THE ISLE IN CROW BAY
We had barely got ourselves back to where Ray and Robert lay awaiting
us, when night came. They had everything ready for the cooking of a
meal, so that our bearish appetites had not long to suffer.
Our non-success did not sit heavily on us, and it was with some cheer we
gathered round the fire, that was made in the midst of the underbrush,
far enough from the stream to be invisible from any part of Duran's
trail. Robert remained over there alone on watch.
"Now, I'll tell you," said Ray, addressing Grant Norris, "if you're
going to find that gold mine, you'll just have to rig up a balloon, and
fly all over these mountains--like I did in my dream."
"Well," returned Norris, plucking the bones from his fish, "I'm thinking
there'll be no lack of gas for it while you're awake. When you're not
awake--well, you'll dream enough hot air to--"
"Just what I was going to say," broke in Ray. "It delights me to see
you've come round to my dream idea. You're awake at last. Not that
you're to blame for having golden dreams; even I, in my younger days--"
"Not on your life!" interrupted Norris, "I--"
"Even Wayne, here, has dreams," continued Ray. "He follows that
nightmare, Duran, and suddenly he vanishes into nothing--all dreams."
"Not on your life!" declared Norris, taking Ray half in earnest.
"There's gold somewhere in that creek we were on today, and I'll show
you before we get through with it."
"Maybe Duran has already cleaned it out," I suggested.
"Don't you believe it!" said the optimistic Norris. "He hasn't got away
with it at any rate, or what is he doing back here?"
We crawled under our mosquito bars early, leaving Ray on watch by the
stream. I fell asleep to the music of the little cascade, whose
continual plash kept from my ears the harassing song of the mosquitoes,
who with voodoo thirst sought flaws in my citadel.
I was awakened at last by an insistent hand on my shoulder and Robert's
voice in my ear.
"I think Duran or somebody just went by," he said.
He had detected a sound of plashing in the water, like someone wading,
though he heard it imperfectly, confused as as it was with the noise of
the little waterfall. He had peered hard into that inky darkness, and it
seemed to him that a shape crept along the bank of the creek.
We aroused the others, who began at once to gather our traps together,
while Robert and I, with utmost caution, sought the path, and with more
or less difficulty followed its course toward the bay.
It was about two o'clock when we started, and when we came to the inlet,
there showed in the east signs of the moon coming, topping the horizon.
That was half-past-three; so that we were an hour and a half covering
those three or four miles.
I crept to the spot where we had seen Duran's canoe concealed in the
tall grass.
"It's gone!" I told Robert. "Let's hurry the others."
A few hundred yards back Robert came upon them. And now not a minute was
lost in setting our little boat in the water. The moon lay a timid light
on the bay by the time we had come out of the inlet.
"There!" cried Robert, pointing to the east.
Barely a half mile away we made out an object on the water.
"He's going down the bay," I observed, "not across to the Twin Hills."
"Well, let's keep him in sight," said Norris, "now that we've got our
peepers on him at last."
"He'll see us if we go too fast," cautioned Robert.
A camouflage for our boat was suggested. So we hurried to the shore, and
six pairs of hands quickly harvested an abundance of reeds and grasses.
With this we wove a screen, as for duck-stalking. And with the shore for
a background, it would have taken a sharper eye than a human's to
distinguish us. Fortunately, the moon, being but a thin, fading
crescent, gave a rather imperfect light.
Now we moved at a swift pace down the shore, Norris and Marat at the
oars. And so we gained on Duran, who was out nearer the middle of the
bay, little thinking that his plans were _gaun agley_, with his enemies
hanging on his tail in spite of all his devices.
Nearly every eye was on that canoe and its paddler, and barely a word
spoken till we had navigated almost a mile of the bay.
"Now where is that skunk making for, I wonder?" said Norris, resting on
his oar and peering through the screen.
"He go to the island, there, I theenk," offered Jean Marat.
"Yes," added Carlos. "He go right for thee island."
I had noted the island when we were on the cliffs. It was triangular,
and on Marat's chart it measured a half mile in its greatest dimension.
"What's on it?" queried Norris, again resuming his rowing.
Carlos said he had been there many years ago, and then there were palms
and brush, and in the midst, a hut and garden.
"There! He's going to land," spoke Robert.
Captain Marat trained his glasses on the island, now barely more than a
half mile away.
"Yes," he said, "he land. He is on thee shore now, an' he pull out thee
canoe, I theenk."
We set our boat in toward the south shore of the bay and here we found
the mouth of a stream. A few rods up this creek we made our landing, and
in a little we had got boat and all out of the water and into a
sheltered place under the palms, for day would soon be breaking.
