the opening. He beheld what he had expected to find, a small cavern or
grotto which had evidently been pierced during the digging of the well.
He could appreciate now how simple had been the task of sealing it up
so as to baffle discovery. Rosa, poised above him, scarcely breathed
until he straightened himself and turned his face upward once more.
He tried to speak, but voiced nothing more than a hoarse croak; the
candle in his hand described erratic figures.
"What do you see?" the girl cried in an agony of suspense.
"I--It's here! B-boxes, chests, casks--everything!"
"God be praised! My father's fortune at last!"
Rosa forgot her surroundings; she beat her hands together, calling upon
O'Reilly to make haste and determine beyond all question that the
missing hoard was indeed theirs. She drew perilously close to the well
and knelt over it like some priestess at her devotions; her eyes were
brimming with tears and there was a roaring in her ears. It was not
strange that she failed to see or to hear the approach of a great
blurred figure which materialized out of the night and took station
scarcely an arm's-length behind her.
"He intended it for his children," she sobbed, "and Providence saved it
from our wicked enemies. It was the hand of God that led us here,
O'Reilly. Tell me, what do you see now?"
Johnnie had wormed his way into the damp chamber and a slim rectangle
of light was projected against the opposite side of the well. Rosa
could hear him talking and moving about.
Don Esteban Varona's subterranean hiding-place was large enough to
store a treasure far greater than his; it was perhaps ten feet in
length, with a roof high enough to accommodate a tall man. At the
farther end were ranged several small wooden chests bound with iron and
fitted with hasps and staples, along one side was a row of diminutive
casks, the sort used to contain choice wines or liquors; over all was a
thick covering of slime and mold. The iron was deeply rusted and the
place itself smelled abominably stale.
O'Reilly surveyed this Aladdin's cave in a daze. He set his candle
down, for his fingers were numb and unsteady. Cautiously, as if fearful
of breaking some spell, he stooped and tried to move one of the casks,
but found that it resisted him as if cemented to the rock. He noted
that its head was bulged upward, as if by the dampness, so he took his
iron bar and aimed a sharp blow at the chine. A hoop gave way; another
blow enabled him to pry out the head of the cask. He stood blinking at
the sight exposed, for the little barrel was full of coins--yellow
coins, large and small. O'Reilly seized a handful and held them close
to the candle-flame; among the number he noted a Spanish doubloon, such
as young Esteban had found.
He tested the weight of the other casks and found them equally heavy.
Knowing little about gold, he did not attempt to estimate the value of
their contents, but he judged they must represent a fortune. With
throbbing pulses he next lifted the lid of the nearest chest. Within,
he discovered several compartments, each stored with neatly wrapped and
labeled packages of varying shapes and sizes. The writing upon the tags
was almost illegible, but the first article which O'Reilly unwrapped
proved to be a goblet of most beautiful workmanship. Time had long
since blackened it to the appearance of pewter or some base metal, but
he saw that it was of solid silver. Evidently he had uncovered a store
of old Spanish plate.
In one corner of the chest he saw a metal box of the sort in which
valuable papers are kept, and after some effort he managed to break it
open. Turning back the lid, he found first a bundle of documents
bearing imposing scrolls and heavy seals. Despite the dampness, they
were in fairly good condition, and there was enough left of the writing
to identify them beyond all question as the missing deeds of patent to
the Varona lands--those crown grants for which Dona Isabel had searched
so fruitlessly. But this was not all that the smaller box contained.
Beneath the papers there were numerous leather bags. These had rotted;
they came apart easily in O'Reilly's fingers, displaying a
miscellaneous assortment of unset gems--some of them at first sight
looked like drops of blood, others like drops of purest water. They
were the rubies and the diamonds which had brought Isabel to her death.
O'Reilly waited to see no more. Candle in hand, he crept out into the
well to apprise Rosa of the truth.
"We've got it! There's gold by the barrel and the deeds to your land.
Yes, and the jewels, too--a quart of them, I guess. I--I can't believe
my eyes." He showed her a handful of coins. "Look at that! Doubloons,
eagles! There appear to be thousands of them. Why, you're the richest
girl in Cuba. Rubies, diamonds--yes, and pearls, too, I dare say--" He
choked and began to laugh weakly, hysterically.
"I've heard about those pearls," Rosa cried, shrilly. "Pearls from the
Caribbean, as large as plums. Isabel used to babble about them in her
sleep."
