NEMESIS.
While Captain Wolf was carrying out his scheme to rob his accomplices in
smuggling, he was planning a still more despicable act, and that was to
take his hoard of money, stow all valuables on the sloop, sail to a Nova
Scotia port, and when near it, to kill the Indian, sell the Sea Fox and
cross the ocean.
There were several weighty reasons for this. In the first place, those
bags of coin behind the rocking stone weighed on his mind. He was a
miser, and never before had he so much wealth he could call his own. A
few hundred dollars at the most were all he had ever possessed. Now he
had thousands. Money was his god, and to escape from danger and carry it
with him seemed prudent. He was aware he was suspected of being, and in
fact was known to be, a smuggler. While as yet undiscovered in his
island lair, he might at any time be pounced upon. His act of swindling
his accomplices, he knew well, would create revengeful enemies, who
would spare neither time nor money to hunt him down.
Then there was the Indian whom he had also robbed from the start. He
might become suspicious and betray him, or worse yet, discover the
secret of the rocking stone. Wolf had discovered it by accident; why
might not the Indian? With murder in his heart, Wolf for the first time
began to be afraid. He put the pistols he had always carried in perfect
order and ready for instant use. So far as he had discovered, the Indian
possessed neither knife nor pistol; but nevertheless Wolf feared him,
and the more he realized the danger he had incurred in duping his
assistants in smuggling, and how much he was really in the power of his
giant-framed partner, the more his fears grew. It may be thought it was
conscience working in him; but it was not, for such as he have none. It
was guilty fear, and that only. This so preyed upon his mind during his
last trip to the coast that he could hardly sleep. Then he began to
imagine that the Indian was suspicious of him. To allay that danger he
doubled the small share of profit he had given his partner, knowing full
well if he had no chance to spend it, it would all come back to him in
the end. Then he set about deceiving him by an offer to buy the Sea Fox
and pay what he believed the Indian would consider a fabulous price. It
was a fatal mistake. The Indian had no real idea of the value of his
sloop. It had come to him as payment for his share of a successful
fishing-trip to The Banks years before, and he had become attached to
that craft. It had been his home, his floating wigwam, for a long time,
and for Wolf to want to buy it hurt him.
"Me no sell boat," he said, when the offer was made. "Me want sloop long
time."
Wolf, who valued all things from a miser's standpoint, could not
understand that there might lurk in the Indian a tinge of sentiment. He
was mistaken, and the mistake was a little pitfall placed in his way.
There was another which he was also to blame for, and yet, like the
first, he was not aware of it. In the cave where he had stored his cargo
and prepared it for smuggling, he kept a large can of cheap and highly
inflammable oil on a rock shelf, just above the flat stone where he, by
the light of two lamps, had counted his wealth time and again. True to
his nature, when he bought the oil he bought the cheapest, and unknown
to him the can had sprung a leak and while he had been absent for weeks
at a time, the oil had run out, saturating the rock below and forming
little pools on the cave floor among the loose stones. Wolf had not
noticed this, or, if he had, had thought nothing of it. Neither did he
realize how fate could utilize his miser's instinct in purchasing the
cheap can as a means to bring together and bless two lives unknown to
him. We seldom do notice the snags in life that usually trip us.
By the time the last voyage of the Sea Fox had been made and she
returned to The Pocket, the relations between Wolf and the Indian were
in danger of rupture. Wolf distrusted his partner, and yet believed he
had lulled all suspicion. He had never failed before in duping any one
he had set out to; why should he in this case? Still, he was uneasy and
resolved to end it all as soon as possible. But Indians have one
peculiarity that will baffle even the shrewdest Jew. They never talk.
Their faces are always as expressionless as a graven image. While
contemplating the most cruel murder they never show the least change in
expression, nor do their eyes show the faintest shadow of an emotion.
They are stolid, surly and Sphinx-like always. Wolf's partner was like
his race, and not even by the droop of an eyelid did he betray the
slowly gathering storm of hate and rage within. He brooded over the
hurt he felt when Wolf had wanted to buy his sloop, and believing the
Jew meant to rob him of her, he grew suspicious and watched Wolf. Not by
word or sign did he show it, and the Jew saw it not. Wolf watched the
Indian as closely, only the Indian knew it, and Wolf did not. It was now
Wolf against fox and fox against Wolf, and the swarthy fox was getting
the best of it. Meanwhile the loading of the sloop for her final
departure proceeded.
Wolf had planned to use the Indian's help to the last, and when all was
ready, enter the cave, secure the money about his person and sail away.
The cave entrance was under water for about two hours of high tide, and
Wolf waited until a day came when the tide served early. He had planned
to go in just before the rising water closed the entrance, thus securing
himself from intrusion; and then, when the tide fell away, to come out
ready to start. The day and hour came and he entered the cave.
Unknown to him the Indian followed!
Wolf lighted a lamp and sat down. When the sea had closed the entrance,
no sound entered. Wolf waited. Ten, twenty, thirty minutes passed, and
all sound of the ocean ceased. He believed himself alone. He lighted the
other lamp, placing both on the flat rock. Then he went to the rocking
stone, and pushing it back, took from the niche, one by one, the bags of
coin. These he carried to the table stone and poured their contents into
a glittering pile.
From behind a rock a pair of sinister eyes watched him!
He felt that he had two hours of absolute seclusion and need not hurry.
He began to slowly pile the coins in little stacks and count them. There
was no reason for haste and he counted carefully. He enjoyed this beyond
all else in his vile life, and desired to prolong the pleasure. The
money was all his, and he gloated over it. No sense of awe at his
separation from all things human in that damp, silent cavern, still as a
tomb, came over him. No thought of the murder he was soon to commit; no
feeling of remorse, no impulse of good; no thought of the future or of
God--entered his soul. Only the miser's joy of possession. Not a sound
entered the cavern and only the chink of the coin, as he counted it,
disturbed the deathly silence.
Still the sinister eyes watched him from out the darkness!
Stack after stack he piled till all was counted--eight of one thousand
dollars each, and twelve of five hundred dollars, all in gold; and
twenty of one hundred dollars each in silver.
A tall, swarthy form crept noiselessly toward him!
It was the supreme moment of his life, and as he gloatingly gazed on the
stacks glittering in the dim light before him, a delirium of joy hushed
all thought and deadened all sense, even that of hearing.
Nearer and nearer drew the swarthy form!
And as Wolf tasted the sublime ecstasy of a miser's joy, his heaven, his
God, suddenly two cold, massive hands closed tight about his throat. But
men die hard! Even while unable to breathe, and as he writhed and
twisted beneath the awful menace of death bearing him down, his hand
suddenly touched the pistol in his belt! The next instant it was drawn
and fired full against the Indian's breast! Then a shriek of death
agony, as his swarthy foe leaped upward against the rocky shelf; a crash
of breaking glass; a flash of fierce flame bursting into red billows,
curling and seething all about him and turning the cave into a mimic
hell!
Outside could be heard the sound of a bellowing bull!