money it would be a simple proposition to bribe some guard to pass us
through the lines, but I have spent all that General Betancourt gave
me." He smoothed back Rosa's dark hair and smiled reassuringly at her.
"Well, I'll manage somehow; so don't worry your pretty head. I'll find
the price, if I have to waylay old Don Mario and rob him. Don't you
think I look like a bandit? The very sight of me would terrify that fat
rascal."
"To me you are beautiful," breathed the girl. Then she lowered her
eyes. "La, la! How I spoil you! I have quite forgotten how to be
ladylike. Isabel was right when she called me a bold and forward hussy.
Now, then, please turn your face aside, for I wish to think, and so
long as you look at me I cannot--I make love to you brazenly. See! Now,
then, that is much better. I shall hold your hand, so. When I kiss it
you may look at me again, for a moment." Drawing herself closer to
O'Reilly, Rosa began thoughtfully: "Before you came I more than once
was on the point of appealing to some of my former friends, but they
are all Spaniards and we are no longer--simpatico, you understand?"
Rosa paused for his answer.
"Perfectly; I'm in the same fix. Of all the people I used to know there
isn't one but would denounce me if I made myself known. Now that I've
been fighting with the Insurrectos, I daren't even go to the American
consul for help--if there is an American consul."
Rosa nodded, then continued, hesitatingly: "I had a vivid dream last
night. Perhaps it was a portent. Who knows? It was about that
stepmother of mine. You remember how she met her death? I wrote you--"
"Yes, and Esteban also told me."
"It was he who recovered her body from the well. One day, while we were
in hiding, away up yonder in the Yumuri, he showed me an old coin--"
"I know," O'Reilly said, quickly. "He told me the whole story. He
thinks that doubloon is a clue to your father's fortune, but--I can't
put much faith in it. In fact, I didn't believe until this moment that
there was a doubloon at all."
"Oh, indeed there was! I saw it."
"Then it wasn't merely a sick fancy of your brother's?"
"Indeed no, it--" Rosa broke off to exclaim, "O'Reilly, you are looking
at me!"
"But you gave me the signal to look," he protested.
"Nothing of the sort; you placed your fingers upon my lips." There was
a moment of silence during which the lovers were oblivious to all but
each other, then Rosa murmured: "How strange! Sometimes your eyes are
blue and sometimes gray. Does that mean that your love, too, can
change?"
"Certainly not. But come, what about Esteban and that doubloon?"
With an effort the girl brought herself back to earth. "Well, it
occurred to me, in the light of that dream last night, that Esteban may
have been right. Of course nobody outside of our family credits the old
story, and yet my father was considered a very rich man at one time.
Pancho Cueto believed in the existence of the treasure, and he was in a
position to know."
"True! Perhaps, after all--" O'Reilly frowned meditatively.
Rosa lifted herself upon her elbow, her eyes sparkling. "Wouldn't it be
wonderful if it were true? Just think, O'Reilly, cases of Spanish gold,
silver coins in casks, packages of gems. Oh, I've heard Isabel talk
about it often enough!"
"Don't forget those pearls from the Caribbean, as large as plums,"
Johnny smiled. "I could never quite swallow that. A pearl the size of a
currant would buy our freedom right now." After a moment he went on,
more seriously: "I've a notion to look into that old well this very
afternoon. I--I dare say I'm foolish, but--somehow the story doesn't
sound so improbable as it did. Perhaps it is worth investigating--" He
made up his mind swiftly. "I--I'm off this very instant."
When O'Reilly emerged from the hut he found Jacket industriously at
work over a fragment of grindstone which he had somewhere unearthed.
The boy looked up at his friend's approach and held out for inspection
a long, thin file, which he was slowly shaping into a knife-blade.
"What do you think of that?" he queried, proudly. "It may come in handy
when we are ready to clear out of this pesthole."
"Where did you get it?"
"Oh, I stole it. I steal everything I can lay my hands on nowadays. One
can never tell when he may have a throat to cut, and a file has good
steel in it."
"Since you are such an accomplished thief, do you think you could steal
something for me?" O'Reilly inquired. "A piece of rope?"
"Rope?" Jacket was puzzled. "Rope is only good for hanging Spaniards.
