty's side in this," he said. "At the least, she has
given us something definite to work on. Now, if you will take my
advice, Hugh, you and Professor King, with Betty and Jack to help
you, will be the treasure-hunting squad. I had best remain here to
act as expeditionary liaison officer with Wasso Mikali and his people
at need. And if you don't mind, I'll need Watkins as galloper."
Every one agreed to this plan, and the four of us immediately
descended into the passage again. King made a careful study of the
stonework, in which I assisted him, with a view to ascertaining
beyond any doubt whether there was any sealed opening in its walls.
Both of us considered this the logical first step, but Hugh and Betty
wearied of so unexciting a task and left us to explore the upper end
of the drain.
We had been at this for rather more than an hour, without the
faintest hint of success, when we were interrupted by a hail from
Hugh.
"Professor! Jack! Come here!"
"Oh, Dad," called Betty, "here's a funny inscription on the wall."
We dropped into the water, and waded inland for some twenty-odd paces
to where they were standing, with their torches bearing on a patch of
marble let into the rough face of the right-hand wall. Hugh was
working with his knife-point, scraping away the moss and fungi that
partially obscured the letters.
"I saw it by accident," bubbled Betty. "We went up a long way to
where the roof gets much lower, and we heard water rushing ahead of
us, so Hugh said we ought to turn back. My light just happened to
catch on this piece of stone here as we passed it. There was one row
of letters quite clear, but the others were all overgrown with this
slimy stuff. What does it say, Dad?"
"It's Greek right enough," added Hugh, still scraping industriously.
"I can make out a word here and there, but it doesn't seem to be the
same language I boned at school. Just a moment, sir, and I'll have
the whole inscription cleared."
I peered over their shoulders at the deeply-carven lines of angular
characters.
[Illustration: Inscribed stone]
The stone was about three or four feet square, and below it was
another similar one. Above the lettering was an elaborately scrolled
cross. From it my eyes sought my uncle's face, and were held at once
by the astonishment I saw mirrored there.
"Most amazing!" he muttered to himself.
"What is it, Dad?" clamored Betty.
"But it can't be," he said, shaking his head. "Quite extraordinary!
Dear me, I never saw this formula before."
"For Pat's sake, tell us!" I implored.
"It says nothing about the treasure, my dear boys," he answered
sadly. "My surprise was called forth by the unusual form of
expression. These inscriptions always follow a certain set
phraseology, but this one is strikingly different."
"By gum," groaned Betty inelegantly. "Isn't this the limit?"
"Read it anyway," I urged.
Hugh was beyond words.
"It says," began King, "and mind you, I am translating roughly--your
statement that it differs from the classical Greek, standardized
according to German theories, Hugh, such as is taught in the
classroom, is quite correct--'In the year after Christ 1185 and of
the Indiction 2, Andronicus, the Scepter Wielder, Christ-loving
Emperor of the Romans, built this drain new from the tide level.'"
He broke off.
"So far it is no different from thousands of other inscriptions we
might find on the city walls, aqueducts, cisterns, churches or other
public works. But now comes the part I cannot understand: 'If there
were tongues, many might praise him."
"'If there were tongues many might praise him,'" repeated Betty.
"What does it matter?" said Hugh dispiritedly. "We're not interested
in whether or not the subjects of the Emperor Andronicus were anxious
to praise him. I could curse him for putting up a cock-and-bull
story on my foolish ancestor.'
"'If there were tongues many might praise him,'" repeated Betty
again. "And it was the Emperor Andronicus! The same, Daddy? The
one the Instructions speak about?"
"Manifestly, my dear, the date certifies to that."
"Then there must be something in it," she insisted. "'If there were
tongues many might praise him.' Don't you see what it means? There
were no tongues to praise him. This work was not known at the time.
Why? And why was he able to keep it a secret?"
"He may have murdered all the workmen," replied her father slowly.
"He was a singularly bloody tyrant, according to the contemporary
historians."
"Exactly," triumphed Betty. "And why would he have murdered them, in
order to keep this work a secret? You see, he 'built the drain new
from the tide-level, probably to this point. That means there was a
drain, but it needed repair, and he seized the opportunity to hide
his treasure. Hugh, where are those tools? I'm going to get this
stone out of the wall."
It was as hard a job as we tackled, despite the softening of the
mortar by the moisture of the ages; but after two hours, Hugh and
Vernon King were able to pry the slab loose and it fell out with a
mighty splash. Hugh thrust in the end of his crowbar, and it struck
brickwork. Our torches showed this to be very flimsy, and when it
was pounded it rang hollow. The three of us who had two arms apiece
went at it with a will, and I was dispatched for reinforcements.
Nikka refused to come himself, but he sent Watty, and the valet
helped in the final act of demolition. By the end of the afternoon
we had smashed through an embrasure nearly three feet high and four
feet long, and Hugh nominated Betty for the honor of leading the way
into the dim passage which abutted on the hole. The rest of us
crawled in afterward. My uncle and Watkins boosted me up, for my bad
shoulder hindered me.