"You're the darndest bunch!" said Ray, rubbing his eyes. "You'd think I
hadn't paid for my lodging."
He had fallen asleep in the boat, and didn't awaken till Norris had
almost rolled him out into the water.
"It's that cannibal-priest-voodoo-skunk again I suppose," continued Ray.
"Where have you got him now?"
"We've got him cornered, surrounded on Crusoe's island," returned
Norris.
"Surrounded," sniffed Ray, "like a gay porpoise, with water. And I'll
bet when you catch him, you'll find he's only Crusoe's man, Friday."
This suggestion, although made in sport, startled us. Perhaps after all,
the occupant of the canoe had not been Duran. It might have been only
one of his numerous blacks, one more in his confidence than any of those
on his schooner.
When day came, and that was but an hour after our landing, I began
anxiously to scan that island through Marat's glasses. It was not long
till I saw a rowboat put off from the island and move toward the south
shore far down the bay. Unmistakably, it was a black in the boat, and
alone, apparently, and his bulk was much too portly for the figure of
Duran. And before the morning was half gone another figure appeared,
coming out of the palms on the island. And my heart thumped with
excitement as I strained my eyes at the glasses.
The figure (black of face) stood on the shore, looking out across the
bay to the west. Was it Duran? I asked myself. Surely the form was not
unlike his, but there were many real blacks in his employ who, at that
distance would have looked much the same.
And then occurred a thing that settled the matter, and I thrilled all
over. The man's hand went up to the side of his head, and the fingers
toyed with the ear in that characteristic manner of Duran's, when he was
in deep thought. There could be no doubt, I saw the hand moving up and
down with the stroking. It was Duran!
I turned to my friends and gave them my news.
"Well, anyway," pouted Ray, "his man Friday was there; he went off in a
boat."
"And now, what do you suppose he's doing on that island then?" asked
Norris.
"He's burying his gold, of course," said Ray.
"Or maybe he's just after provisions," I suggested.
"And he sent that old fellow in the boat on his errands," offered
Robert.
Carlos, appealed to, avowed that this explanation was not unlikely,
since there was a bit of a hamlet far down the bay.
When the hot tropic sun had mounted to the zenith, Norris' restlessness
seemed to be approaching a climax. It was with some difficulty we
dissuaded him from a notion that had taken him, to make a trip back into
the hills in search of that golden creek of his. And it was then there
came a wet squall out of the west that drove us under the shelter of our
over-turned boat till it went by. The monotony of that wait, too, was a
bit relieved by the return to the island of that boat that had gone down
the bay in the morning.
Before dark came I got Jean Marat aside and communicated to him an idea
that had grown in my head that afternoon.
"Captain Marat," I began, "it is going to be very dark nearly all of
tonight, and it will be hard to see, at that distance, when Duran leaves
the island--if he does."
"Yes," returned Marat, "I have think of that."
"Well," I continued, "even in the dark it won't be safe to row over to
the island. Duran might happen to be on the shore and so see us."
"Yes, jus' so," agreed Marat.
"I want to swim over," I said. "It's only half a mile."
"Ah!" said Jean Marat. "Thad might be. Yes--yes." (He pondered the
thing.) "Yes, I swim too, with you."
It was the very thing I had in mind, this idea of his accompanying me,
though I hesitated to include him in my suggestion.
"And then," Marat continued, "maybe we hear some theengs thad will help
us."
Here, too, was some of my thought, remembering that night when he and I
had rowed over to the _Orion_, in the harbor, and heard Duran say things
that had enlightened us very much. Though some of the things he had said
had not been at all clear, else Ray and I had been spared that period of
captivity.
We were not long in giving our plan to the others. Norris, eager for
activity, would like to be one of the party, but he himself found
objections the moment his wish was expressed.
"It won't do to have too many," he said; "and then I can't understand
the _parley voo_ like Captain Marat."
"Besides," put in Ray, "there'd be an awful hulaboloo among the fish.
They'd think it was a--" Norris had him in his grasp. "--A mermaid,"
finished Ray.
We did not wait long after night had settled over the bay. Jean Marat
and I kicked off our clothes and, entering the water, headed for the
island. It was chalked out that the others should hold everything in
readiness, and if they should hear a signal, they would immediately row
out and pick us up, to take up the trail of Duran again.
It was no great feat to swim that half mile of smooth water. And then it
was with great caution that we crawled across that island beach. I must
have been a curious spectacle for Jean Marat--black of face and arms and
feet, the rest of me all white. The curly wig, of course, I had left
with my clothing.