My friend in the fish-market has a volandra, and--perhaps I can rob him
of a halyard." Laying aside his task, Jacket arose and made off in the
direction of the water-front. He was back within an hour, and under his
shirt he carried a coil of worn, but serviceable, rope. Without waiting
to explain his need for this unusual article, O'Reilly linked arms with
the boy and set out to climb La Cumbre. When at last they stood in the
unused quarry and Johnnie made known his intention to explore the old
well Jacket regarded him with undisguised amazement.
"What do you expect to find down there?" the latter inquired.
"To tell you the truth, I don't really expect to find anything," the
man confessed. "Now that I'm here, I'm beginning to feel silly;
nevertheless, I'm going to have a look for the hidden treasure of the
Varonas."
"Hidden treasure!" From Jacket's expression it was plain that he feared
his friend was mildly mad. Even after O'Reilly had told him something
about old Don Esteban's missing riches, he scouted the story. He peeped
inquisitively into the dark opening of the well, then he shook his
head. "Caramba! What an idea! Was this old man crazy, to throw his
money away?"
"He--he had more than he knew what to do with, and he wished to save it
from the Spaniards," O'Reilly explained, lamely.
"Humph! Nobody ever had more money than he wanted." The boy's disgust
at such credulity was plain. "This well looks just like any other, only
deeper; you'd better look out that you don't break your neck like that
foolish old woman, that Dona What's-Her-Name."
O'Reilly did indeed feel that he was making himself ridiculous,
nevertheless he made the rope fast and swung himself down out of the
sunlight, leaving Jacket to stand guard over him. Perhaps fifteen
minutes later he reappeared, panting from his exertions. He was wet,
slimy; his clothes were streaked and stained with mud. Jacket began to
laugh shrilly at his appearance.
"Ha! What a big lizard is this? Your beautiful garments are spoiled.
And the treasure? Where is it?" The lad was delighted. He bent double
with mirth; he slapped his bare legs and stamped his feet in glee.
O'Reilly grinned good-naturedly, and replaced the planks which had
covered the orifice, then hid the rope in some near-by bushes. On their
way back he endured his young friend's banter absent-mindedly, but as
they neared Asensio's house he startled Jacket by saying, "Can you
manage to find a pick-ax or a crowbar?"
Jacket's eyes opened; he stopped in the middle of the dusty road. "What
did you see down there, compadre? Tell me."
"Nothing much. Just enough to make me want to see more. Do you think
you can steal some sort of a tool for me?"
"I can try."
"Please do. And remember, say nothing before Asensio or his wife."
Rosa met O'Reilly just inside the door, and at sight of her he uttered
an exclamation of surprise, for during his absence she had removed the
stain from her face and discarded that disfigurement which Evangelina
had fitted to her back prior to their departure from the Pan de
Matanzas. She stood before him now, straight and slim and graceful--the
Rosa of his dreams, only very thin, very fragile. Her poor tatters only
enhanced her prettiness, so he thought.
"Rosa dear! Do you think this is quite safe?" he ventured, doubtfully.
Evangelina, who was bending over her husband, straightened herself and
came forward with a smile upon her black face.
"She is beautiful, eh? Too beautiful to look at? What did I tell you?"
Rosa was in delightful confusion at O'Reilly's evident surprise and
admiration. "Then I'm not so altogether changed?" she asked.
"Why, you haven't changed at all, except to grow more beautiful.
Evangelina is right; you are too beautiful to look at. But wait!" He
drew her aside and whispered, "I've been down in the well." Some tremor
in his voice, some glint in his eyes, caused the girl to seize him
eagerly, fiercely. "I may be wrong," he said, hurriedly; "there may be
nothing in it--and yet I saw something."
"What?"
"Wooden beams, timbers of some sort, behind the stone curbing." It was
plain Rosa did not comprehend, so he hurried on. "At first I noticed
nothing unusual, except that the bottom of the well is nearly
dry--filled up, you know, with debris and stuff that has fallen in from
the curbing above, then I saw that although the well is dug through
rock, nevertheless it is entirely curbed up with stones laid in mortar.
That struck me as queer."
"Yes?"
"I noticed, too, in one place that there was wood behind--as if timbers
had been placed there to cover the entrance to a cave. You know this
Cuban rock is full of caverns."
Rosa clasped her hands, she began to tremble. "You have found it,
O'Reilly. You HAVE!" she whispered.
"No, no, I've found nothing yet. But I've sent Jacket for a pick or a
bar and to-night I'm going to pull down those stones and see what is
behind them."
"To-night? You must let me go, too. I want to help."
