COFFIN ROCK.
Miss Sarah Liverage had taken herself out of the reach of all further
communication in regard to the hidden treasure. Leopold had no hope of
being able to see or hear from her. She had not sent him her last
address, and he had used all the means in his power to carry out the
terms of the agreement. He considered himself, therefore, released from
all responsibility, so far as she was concerned. But even then he did
not feel like going to High Rock and taking the money for his own or his
father's use. He could not get rid of the idea that the money belonged
to somebody. If Wallbridge had saved this money from the earnings of two
years in Cuba, it certainly ought to go to his heirs, now that he was
dead.
The remarks of Harvey Barth in his diary seemed to indicate that the
passenger had committed some crime, or at least that he was open to the
suspicion of having done so. Leopold considered, whether this might not
be the reason why no one had yet claimed any relationship to him. The
young man was sorely perplexed in regard to his duty in the matter; and
he was really more afraid of doing wrong than he was of losing twelve
hundred dollars in gold. He did not like to confess it even to himself;
but he was afraid that his father's views, if he told him about the
hidden treasure, might he looser than his own. He believed that the
landlord was even more honest than the majority of men; but, after he
had commenced upon the extensive improvements of the hotel, the son
feared that the father might be tempted to do what was not exactly
right.
While all these questions remained unsettled in the mind of Leopold, he
did nothing to recover the money, until the hotel was nearly completed.
In fact, he had no time to do so, for his father kept him busy from
morning till night, and then he was so tired that he did not even feel
like reading the diary. After he had obtained the important facts in
regard to the buried money, he did not feel any further interest in the
journal of Harvey Barth. He had tried to read portions of it; but each
day commenced with a detailed account of the writer's health, with
remarks on the weather, and similar topics, which did not hold the
attention of the young man. The enlargement of the hotel was a subject
which engrossed his whole mind, after the novelty of finding the diary
had worked itself off. He was deeply interested in the progress of the
work; and when the putting up of the partitions gave form and shape to
the interior, not many other matters occupied his mind.
The mechanics finished their labors, and the hotel was ready to receive
the new furniture which had been purchased for it. Leopold was busier
than ever, and hardly a thought of the hidden treasure came to his mind.
He put down carpets and put up bedsteads, till he was nearly worn out
with hard work, though the excitement of seeing the various apartments
of the new house assume their final aspect prevented him from feeling
the fatigue of his labor. By the middle of June everything was ready
for the reception of guests, though not many of them were expected to
arrive till the middle of July. Now the hotel was called the "Sea Cliff
House," and its opening was advertised in the principal cities of New
York and New England. As the Island Hotel lost its "trade" and the new
house obtained it all, Ethan Wormbury was correspondingly angry.
As usually happens to those who rebuild and remodel private or public
houses, the expense far exceeded the estimates. The war of the rebellion
was in progress, and the prices of everything in the shape of building
material and furniture had fearfully increased. The nine thousand
dollars which Mr. Bennington had on hand to pay his bills, was exhausted
long before the work was completed. The landlord was sorely troubled,
and he went to Squire Wormbury to obtain a further loan on his property;
but the money-lender declared that he would not risk another dollar on
the security. Then Mr. Bennington mortgaged his furniture for two
thousand dollars,--all he could obtain on it,--in order to relieve the
pressure upon him; but even then the "floating debt" annoyed him very
seriously. He had always paid his bills promptly, and kept out of debt,
so that his present embarrassment was doubly annoying to him, on account
of its novelty. With all his mind, heart and soul he regretted that he
had undertaken the great enterprise, and feared that it would end in
total ruin to him.