We passed in among the cocoanut palms, traversed a belt of hammock, and
came to a piece of clearing. A light shone from a window of the hut.
There were some bushes near the wall; these we got amongst.
Keeping our faces in the shadow, we contrived to look in. And it was
somewhat a startling spectacle presented to us there. Duran's
features--though stained like myself and Robert--were not so hard to
distinguish in the light of the lamp. There was but one other occupant,
a negro, old and portly of body. Duran's head bore a red kerchief, wound
turban-wise, and his body was clad in a red robe--much like I had seen
him wearing that night in the forest. He stood by the table, and in his
hands he clutched a fowl, just beheaded, for the blood was running from
the raw stump of the neck into a bowl.
When the dripping had almost ceased, Duran gave the chicken into the
hands of the negro, who laid it aside. And then Duran poured rum from a
jug into cups, and mixed in blood from the bowl; and now the two drank.
And there showed that horrid, excited hankering of an old toper, in
Duran's face when he brought the cup to his lips. Whether it was the rum
he craved, or the blood, or the combination, or if he was really taken
with a religious fanaticism, I have never been able to fathom. But that
his emotion was real I could have no doubt.
A number of drinks round, and the black set himself to plucking the
feathers from the fowl; and then it was not long till he had the bird in
a kettle on the stove. Duran, after a time, inclined his head to a
little box on the table, and presently it occurred to me that they must
have the voodoo snake there as well. It was evidently a voodoo ceremony
they were enacting, and I knew it could not be complete--if
bonafide--without the snake.
Through it all, there was more or less talk between those two, and to
that Marat was giving his ear. At times he moved over and put his head
to the boards, the better to hear.
When at last the fowl was cooked, those two feasted on it, and ate
little else. And then, in time, they dropped off to sleep; the portly
negro seeking the floor, Duran slumbering in his chair, head and arms on
the table.
Captain Marat and I now seated ourselves on the ground, a little away
from that window to wait while those two within should sleep off their
debauch. Marat told me something of the talk of Duran and the other. But
there was nothing of new interest in it, since it referred almost solely
to matters on which they were then engaged. Duran, however, had found
occasion to descant on a purpose he professed he had, to bestow great
riches on the black, how he would be required to remain faithful to
Duran's service but a few days more, and he should be literally
over-burdened with the gold that should be his.
Maybe two hours of waiting had passed, with occasional peeps in at that
window, when Duran raised himself from his slumbers. He forthwith
aroused the black, and divesting himself of the red gown, he addressed
himself to the negro, who began putting together certain parcels of
supplies in a pack. Duran took up a paddle, and the two moved out of the
door, talking as they went.
Captain Marat and I crouched in the shadows, till they had gone toward
the beach. Then we followed, moving from bush to bush. And we saw Duran
embark in his canoe, going back the way he had come the night before.
So soon as the black had moved toward the hut, Marat and I entered the
water and started for the shore of the mainland, where our friends
awaited us. When we deemed it safe, I gave the whistle signal, and our
friends came off in the boat and took us in.
"Thee _Orion_ weel be here in thees bay before a week is gone," said
Captain Marat. "Duran expect then to sail away, pay off hees crew, an'
come back with new crew who know nothing about thee gold. And then he
will take on gold cargo. And then for Europe. He tell that black man he
take him with, and he will make him ver' rich."
"But he didn't tell that black where he was going to get his gold
cargo?" ventured Ray.
Marat said no to that. But Duran had promised the negro that he should
go with him, in two boats, and they two should transport all the gold
aboard the vessel; and the new crew were to be told that it was all
specimens of coral and other stones, for a museum in Europe. "And so,"
Marat continued, "Duran tell him if any strangers come round, he must
not know anyone by name Duran, or Mordaunt, or anyone like that. And
Duran tell him, too, thad when the _Orion_ come, if anyone on the
schooner come to the little island, he tell them Duran gives order thad
no one of them is allowed on thee island; they must stay on the
schooner."
"And why," began Norris, "do you suppose he don't want his own sailors
on that little island?"
"Ask Wayne," said Ray.
"Now, Mr. Norris," I said, "you're just wanting to hear somebody echo
the thought that's in your mind. Suppose you tell us what it is."
"Well," said Norris, "Ray said it last night. He's been burying some of
the gold on the isle. And now he's afraid that if his men set their feet
on the place, they'll get to looking for it."
"That's the way with people," said Ray. "If they hide something, they
suspect that everybody that comes around can smell it."
"Ease on your oars," Marat admonished.