"Very well. But meanwhile you mustn't let your hopes rise too high, for
there is every chance that you will be disappointed. And don't mention
it to Evangelina. Now then, I've a few pennies left and I'm going to
buy some candles."
Rosa embraced her lover impulsively. "Something tells me it is true!
Something tells me you are going to save us all."
Evangelina in the far corner of the hut muttered to her husband: "Such
love-birds! They are like parrakeets, forever kissing and cooing!"
Jacket returned at dusk and with him he brought a rusty three-foot iron
bar, evidently part of a window grating. The boy was tired, disgusted,
and in a vile temper. "A pick-ax! A crowbar!" He cursed eloquently.
"One might as well try to steal a cannon out of San Severino. I'm ready
to do anything within reason, but--"
"Why, this will do nicely; it is just what I want," O'Reilly told him.
"Humph! I'm glad to hear it, for that rod was nearly the death of me. I
broke my back wrenching at it and the villain who owned the house--may
a bad lightning split him!--he ran after me until I nearly expired. If
my new knife had been sharp I would have turned and sent him home with
it between his ribs. To-morrow I shall put an edge on it. Believe me, I
ran until my lungs burst."
Little food remained in the hut, barely enough for Asensio and the
women, and inasmuch as O'Reilly had spent his last centavo for candles
he and Jacket were forced to go hungry again. Late that evening, after
the wretched prison quarters had grown quiet, the three
treasure-hunters stole out of their hovel and wound up the hill. In
spite of their excitement they went slowly, for none of them had the
strength to hurry. Fortunately, there were few prowlers within the
lines, hunger having robbed the reconcentrados of the spirit to venture
forth, and in consequence Spanish vigilance had relaxed; it was now
confined to the far-flung girdle of intrenchments which encircled the
city. The trio encountered no one.
Leaving Jacket on guard at the crest of the hill, O'Reilly stationed
Rosa at the mouth of the well, then lowered himself once more into it.
Lighting his candle, he made a careful examination of the place, with
the result that Esteban's theory of the missing riches seemed even less
improbable than it had earlier in the day. The masonry-work, he
discovered, had been done with a painstaking thoroughness which spoke
of the abundance of slave labor, and time had barely begun to affect
it. Here and there a piece of the mortar had loosened and come away,
but for the most part it stood as solid as the stones between which it
was laid. Shoulder-high to O'Reilly there appeared to be a section of
the curbing less smoothly fitted than the rest, and through an
interstice in this he detected what seemed to be a damp wooden beam. At
this point he brought his iron bar into play.
It was not long before he discovered that his work was cut out for him.
The cement was like flint and his blunt makeshift implement was almost
useless against it. Ankle-deep in the muddy water, he patiently pecked
and pounded and chipped, endeavoring to enlarge the crevice so as to
use his bar as a lever. The sweat streamed from him and he became
dismayed at his own weakness. He was forced to rest frequently.
Rosa hung over the orifice above, encouraging him, inquiring eagerly as
to his progress. During his frequent breathing-spells he could discern
her white face dimly illumined by the candle-light from below.
After he had worked for an hour or two, he made a report: "It begins to
look as if there really was a bulkhead or a door in there."
The girl clapped her hands and laughed with delight. "Do hurry, dear;
I'm dying of suspense."
O'Reilly groaned: "That fellow, Sebastian, knew his business. This
cement is like steel, and I'm afraid of breaking my crowbar."
Rosa found a leaf, folded a kiss into it, and dropped it to him. "That
will give you strength," she declared.
O'Reilly lost all count of time after a while and he was incredulous
when Jacket came to warn him that daylight was less than an hour away.
"Why, I haven't started!" he protested. He discovered, much to his
surprise, that he was ready to drop from fatigue and that his hands
were torn and blistered; when he had climbed the rope to the upper air
he fell exhausted in the deep grass. "I--I'm not myself at all," he
apologized; "nothing to eat, you know. But the work will go faster now,
for I've made a beginning."
"Do you still think--" Rosa hesitated to voice the question which
trembled on her lips.
"I'll know for sure to-night." He directed Jacket to replace the planks
over the well; then the three of them stole away.
O'Reilly spent most of that day in a profound stupor of exhaustion,
while Rosa watched anxiously over him. Jacket, it seemed, had
peacefully slumbered on picket duty, so he occupied himself by grinding
away at his knife. The last scraps of food disappeared that evening.