The landlord talked freely with his wife and Leopold about his
embarrassments, and the son suffered quite as much as the father on
account of them. There were guests enough in the hotel to have met the
expenses of the old establishment, but not of the new one; and the
landlord found it difficult even to pay the daily demands upon him. He
was almost in despair, and a dollar seemed larger to him now than ever
before, and hardly a single one of them would stay in his pocket over
night. The interest on the mortgage note would be due on the first of
July, and Mr. Bennington knew not where to obtain the first dollar with
which to pay it. The landlord was in great distress, for he knew that
Squire Moses was as relentless as death itself, and would show him no
mercy.
"I don't see but I must fail," said Mr. Bennington, with a deep sigh, as
the day of payment drew near.
"Fail, father!" exclaimed Leopold.
"That will be the end of it all. If I don't pay my interest on the day
it is due, Squire Wormbury will foreclose his mortgage, and take
possession of the house," groaned the landlord.
"Can't something be done, father?" asked the son.
"I don't know what I can do, I have borrowed of everybody who will lend
me a dollar. With one good season I could pay off every dollar I owe,
except Squire Wormbury's mortgage. It seems hard to go to the wall just
for the want of a month's time. I am sure I shall make money after the
season opens, for I have engaged half the rooms in the house after the
middle of July. Half a dozen families from Chicago are coming then, and
when I was in Boston a dozen people told me they would come here for the
summer."
"I think you will find some way to raise the money, father," added
Leopold, more hopeful than his father.
"I don't see where it is coming from. The bank won't discount any more
for me. I feel like a beggar already; and all for the want of a month's
time."
Leopold was very sad; but in this emergency he thought of the hidden
treasure of High Rock. But he had already made up his mind that this
money did not belong to him. He even felt that it would be stealing for
him to take it. In his father's sore embarrassment he was tempted to
appropriate the treasure, and let him use it as a loan. But then, if his
father should fail, and the heirs of Wallbridge should appear, he could
not satisfy them, or satisfy his own conscience.
But the temptation was very great; and the next time he went out alone
in the Rosabel, he visited the beach under High Rock. It was the first
time he had been there this season. He landed, and commenced the search
for the projecting rock which was shaped like a coffin. He walked from
one end of the beach to the other, without discovering any rock which
answered to Harvey Barth's description. He started to retrace his steps,
remembering that the writer of the journal had been unable to observe
the singular form of the rock after he had changed his position. The
tide was low, and he walked on the edge of the water; but by going in
this direction he had no better success. After spending an hour in
looking for it, he could discover no rock which looked like the emblem
of death. He returned to Rockhaven, almost convinced that Harvey Barth
had imagined the scene he had described in his diary.
The next day, just at dark, a thunder-storm, the first of the season,
came up. The weather had been warm and sultry for a week, and the
farmers declared that the season was a fortnight earlier than usual. The
roaring thunder and the flashing lightning reminded Leopold of the scene
described in Harvey's journal, and especially of the burying of the
twelve hundred dollars in gold. Without saving anything to any one of
his intention, he left the hotel, and embarked in the Rosabel, with no
dread of the rain, or a squall. There was wind enough to take him down
as far as the ledges, and then it suddenly subsided. Leopold furled his
mainsail, for the calm indicated a coming squall. It wanted an hour of
high tide, and he anchored the Rosabel at a considerable distance from
the shore, paying out the cable till the stern of the boat was in water
not more than three feet deep. Pulling upon the rope till he was
satisfied that the anchor had hooked upon one of the sharp rocks below
the beach, he prepared to go on shore. The beach sloped so sharply that
the sands were not more than twenty feet from the stern of the Rosabel.
It was now quite dark, but the scene was frequently lighted up by the
sharp lightning. The tide had risen so that the water was within a rod
of the cliffs. Taking an oar in his hand, he planted the blade end of it
in the water as far as he could reach from the stern, and grasping the
other end, he made a flying leap with its aid, and struck at a spot
where the water was only knee-deep. He had scarcely reached the beach
before the squall came; but it blew out of the north-west, so that the
Rosabel was partially sheltered from its fury by the projecting cliffs
between High Rock and the mouth of the river. She swung around, abreast
of the cliffs, into the deep water between the beach and the ledges.