"I found those deeds the first thing. The plantations are yours now,
beyond any question."
Rosa drew back from her precarious position, for she had grown limp
from weakness and her head was whirling. As she rose to her feet she
brushed something, somebody, some flesh-and-blood form which was
standing almost over her. Involuntarily she recoiled, toppling upon the
very brink of the pit, whereupon a heavy hand reached forth and seized
her. She found herself staring upward into a face she had grown to know
in her nightmares, a face the mere memory of which was enough to freeze
her blood. It was a hideous visage, thick-lipped, fiat-featured, black;
it was disfigured by a scar from lip to temple and out of it gleamed a
pair of eyes distended and ringed with white, like the eyes of a man
insane.
For an instant Rosa made no sound and no effort to escape. The
apparition robbed her of breath, it paralyzed her in both mind and
body. Her first thought was that she had gone stark mad, but she had
felt Cobo's hands upon her once before and after her first frozen
moment of amazement she realized that she was in her fullest senses. A
shriek sprang to her lips, she tried to fight the man off, but her weak
struggle was like the fluttering of a bird. Cobo crushed her down,
strangling the half-uttered cry.
Terror may be so intense, so appalling as to be unendurable. In Rosa's
case a merciful oblivion overtook her. She felt the world grow black,
fall away; felt herself swing dizzily through space.
O'Reilly looked upward, inquiring, sharply, "What's the matter?" He
heard a scuffling of feet above him, but received no answer. "Rosa!
What frightened you? ROSA?" There was a moment of sickening suspense,
then he put his shoulder to the timbers he had displaced and, with a
violent shove, succeeded in swinging them back into place. Laying hold
of the rope, he began to hoist himself upward. He had gone but a little
way, however, when, without warning, his support gave way and he fell
backward; the rope came pouring down upon him. "ROSA!" he called again
in a voice thick from fright. Followed an instant of silence; then he
flattened himself against the side of the well and the breath stuck in
his throat.
Into the dim circle of radiance above a head was thrust--a head, a pair
of wide shoulders, and then two arms. The figure bent closer, and
O'Reilly recognized the swarthy features of that man he had seen at the
Matanzas railroad station. There could be no doubt of it--it was Cobo.
The men stared at each other silently, and of the two Cobo appeared to
be the more intensely agitated. After a moment his gaze fixed itself
upon the opening into the treasure-chamber and remained there. As if to
make entirely sure of what he had overheard, he stretched his body
farther, supporting it by his out-flung arms, then moved his head from
side to side for a better view. He seemed to rock over the mouth of the
well like a huge, fat, black spider. He was the first to speak.
"Am I dreaming? Or--have you really discovered that treasure?" he
queried.
O'Reilly's upturned face was ghastly. He wet his lips. He managed to
whisper Rosa's name.
"The riches of the Varonas! Christ! What a find!" Cobo's teeth shone
white in the grin of avarice. "Yes, I see now--a cavern in the rock.
Well, well! And you are the spirit of Sebastian, chained in the bowels
of La Cumbre. Ha! These are the ghosts--" He began to chuckle, but the
sound of his malevolent merriment was like the hiccoughing of a drunken
man.
"Rosa! What have you done--"
Cobo ran on unheeding: "It must be a great treasure, indeed, from all
accounts--the ransom of a dozen kings. That's what Cueto said, 'The
ransom of a dozen kings!' Those were his very words."
The fellow continued to sway himself back and forth, peering as if his
eyes were about to leave his head. For a long moment or two he utterly
disregarded O'Reilly, but finally as he gained more self-control his
gaze shifted and his expression altered. He changed his weight to his
left arm and with his right hand he drew his revolver.
"What are you doing?" O'Reilly cried, hoarsely.
The colonel seemed vaguely surprised at this question. "Fool! Do you
expect me to share it with you?" he inquired. "Wait! There's
enough--for all of us," O'Reilly feebly protested; then, as he heard
the click of the cocked weapon: "Let me out. I'll pay you well--make
you rich." In desperation he raised his shaking hand to dash out the
candle, but even as he did so the colonel spoke, at the same time
carefully lowering the revolver hammer.
"You are right. What am I thinking about? There must be no noise.
Caramba! A pretty business that would be, wouldn't it? With my men
running up here to see what it was all about. No, no! No gunshots, no
disturbance of any kind. You understand what I mean, eh?"