When night fell and it came time to return to the top of La Cumbre,
O'Reilly asked himself if his strength would prove sufficient for the
task in hand. He was spiritless, sore, weak; he ached in every bone and
muscle, and it required all his determination to propel himself up the
hill. He wondered if he were wise thus to sacrifice his waning energies
on a hope so forlorn as this, but by now he had begun to more than half
believe in the existence of the Varona treasure and he felt an almost
irresistible curiosity to learn what secret, if any, was concealed
behind those water-soaked timbers at the bottom of the well. He
realized, of course, that every hour he remained here, now that food
and money were gone, lessened the chances of escape; but, on the other
hand, he reasoned, with equal force, that if he had indeed stumbled
upon the missing hoard salvation for all of them was assured. The
stake, it seemed to him, was worth the hazard.
Given tempered tools to work with, it would have been no great
undertaking to tear down that cemented wall of stones, but, armed with
nothing except his bare hands and that soft iron bar, O'Reilly spent
nearly the whole night at his task. Long before the last rock had
yielded, however, he beheld that which caused him to turn a strained
face upward to Rosa.
"There's a little door, as sure as you live," he told her.
The girl was beside herself with excitement. "Yes? What else? What more
do you see?"
"Nothing. It appears to be made of solid timbers, and has two huge
hand-wrought locks."
"Locks! Then we HAVE found it." Rosa closed her eyes; she swayed
momentarily. "Esteban was right. Locks, indeed! That means something to
hide. Oh, if I could only help you."
"God! If I only had something--ANYTHING to work with!" muttered the
American as he fell to with redoubled energy. He no longer tried to
conserve his strength, for the treasure-seeker's lust beset him. Rosa
looked on, wringing her hands and urging him to greater haste.
But the low, thick door was built of some hard, native wood: it was wet
and tough and slippery. O'Reilly's blows made no impression upon it,
nor upon the heavy hasps and staples with which it was secured in
place. The latter were deeply rusted, to be sure, but they withstood
his efforts, and he was finally forced to rest, baffled, enraged, half
hysterical from weakness and fatigue.
Daylight was at hand once more, but he refused to give up, and worked
on stubbornly, furiously, until Rosa, in an agony, besought him to
desist.
Johnnie again collapsed on the grass and lay panting while the other
two replaced the planks.
"Another hour and I'd have been into it," he declared, huskily.
"You will skill yourself," Jacket told him.
Rosa bent over him with shining eyes and parted lips. "Yes," said she.
"Be patient. We will come back, O'Reilly, and to-night we shall be
rich."
Colonel Cobo lit a black cigarette, leaned back in his chair, and
exhaled two fierce jets of smoke through his nostrils. For a full
moment he scowled forbiddingly at the sergeant who had asked to see him.
"What's this you are telling me?" he inquired, finally.
The sergeant, a mean-faced, low-browed man, stirred uneasily.
"It is God's truth. There are spirits on La Cumbre, and I wish to see
the priest about it."
"Spirits? What kind of spirits?"
The fellow shrugged. "Evil spirits--spirits from hell. The men are
buying charms."
"Bah! I took you to be a sensible person."
"You don't believe me? Well, I didn't believe them, when they told me
about it. But I saw with my own eyes."
Cobo leaned forward, mildly astonished. Of all his villainous troop,
this man was the last one he had credited with imagination of this
sort. "What did you see?"
"A ghost, my Colonel, nothing else. La Cumbre is no place for an honest
Christian."
The colonel burst into a mocking laugh. "An honest Christian! YOU! Of
all my vile ruffians, you are the vilest. Why, you're a thief, a liar,
and an assassin! You are lying to me now. Come--the truth for once,
before I give you the componte."
"As God is my judge, I'm telling you the truth," protested the soldier.
"Flog me if you will--rather the componte than another night in those
trenches. You know that old quinta?"
"Where Pancho Cueto made a goat of himself? Perfectly. Do you mean to
say that you saw old Esteban Varona walking with his head in his hands?"
"No, but I saw that she-devil who fell in the well and broke her neck."
"Eh? When did you behold this--this marvel?"
"Two nights ago. She was there beside the well and her face shone
through the night like a lantern. Christ! There was fire upon it. She
came and went, like a moth in the lamplight. I tell you I repented of
my sins. Some of the men laughed at me when I told them, as they had
laughed at the others. But last night two of the doubters went up
there."
"Exactly. And they saw nothing."