The passage was seven feet high and four feet wide. It led straight
back between brick walls into a large chamber the roof of which was
upheld by brick piers. The place was musty, foetid even, and very
damp, but as our torches struggled through the darkness the rays were
captured and juggled by glinting, sheeny heaps that were stacked
against the piers and walls. Betty started forward involuntarily.
There was a slurring sound, and then a tiny tinkling that died away
in a faint murmurous ssssh.
"It's gold!" she cried.
We flashed our torches right and left. It was true. Great golden
piles sloped away from us. The fragments of the bags that once had
held this wealth projected from the multitude of coins. At the end
of the chamber the piles mounted to the roof. There were stray
rivulets of gold that trickled almost to the mouth of the passage.
To the left stood several tiers of ancient chests. The first yielded
at once to the point of Hugh's knife. The rotten wood cut like
cardboard. When he flung the lid back it fell apart, but we scarcely
noticed it for the dazzling glamor of the gems that seemed almost to
fight to escape from their centuries-long imprisonment.
Jewels and jewelry and massive plate were heaped in indiscriminate
confusion, huge salvers, cups, chalices, amphoræ, bracelets, armlets,
amulets, brooches, necklaces, rings beyond number--and running in and
out of the set stones, the endless profusion of unmounted gems,
diamonds, amethysts, rubies, opals, pearls, sapphires, topazes,
garnets, turquoises, emeralds, and others I could not name.
I picked up what had been a king's crown, a barbaric headdress of
crude unalloyed gold, red and soft, set with enormous uncut stones.
Next to it was a chased bracelet that might have come from the
goldsmiths' shops of Athens in the classic age. The quantity of
precious things was almost inconceivable. And this was but one of a
score of chests.
King stooped and scooped up a handful of gold pieces from the floor,
broad, finely-minted, bearing the double-headed eagle of Byzantium
and the busts and figures of dead-and-gone Emperors.
"Was there ever such a find?" he muttered. "What a chance for the
numismatists! See! Here is a Byzant of Artavasdos the Usurper. I
never saw one before. It was not known that he had coined money.
And here is the likeness of Arcadius, first of the Eastern Emperors."
Betty threw her arms around Hugh, as shameless, for the moment, as
Kara.
"Oh, I'm so glad!" she murmured. "It's as much as you thought it
would be, isn't it?"
Hugh was dazed.
"As much? By Jove, sweetheart, I--I never dreamed of anything like
this! I--really, you know, I didn't honestly believe in it before.
I used to pretend to make myself carry on. I told myself it was up
to me to see the thing through on Uncle James's account. But--this!
I say, Professor, how much do you suppose there is here?"
Vernon King swept his torch in an arc around the chamber, the extreme
confines of which were shrouded in shadow.
"I am no fiscal expert, my dear boy. It would take committee of
jewelers to assess those chests alone. As for the gold, I have seen
the Treasury vaults in Washington, and gold mounts up fast when you
run into the thousands of pounds avoirdupois. Just as a wild guess,
I might hazard a minimum of $100,000,000, £20,000,000 at normal
exchange."
"But it can't be!" I protested, the sweat beading my forehead at the
thought. "Why, it's ridiculous. They didn't have wealth on such a
scale in those days."
"Not at all, Jack," returned my uncle, his scholar's pride aroused.
"You must remember that you are viewing here the hoard accumulated by
a Roman Emperor, one of the last rulers before the definite
initiation of the Empire's final collapse. It was then still by far
the richest country of which we have any record. According to
Benjamin of Tudela, the Jewish traveler of the Twelfth Century, the
revenue received by the Emperor from the city of Constantinople by
itself amounted to 7,300,000 numismata, or in the neighborhood of
$20,000,000.
"Benjamin and other later authorities, Andreades, Paparrhegopulos,
Kalligas, assert the revenue derived from the remainder of the Empire
to have represented five times this sum. At the most moderate
computation, the total revenue of the Empire must have exceeded
$120,000,000. It was probably very much more. In addition, the
wealth of the individual citizens and nobles was enormous. The
Emperor Andronicus, with whose efforts we have to deal here, had two
years to milk the country's wealth. During those two years, he not
only absorbed the taxes, but confiscated the wealth of more nobles
than any ruler prior to that period.
"I should not be greatly surprised if the contents of this chamber
was discovered to exceed $125,000,000. Andronicus was possessed with
a mania for accumulating a treasure for rebuilding the Empire. If
he--"
"If you aren't very lucky, Hugh, you are going to lose all this stuff
just because you were lucky enough to find it," said Nikka's voice
behind us.
We turned to confront him. Kara's dark, passionate face was at his
shoulder. Her eyes drank in the picture, and she stood on her
tip-toes to whisper in Nikka's ear.
"No thank you, my dear," he answered drily. "She suggests that I
give her my knife, and that between us we clean up you people. Oddly
enough, she is not alone in possessing that idea. Who do you suppose
is upstairs?"
"Mrs. Hilyer," I exclaimed.
"Right. But she's not alone. She came back with Mahkouf Pasha.
I've got them both safe under lock-and-key, with Wasso Mikali's knife
at their throats. Still--"
He shrugged his shoulders.
"Out of the frying-pan into the fire, your ludship," remarked Watkins
glumly. "Sure I was this was too good to last."