His face twisted into a grin as he tossed the revolver aside, then
undertook to detach a stone from the crumbling curb. "No noise!" he
chuckled. "No noise whatever."
O'Reilly, stupefied by the sudden appearance of this monstrous
creature, stunned by the certainty of a catastrophe to Rosa, awoke to
the fact that this man intended to brain him where he stood. In a panic
he cast his eyes about him, thinking to take shelter in the
treasure-cave, but that retreat was closed to him, for he had wedged
the wooden timbers together at the first alarm. He was like a rat in a
pit, utterly at the mercy of this maniac. And Cobo was a maniac at the
moment; he had so far lost control of himself as to allow the stone to
slip out of his grasp. It fell with a thud at O'Reilly's feet, causing
the assassin to laugh once more.
"Ho, ho!" he hiccoughed. "My fingers are clumsy, eh? But there is no
need for haste." He stretched out his arm again, laid hold of another
missile, and strained to loosen it from its bed. "Jewels! Pearls the
size of plums! And I a poor man! I can't believe it yet." He could not
detach the stone, so he fumbled farther along the curbing. "Pearls,
indeed! I would send a dozen men to hell for one--"
O'Reilly had been standing petrified, his body forced tightly against
the rough surface behind him, following with strained fascination the
deliberate movements of the man above him; now he saw Cobo, without the
least apparent reason, twist and shudder, saw him stiffen rigidly as if
seized with a sudden cramp, saw his eyes dilate and heard him heave a
deep, whistling sigh. O'Reilly could not imagine what ailed the fellow.
For an eternity, so it seemed, Cobo remained leaning upon his outspread
arms, fixed in that same attitude of paralysis--it looked almost as if
he had been startled by some sound close by. But manifestly that was
not the cause of his hesitation, for his face became convulsed and an
expression of blank and utter astonishment was stamped upon it. The men
stared fixedly at each other, O'Reilly with his head thrown back, Cobo
with his body propped rigidly upon wooden arms and that peculiar
shocked inquiry in his glaring eyes. But slowly this expression
changed; the colonel bent as if beneath a great weight, his head rose
and turned back upon his neck, he filled his lungs with another
wheezing sigh. "Christ! O Christ--" he whispered.
His teeth ground together, his head began to wag upon his shoulders; it
dropped lower and lower; one hand slipped from its hold and he lurched
forward. An instant he hung suspended from the waist; then he appeared
to let go limply as all resistance went out of his big body. There came
a warning rattle of dirt and mortar and pebbles; the next instant he
slipped into the well and plunged headlong down upon O'Reilly, an
avalanche of lifeless flesh.
Johnnie shielded himself with his up-flung arms, but he was driven to
his knees, and when he scrambled to his feet, half stunned, it was to
find himself in utter darkness. There was a heavy weight against his
legs. With a strength born of horror and revulsion he freed himself;
then hearing no sound and feeling no movement, he fumbled for the
candle and with clumsy fingers managed to relight it. Even after the
flame had leaped out and he saw what shared the pit with him he could
barely credit his senses. The nature of his deliverance was uncanny,
supernatural--it left him dazed. He had beheld death stamped upon
Cobo's writhing face even while the fellow braced himself to keep from
falling, but what force had effected the phenomenon, what unseen hand
had stricken him, Johnnie was at a loss to comprehend. It seemed a
miracle, indeed, until he looked closer. Then he understood. Cobo lay
in a formless, boneless heap; he seemed to be all arms and legs; his
face was hidden, but between his shoulders there protruded the crude
wooden handle of a home-made knife to which a loop of cord was tied.
O'Reilly stared stupidly at the weapon; then he raised his eyes.
Peering down at him out of the night was another face, an impertinent,
beardless, youthful face.
He uttered Jacket's name, and the boy answered with a smile. "Bring my
knife with you when you come," the latter directed.
"YOU!" The American's voice was weak and shaky. "I thought--" He set
the candle down and covered his eyes momentarily.
"That's a good knife, all right, and sharp, too. The fellow died in a
hurry, eh? Who does he happen to be?"
"Don't you know? It--it's Cobo."
"COBO! Coby, the baby-killer!" Jacket breathed an oath. "Oh, that
blessed knife!" The boy craned his small body forward until he was in
danger of following his victim. "Now this IS good luck indeed! And to
think that he died just like any other man."
"Rosa! Where is she?" O'Reilly inquired in a new agony of apprehension.
