BY FAVOR OF THE EARTHQUAKE
No thunder that had ever been heard could be compared with the sound of
the explosion. It was like the bellowing of a thousand cannon. It was
as though the island were being ripped apart.
The earth shook and staggered drunkenly beneath the feet of the
treasure seekers. Great trees in the adjacent forest fell with
tremendous uproar. The slope of the whale's hump was ridged until it
looked like a giant accordion. Crevasses opened, extending from the
summit of the hill downward. Rocks came tumbling down by the score,
and a column of smoke and flame rose from the crater to a height of two
hundred feet or more.
None of the party had been able to keep on a footing. All had been
thrown to the ground by the first shock, and there they lay, sick from
that awful seismic vibration.
A cloud of almost impalpable dust spread broadly and shrouded the sun.
There was not a breath of air astir. Not a living thing was to be seen
in the open--even the lizards had disappeared.
The spot where they had delved the day before, was now in plain view to
the treasure seekers. They saw the hillside yawn there in an awful
paroxysm, till the aperture was several yards wide. Then, from
beneath, there shot into the open, smoking rocks, debris of many kinds,
and--something else! Drew, seeing this final object, shrieked aloud.
His voice could not be heard above the uproar, but the others saw his
mouth agape, and struggled to see that at which he was pointing so
wildly.
The crevasse closed with a crash and jar that rocked the whole island.
It was the final throe of the volcano's travail. The lurid light above
the crater subsided. The dust began to fall thick upon the treasure
seekers as they lay upon the ground. They sat up, dazed and
horror-stricken. It was some time before their palsied tongues could
speak, and when they did, the words came almost in whispers.
Drew found that his arm was around Ruth. She had been near him when
the first shock came, and he had seized her instinctively. Now he
turned to her and asked:
"You're not hurt, are you, Ruth?"
"N--no," she gasped, "but dreadfully frightened! Oh, let's get away
from here!"
She realized that he was holding her and drew away with a faint blush.
He released her and staggered to his feet.
Tyke and the captain followed suit, and the three men looked at each
other.
"Now, if I was superstitious----" began Tyke in a quavering voice.
"Never mind any 'ifs' just now," interrupted the captain. "We've got
to get away from here just as fast as the good Lord will let us. I
don't believe in tempting Providence."
"And leave the doubloons?" queried Tyke, in dismay.
"Yes, and leave the doubloons," replied the captain stubbornly. "If
Ruth weren't here, we men might take a chance, but my daughter is worth
more to me than all the pirate gold buried in the Caribbean."
Drew, if inaudibly, agreed with him. "Let's get Ruth down to the
shore, anyway," he said. "Then, if you'll come back---- I saw
something just at that last crash."
"By the great jib-boom!" roared Tyke, "so did I. What did you see,
Allen? Something shot up out o' one o' them pits we dug yesterday. I
saw it. An' it wasn't a lava boulder, neither!"
"You're right, there," Drew agreed. "It was a box or something. Too
square-shaped to be a rock."
"We can't fool with it now," Captain Hamilton said, with determination,
though his eyes sparkled. "Come, Ruth. I must get you down to the
boat."
But here the girl exercised a power of veto. "I don't go unless the
rest of you do--and to remain, too," she declared. "I am not a child.
Of course, I'm afraid of that volcano. But so are you men. And it's
all over now. If Allen really saw something that looked like a box or
a chest thrown out of that opening, I'm going to----"
She left the rest unspoken, but started boldly for the barren patch
where they had dug the day before. It looked now like a piece of
plowed ground over which were scattered blocks of lava of all sizes and
shapes.
Captain Hamilton hesitated, but Drew ran ahead, reaching the spot
first. Anxious and frightened as he had been at the moment of the
phenomenon, the young man had noted exactly the spot where the strange
object had fallen. Half buried in a heap of earth was a discolored,
splintered chest. Its ancient appearance led Drew to utter a shout of
satisfaction.
"I guess we've got it," he remarked in a tone that he tried to keep
calm, but which trembled in spite of himself.
A cry of delight rose from all. The men joined Drew, and helped him
clear away the earth. The chest soon stood revealed. Then by using
their spades as levers, they pried it loose and by their united efforts
dragged it over to the shade at the jungle's edge. They sat beside it
there, panting, almost too exhausted from the excitement and their
tremendous efforts to move or speak.
Ruth fluttered about like a humming bird, excited and eager. She
looked somewhat less disheveled and begrimed than the men. But if they
looked like trench diggers, they felt like plutocrats, and their hearts
were swelling with jubilation.
The map had not lied! The paper had not lied! That old pirate, Ramon
Alvarez, who had probably told a thousand lies, had told the truth at
last in his ardent desire for the shriving of Holy Church. The
treasure lay before them!
And how wonderfully the chest had been revealed to them! Not by their
own exertions had the pirate hoard been uncovered!