Leopold watched her for a few moments, fearful that the change of
position might have unhooked the anchor; but it held on till the squall,
which expended its force in a few moments, was over. Then the rain came
down in torrents, drenching the boatman to the skin.
Leopold, with the oar in his hand, walked along the narrow beach,
watching the play of the lightning on the rocks of the cliff.
Occasionally he halted to observe the shapes they assumed, and he could
not help perceiving that the glare of the electric fluid gave them an
entirely different appearance from that which they usually wore. He had
landed near the ravine by which Harvey Earth had escaped from the angry
billows, and he walked to the farther end of the beach without seeing
any rock which bore the least resemblance to a coffin. The tide was
rising all the time, driving him nearer and nearer to the cliff. Leopold
was not much excited, for his former failure to find the hidden treasure
had almost convinced him that no such thing existed. He was cool
enough--drenched to the skin as he was--to reason about the movements
of the shipwrecked party on the beach.
"When Harvey Barth left Wallbridge filling up the hole in which he had
put the bag of gold," thought Leopold, "he must have walked towards the
'Hole in the Wall'"--as the ravine was called by those who visited High
Rock. "If he hadn't walked towards it, he wouldn't have found it. If he
had walked up and down the beach, he would have seen Wallbridge and the
mate when they went off in the whale-boat to return to the wreck. This
shows plainly enough that he only walked one way before he came to the
Hole. That way must have been the opposite direction from that I have
just come; for if he had walked the way I have, he could not have
reached the Hole; and there is no beach to walk on beyond it.
"When Harvey Barth looked behind him, he could not see the coffin; and
of course I couldn't see it when I came this way. I suppose it only
shows itself, like the man's head near the light-house, from one
particular point. The head can only be made out from a boat, when it
ranges between the island and the light, one way, and in line with the
dead tree and Jones's barn on the north shore, the other way. Twenty
feet from this position, nothing that looks like a head can be seen.
Probably this coffin works by the same rule. If it don't, it is strange
that I have never noticed it. Now I will walk in the direction that
Harvey Barth did, and if there is any coffin here I shall see it."
The bright flashes of lightning still illuminated the cliffs, as Leopold
walked slowly towards the Hole in the Wall, scrutinizing the rocks with
the utmost care. By the rising of the tide his line of march was now
within ten feet of the cliff, and the beach was of about the same width
as when the shipwrecked party had sought a refuge upon it; but the sea
was comparatively calm, and there was no peril on its smooth sands.
Leopold had gone about one third of the length of the beach, when his
eye rested upon a formation in the cliff, which, as the lightning played
upon it, assured him he had found what he sought. The view he had
obtained of it was only for an instant. He halted, waiting again till
the lightning again, enabled him to see the rock.
"That's it, as sure as I live!" exclaimed the boatman.
Again and again he saw it, as the lightning glared upon it; and the
resemblance to a coffin was certainly very striking. Harvey Barth was
justified again, and Leopold acknowledged to himself the correctness of
the description in the diary. Thrusting the oar down into the sand on
the spot where he was, so as not to loose the locality, he stood for
some time observing the phenomenon on the rocks. He understood now why
he had not seen it before. In his previous search, he had walked on the
beach twenty feet farther out from the cliff. Changing his position by
wading into the water, the shape of the coffin on the rock was lost
before he had moved ten feet from the oar. From this point it assumed a
new form, looking like nothing in particular but a mass of rock.
Leopold returned to the stake which he had set up, and then walked from
it to the cliff. When he stopped, the projecting rock was directly over
his head. He knew the spot very well. He had baked clams there for
Rosabel Hamilton during one of his visits to High Rock with her; and he
had dug over every foot of sand beneath it, in search of the hidden
treasure, without finding it. But Harvey Barth was so correct in regard
to his description of the locality that the boatman was more disposed to
rely upon his statements in other matters than he had ever been before.