"Oh, she is here," Jacket assured him, carelessly. "I think she has
fainted. Caramba! Isn't that like a woman--to miss all the fun? But,
compadre--that was a blow for Cuba Libre; what? People will talk about
me when I'm as dead as that pig. 'Narciso Villar, the slayer of
Cobo'--that's what they'll call me." Jacket giggled hysterically. "I--I
thought he would jump up and run after me, so I fled, but he tried to
bury himself, didn't he? His flesh was like butter, O'Reilly."
"Help me out, quick! Here, catch this rope." Johnnie managed to fling
the coil within reach of his little friend and a moment later he had
hoisted himself from that pit of tragedy.
XXVII
MORIN, THE FISHERMAN
When Rosa Varona regained consciousness sufficiently to understand what
had happened she proved herself a person of no little self-control. She
went to pieces for a moment, as was only natural, but O'Reilly soon
succeeded in calming her. Nor did he have to remind her twice that this
was no time for weakness or hysteria; it was she, in fact, who first
voiced the fear that Cobo dead was scarcely less of a menace than Cobo
alive.
"What are we going to do with him?" she inquired.
Jacket, too, appreciated the dangers of the situation. "We must get rid
of him quickly," said he, "for his men are close by; he will be missed
and there will be a search."
"I don't intend to make him a present of that treasure," O'Reilly said,
grimly. "It is our only salvation."
"But how are we going to hide him?" Jacket inquired. "One might as well
try to conceal a church; oxen couldn't hoist him out of that hole."
"Precisely! He has made our work easy for us. We can't take more than a
small part of the money with us, anyhow; the rest will have to lie here
until the war is over. Well! We shall leave Cobo on guard over what
remains!"
Jacket was immensely pleased with this idea, once he had grasped it.
"What could be better?" he cried. "The man's spirit is evil enough to
frighten people away and we will drop stones upon him, so that he can
learn the taste of his own medicine. It suits me exactly to think of
Colonel Cobo standing on his head in a hole in the ground for the rest
of eternity!"
O'Reilly was by this time suffering the full reaction from the events
of the past half-hour and he was nearer exhaustion than he dreamed,
but, conquering his repugnance for his unescapable task, he lowered
himself once more into the well. His arms were weak, however, and his
fingers numb, so he fell rather than slid the length of the rope. He
managed to open the door of the treasure-chamber, then entered and
loaded his pockets with gold. He sent up the jewel-box at the end of
the rope, dragged the body of Cobo into the cave, then wedged the
barricade back into place. It required the combined strength of Rosa
and Jacket to help him the last few feet of his climb.
"Now fetch stones, rubbish, anything--and throw it in there," he gasped.
The boy and the girl fell to with a will, and after a time Johnnie
joined them. Slowly, laboriously, the three of them carried debris from
the edge of the quarry and bricks from the ruined house; they scraped
up armfuls of leaves and trash--anything, in fact, which would serve to
raise the bottom of the shaft and conceal the entrance to their enemy's
resting-place. It was slavish work, but O'Reilly kept them at it until
they were ready to drop. Daylight overtook them at their task.
They were weak, sick, deadly tired; they could barely shuffle a few
yards at a time when they finally reached Asensio's hut; nevertheless
there was hope in their hearts, for O'Reilly's ragged clothes sagged
with the weight of gold pieces and the little metal box he carried was
heavy. Nor were they greatly concerned about the safety of the treasure
they had left behind, for the entrance to the cavern lay deeply buried,
and Cobo, the guerrilla, stood guard over the chests of plate and the
casks of coin.
Evangelina, vastly bewildered at the sight of the coin which was forced
into her palm, went for food and spent most of the day in cooking it.
The treasure-hunters alternately slept and ate. It was not until well
along toward evening that Rosa and O'Reilly felt any desire to take
stock of the contents of that jewel-box, but finally, with heads
together and with backs to the door of the bohio, they made a furtive
examination. It was a task that held them spellbound, for there were
loose gems of many varieties, some well, some badly cut; there were
pieces of antique Spanish jewelry, valuable mainly by virtue of their
antiquity, clumsy settings of silver and gold containing dead,
uninteresting stones; others of the finest and most delicate
workmanship. Some of the pieces were like glittering cobwebs enmeshing
sparks of fire and drops of blood. They found emeralds and sapphires
the value of which they did not attempt to estimate; and, besides
these, a miscellaneous assortment of semiprecious stones. There was a
fine collection of opals of every size and color, among which were a
number of huge flat black ones, indescribably gorgeous with their
ever-changing peacock hues. But finest of all the lot were the pearls.