Norris and Robert were rowing. Intent on our discussion, they had
forgotten caution, and were sending the boat forward at a rate. The
night was quite dark in spite of the stars, and we might easily drive
ourselves within hearing of Duran without realizing it. The night breeze
rippled the bay, so that the canoe on the surface would not be visible
till one should be almost on it.
"It's a mighty good thing," observed Robert, "that he doesn't make his
trips in daylight. He couldn't help seeing that a good many besides
himself have been tramping on that trail."
"He'd think a whole army was after him," said Ray.
When at last we came to the inlet, it was with some difficulty we found
our way, so dark was it. It was Carlos who at last made out Duran's
canoe, amongst the reeds.
"Well, he's got a good deal the start of us," said Norris, when at last
we had got our boat in hiding and were ready for the trail.
"Perhaps it's just as well we're not too close," I offered, falling in
behind Carlos, to whom we gave the lead.
"You don't believe he'd give us another chase in the schooner?" queried
Robert.
"No," I admitted, "but he might pick a new trail, and throw us clear off
again."
Single file, we moved forward. We were soon in the wood, where night
birds and insects gave us their music. Out again in the glade; again
into the forest. And at last, we came to where the trail dipped into the
stream.
There was nothing to do but remake our camp in the old place, a little
way to the west of the creek. There came renewed conjectures seeking
solution of this mystery.
"Well, you'll find out my balloon is the only explanation," bantered
Ray. "He carries one in his vest pocket, all neatly folded; he takes it
out, blows it full of voodoo rum stuff, and--whiff--up he goes."
"Maybe there's some one of those lianas hanging from the trees that he
swings out of the water on," offered Robert.
"That's so!" cried Norris. "A fellow might swing a big long jump that
way without touching his foot to the ground. I'm going to have another
good look there first thing in the morning."
Captain Marat had been taking stock of our supply of food.
"Someone have to go for more provision, if we stay much longer," he
said. "We have hardly enough for one day."
So that after some hours of sleep Robert and Marat set off to return to
the _Pearl_ for fresh supplies. They planned to row across the end of
Crow Bay before day should come, for there was no certainty that Duran's
black on the isle might not have an eye out. It would not do to risk
another daylight crossing.
Day had no sooner shot its earliest rays into the recesses of our
forest, than Norris was over to the creek investigating the big vines
that hung like so many ropes from the branches above. He finally came
back to his breakfast, his face giving no signs of success.
"Never mind, Norris," said Ray. "If you're going to make that Duran out
a monkey, you can hardly expect to find tracks--monkeys don't leave
any."
"Well, anyway," insisted Norris, "that's the way he went, and we'll find
that gold mine up on my creek--see if we don't."
For some unaccountable reason, I was not any more impressed by Norris'
conclusions than by Ray's playful explications, and I was taken with a
desire to be alone with the problem. So I urged the others to go and
explore Norris' creek, and I would remain on watch at this place of
Duran's strange disappearance.
When the three had gone, moving eastward along the foot of that towering
stone wall, I began where the water came tumbling out of that hole in
the cliff, and carefully examined the banks of the creek again, up and
down, for half a mile or so. I reasoned that if he waded into the stream
he must certainly have waded out of it again. Unless, as Norris had
conjectured, he had swung himself over the bank by the means of some
liana. I therefore imitated Norris and searched both sides for evidence
of any such means; and with a negative result. Nowhere, so far as the
forest followed the stream, was there a loose liana near the bank on
either side.
And then it came to me that perhaps Duran had gone into the water at the
end of the path, only to retrace his steps and leave the path some way
on the back trail, thus to deceive any who should chance to come so far
on his track. And so I scrutinized every foot of the path back to the
edge of the forest, and some way across the glade. I even went off the
trail, and fought my way through the growth as I went back, paralleling
the path, and looking for signs.
But I got back to the creek bank and the music of the little cascade, no
nearer the solution than when I had started. Hours had been consumed in
my search. It must have been past ten when I squatted on the stream's
bank, looking into the clear water, puzzling over this thing.
A beam of sun shone down through the water and illumined the creek's
bottom. A round bit of rock or coral lay there, almost white in that
liquid light. For a long time I stared on that spot, as if the solution
were to be found there. I never before had felt so baffled.
And then I was startled! I could no longer see that stone--nor any part
of the creek's bed. The water had in that moment become turbid.
Something had muddied it. I leaped to my feet and hurried up to the
fountain in the cliff. The water was coming out of the rock in that
muddied condition. Now what could it all mean? I asked myself. And I set
my wits to the thing as I continued to stare at the phenomenon.
Presently the water cleared a bit. And then in a little it came as muddy
as ever again.