He gathered a pile of stones to mark the place, and then gave himself up
to a careful consideration of the circumstances of the case. He could
not now escape the conclusion that the money was actually buried beneath
the projecting rock--"Coffin Rock" he had already named in his own mind;
and he proceeded to inquire why he had not found it, when he dug the
ground all over.
"Miss Liverage told me the hole which Wallbridge dug was not more than a
foot deep; and Harvey Barth's diary contained the same statement," said
the boatman to himself. "I dug a foot down, and the money was not there.
I remember I found a piece of boat-hook, with the iron on it about that
distance below the surface. What does that prove? How happened that
piece of a boat-hook, to be a foot under ground? On the top of the
cliffs the sand and gravel, with a little soil on top, is six feet
deep, and this beach is formed by the caving down of the earth. There is
no beach beyond the Hole, because the rocks are all bare on the top of
the cliff. I suppose the sand keeps dropping down, and the roll of the
sea has spread it out as it fell. I have no doubt that the hurricane
piled the sand up a foot or more next to the cliff. That's the reason I
didn't find the money. I will dig deeper now."
Satisfied with this reasoning, Leopold waded off to the Rosabel which
the tide had swung in towards the beach again. In the cuddy he had a
lantern,--for use when he was out after dark,--which he lighted. As he
was obliged to supply bait for parties who went out fishing with him, he
kept under the seat in the standing-room a boy's shovel, which his
father had given him years before, with which he dug clams on the
beaches. Letting out the cable, the boat drifted still nearer to the
beach, and the skipper landed, with his lantern and shovel. Throwing off
his wet coat, he began to dig under Coffin Rock. He allowed considerable
latitude in marking out the size of the hole, to allow for any possible
want of accuracy in Harvey Barth's observation.
It was pitch dark after the shower, for the sky and the stars were
obscured by dense clouds. Leopold had only the light of his lantern to
enable him to work, and his task was gloomy enough to satisfy the
veriest money-digger that ever delved into the earth for hidden
treasure. In half an hour, more or less, he had dug the hole a foot
deep, and then felt that he had reduced this part of the beach to its
former elevation, at the time of the wreck of the Waldo. A descent of
another foot would decide whether or not the treasure had an existence,
save in the brain of the sick man.
It was hard work, after a full day's labor at the hotel; but Leopold
redoubled his exertions after he had removed the first foot of sand. As
he proceeded, he examined every stone he threw out of the hole, to
assure himself that he did not miss the bag of gold. The task began to
be somewhat exciting, as the solution of the problem drew nearer.
The hole which he had laid out was six feet square; and when he had
thrown out all the sand and gravel to this depth, in order to save any
unnecessary labor he began to dig in the middle of the excavation, for
this was directly under the centre of the projecting rock. If Harvey
Barth's statement was exactly correct, the bag would be found where
Leopold was now at work. Faster and faster he plied the shovel, the
deeper he went, and, when he judged that the lower hole was nearly a
foot deep, his excitement of mind was intense. He had come to the last
layer of sand he had to remove in making the second foot in depth.
Placing his heel upon the shovel, he attempted to force it down the
length of the blade; but something impeded his progress. It was not a
rock, for it yielded slightly, and gave forth no sharp sound. Scraping
out the sand with the shovel, Leopold began to paw it away with his
hands. Presently he felt something which was neither sand nor gravel. He
drew it forth from the hole, and held it up where the light of the
lantern struck upon it.
It was the hidden treasure.
[Illustration: THE MONEY DIGGER. Page 176.]
The bag was just what Harvey Barth had described, and it weighed at
least the four pounds and a half Avoirdupois which he had made it by his
calculations. Leopold was tremendously excited, as he seated himself on
the brink of the hole, with the shot-bag in his hand.
"Hallo, Le! Is that you?" shouted a voice from the water.
It was Stumpy in Leopold's old boat.