Where old Don Esteban had secured these latter was a mystery, for he
had not been a widely traveled man. They were splendid, unrivaled in
size and luster. Some had the iridescence of soap-bubbles, others
ranged from pink to deepest chocolate in color. To touch them was like
sacrilege.
O'Reilly realized vaguely that he held in his lap a fortune greater
than his wildest dreams had ever compassed. These were the jewels of a
rajah. It seemed incredible that this ragged girl beside him was a
regal heiress, the possessor of a treasure such as kings might envy.
After a time he realized that the mere possession of these gems
constituted a new and overwhelming menace.
All that evening he and Rosa cowered in the darkness, whispering
furtively, their nerves on edge, their senses strained. It seemed to
them that new and unsuspected perils stalked abroad through the night.
Morning found all hands more nearly rational and feeling the first
gnawings of a healthy hunger. Even Asensio confessed to a quite
miraculous improvement. While Evangelina prepared breakfast the lovers
agreed upon a story to explain the origin of that mysterious gold
piece, and later Johnnie warned Jacket for a second time to keep his
tongue between his teeth.
"We will have to be doubly careful now," he told the boy. "An unguarded
word or an incautious move would be the end of us."
Jacket nodded his complete comprehension. "Sure! All Spaniards are
robbers and they'd kill us for a peso. Yes, and the pacificos are no
better. I tell you we need to get out of this place."
"I intend to arrange it at once, but--the sight of those jewels has
frightened me. If we are searched--if we are even suspected--"
"Oh, Rosa wouldn't have any more use for her pretty trinkets. She'd be
in heaven before you could scratch your nose."
O'Reilly frowned. "She isn't at all strong yet. I'm wondering if she
can endure the hardships we'll encounter when, or if, we get away."
"Exactly what I was thinking. I've been considering another plan."
"Indeed?" O'Reilly scanned the face of his young friend with interest.
He was beginning to have a high regard for Jacket's capabilities, and
the boy's exploit of the night before certainly entitled him to be
heard upon any subject.
"I told you about my friend at the market," the latter continued.
"Well, he is a miserable Spaniard, but he has a son in the manigua."
"One of us?" Johnnie was surprised.
"Yes. The old fellow owns a volandra in which he brings charcoal from
the eastward twice a month."
There was a moment of silence; then O'Reilly said, slowly, as if
hesitating even to voice such a suggestion, "You mean--he might take us
out of here--on his schooner?"
"Who knows? He's not a bad old fellow and he likes me. But there would
be no place for women."
"How well does he like you?"
"Oh, we are like two thieves."
After another period of thought O'Reilly said, "Take me to him, and
remember I'm your brother Juan."
The Matanzas market did not present a scene of great activity when the
two friends slunk into it. It was midday, and what food had earlier
been offered for sale had for the most part long since disappeared. All
but a few of the stalls were empty, and a number of emaciated
reconcentrados were searching listlessly among them for neglected
scraps, or imploring aid from such marketmen as still lingered about.
Like most Spanish markets, the building was far from clean and housed
odors unpleasant even to starving people. In the smelliest section, at
one of the fish-stalls, Jacket accosted a villainous old brigand in a
rough Gallego cap, baggy blouse and trousers, and straw sandals.
"Good day, my Captain," he cried, cheerily.
The Spaniard raised his head, scowled ferociously, then waved a long,
thin-bladed knife in menacing fashion.
"Aha! So there you are, robber! Be off now before I slit your greedy
little belly!" He spoke in an angry, husky voice. When Jacket stood his
ground he reached for him with a hand upon which blood and fish-scales
had dried. "Didn't I promise to give you to the soldiers if you came
back to bother me?"
Jacket was unabashed by this hostile reception. He grinned broadly and
with an impudent eye he scanned the empty premises. "Where is my little
fish?" he demanded. "As I live, I believe you have sold it! God! What a
miser! For the sake of another centavo you would see me starve? There's
a heart for you!"
"YOUR little fish!" roared the brigand, clashing his blade on the
filthy counter. "No shark ever stole so many fish as you. Come, I shall
make an end of you, and have some peace. Starve? YOU? Bah! Your body is
like a gourd."