"Your pardon, my Colonel. They came back in a cold sweat, and they
spent the night on their knees. The woman was there again. You have
seen the salt sea at night? Well, her face was aglow, like that, so
they said. They heard the clanking of chains, too, and the sound of
hammers, coming from the very bowels of the earth. It is all plain
enough, when you know the story. But it is terrifying."
"This is indeed amazing," Cobo acknowledged, "but of course there is
some simple explanation. Spirits, if indeed there are such things, are
made of nothing--they are like thin air. How, then, could they rattle
chains? You probably saw some wretched pacificos in search of food and
imagined the rest."
"Indeed! Then what did I hear with these very ears? Whispers, murmurs,
groans, and the clinkety-clink of old Sebastian's chisel. For his sins
that old slave is chained in some cavern of the mountain. Soundless!
I'm no baby! I know when I'm asleep, and I know when I'm awake. That
place is accursed, and I want no more of it."
Cobo fell into frowning meditation, allowing his cigarette to smolder
down until it burned his thick fingers. He was not a superstitious man
and he put no faith in the supernatural, nevertheless he was convinced
that his sergeant was not lying, and reference to Pancho Cueto had set
his mind to working along strange channels. He had known Cueto well,
and the latter's stubborn belief in the existence of that Varona
treasure had more than once impressed him. He wondered now if others
shared that faith, or if by chance they had discovered a clue to the
whereabouts of the money and were conducting a secret search. It was a
fantastic idea, nevertheless Cobo told himself that if people were
prying about those deserted premises it was with some object, and their
actions would warrant observation. The presence of the woman--a
woman--with the glow of phosphorus upon her face was puzzling, but the
whole affair was puzzling. He determined to investigate. After a time
he murmured, "I should like to see this spirit."
The sergeant shrugged. It was plain from his expression that he could
not account for such a desire. "Another night is coming," said he.
"Good! I shall visit the place, and if I see anything unusual I--well,
I shall believe what you have told me. Meanwhile, go see your priest by
all means. It will do you no harm."
XXVI
HOW COBO STOOD ON HIS HEAD
All that day, or during most of it, at least, Rosa and O'Reilly sat
hand in hand, oblivious of hunger and fatigue, impatient for the coming
of night, keyed to the highest tension. Now they would rejoice
hysterically, assuring each other of their good fortune, again they
would grow sick with the fear of disappointment. Time after time they
stepped out of the hut and stared apprehensively up the slopes of La
Cumbre to assure themselves that this was not all a part of some
fantastic illusion; over and over, in minutest detail, Johnnie
described what he had seen at the bottom of the well. He tried more
than once during the afternoon to sleep, but he could not, for the
moment he closed his eyes he found himself back there in that pit upon
the ridge's crest, straining at those stubborn rocks and slippery
timbers. This inaction was maddening, his fatigue rendered him feverish
and irritable.
Jacket, too, felt the strain, and after several fruitless attempts to
sleep he rose and went out into the sunshine, where he fell to whetting
his knife. He finished putting a double edge upon the blade, fitted a
handle to it, and then a cord with which to suspend it round his neck.
He showed it to O'Reilly, and after receiving a word of praise he crept
out-doors again and tried to forget how sick he was. Black spots were
dancing before Jacket's eyes; he experienced spells of dizziness and
nausea during which he dared not attempt to walk. He knew this must be
the result of starvation, and yet, strangely enough, the thought of
food was distasteful to him. He devoutly wished it were not necessary
to climb that hill again, for he feared he would not have the strength
to descend it.
Luckily for the sake of the secret, Evangelina spent most of the day
searching for food, while Asensio lay babbling upon his bed, too ill to
notice the peculiar actions of his companions.
It was with a strange, nightmare feeling of unreality that the trio
dragged themselves upward to the ruined quinta when darkness finally
came. They no longer talked, for conversation was a drain upon their
powers, and the reaction from the day's excitement had set in. O'Reilly
lurched as he walked, his limbs were heavy, and his liveliest sensation
was one of dread at the hard work in store for him. The forcing of that
door assumed the proportions of a Herculean task.
But once he was at the bottom of the well and beheld the handiwork of
Sebastian, the slave, just as he had left it, his sense of reality
returned and with it a certain measure of determination. Inasmuch as he
had made no visible impression upon the bulkhead by his direct attack,
he changed his tactics now and undertook to loosen one of the jambs
where it was wedged into the rock at top and bottom. After a desperate
struggle he succeeded in loosening the entire structure so that he
could pry it out far enough to squeeze his body through.