A moment more and they were on their feet, Tyke panting:
"Now, if I was superstitious----"
They would have plenty of time for resting later on. Now a fierce
impatience consumed them. They must see the contents of the box!
The chest was about five feet long, two feet wide and three feet deep.
It was made of thick oak, and was bound by heavy bands of iron. A huge
padlock held it closed.
The box had originally been of enormous strength, but time and nature
and the earthquake had done their work. The wood was swollen and
warped, the iron bands were eaten with rust. But the lock resisted
their efforts when they sought to lift the cover.
"Stand clear!" cried Captain Hamilton, raising his spade.
He struck the padlock a smashing blow. Then he stooped and lifted the
cover, which yielded groaningly.
A cry burst simultaneously from the treasure seekers.
"Gold!"
"Doubloons!"
"Jewels!"
"Riches!"
Priceless treasures heaped in careless profusion, glinting, glowing,
coruscating, scintillating threw back in splendor the rays of the
tropic sun.
None of them could remember afterward quite how they acted in those
first few minutes of unchained emotion. But they laughed and sang,
cheered and shouted, and it was a long time before the rioting of their
blood ceased and they regained a measure of self-control.
There was no attempt made to measure the value of the treasure trove.
There would be time for that later on. What they did know beyond the
shadow of a doubt was that wealth enough lay before them to make them
all rich for the rest of their lives.
Gold there was, both coined and melted into bars; Spanish doubloons,
Indian rupees, French louis, English guineas; cups and candelabra;
chains and watches; jewels too, in whose depths flashed rainbow hues,
amethysts, rubies, diamonds, emeralds, strings upon strings of
shimmering pearls.
The discoverers bathed their hands in the golden store, running the
coins in sparkling streams through their fingers, all the time feeling
that they were moving in a dream from which at any moment they must be
rudely awakened.
At last the captain's voice, a bit husky from emotion, brought them
back to practical realities.
"Well, the first log of our voyage is written up," he said. "But now
let's get down to the question of what we're to do next. How are we to
get this stuff aboard?"
All sobered a little as they faced the problem.
"We can take the chest just as it is," said Tyke. "A four-man load,
though."
"What will the crew think?" Drew asked somewhat anxiously.
"Let 'em think and be hanged to 'em!" replied Captain Hamilton. "Yet,"
he added a moment later, "with things in the shaky condition they are
and that rascal, Ditty, planning mischief, we don't want to take too
many chances."
"Couldn't we make a number of trips back and forth and take some of the
treasure with us each time until we got it all on board?" suggested
Ruth. "We could carry a lot in our clothes and we could wrap some up
to look like the bundles we brought ashore."
"Take too long," objected her father.
"How would this do?" was Drew's contribution. "As has already been
said, the men would be surprised to see us bring a box aboard if they
hadn't first seen us take it ashore. Now, suppose we take one of the
ship's chests, load it with some worthless junk that would make it as
heavy as this box, and bring it ashore. We could bring it up here,
throw away the contents, put the treasure in it, and then call on the
men to take it back to the ship. They'd recognize it as the same one
they'd brought over, and their thinking would stop right there."
"By Jove, I believe you've hit it, Allen!" exclaimed the captain.
"That sounds sensible," conceded Tyke. "I guess it's the only way."
"Well, now that that's settled," went on the captain, "what are we
going to do with the treasure in the meanwhile? It's getting late now.
We can't get it aboard to-day. We'll want eight men besides Rogers.
Then, there's all this hardware," and he indicated the firearms.
"Couldn't we leave it just where it is until we come back to-morrow?"
ventured Ruth. "There isn't a soul on the island, and we'll be here
the first thing in the morning."
"A little too risky, I'm afraid," said Tyke. "It's dollars to
doughnuts that there's no one on the island but ourselves and the
boat's crew; yet we'd go 'round kicking ourselves for the rest of our
lives if we found to-morrow that some one had been here an' helped
himself."
"Let's pile some of these loose lava blocks on top of the chest," said
Drew. "Make a regular mound. It will look as though the earthquake
had done it."
That plan seemed the best, and they acted on it. They closed the cover
after one more lingering, delighted look at the chest's gleaming
contents, then they built the cairn.
"One sure thing," observed Tyke. "There isn't anybody going to come up
here for jest a little pleasure jog--not much! That volcano's likely
to spit again 'most any time."
The party started for the lagoon with their hearts bounding with
exultation. But as they entered the forest path they were startled by
the sight of Rogers and his men hastening toward them.
The captain was about to utter a rebuke, but when he saw the pale and
frightened faces of the men he checked his tongue.
"Well, Mr. Rogers, what is it?" he asked. "Got a pretty good scare, I
suppose, like the rest of us. I guess the quake's all over now."
"I hope so, sir," replied the second officer. "I thought sure it was
all over with the lot of us. But it isn't that, sir, that I came back
for. The boat's gone."
"Gone!" exclaimed the captain, staring.
"Yes, sir. It must have pushed away from the shore when the earth
shook so. Just down here below a bit is a place where you can see the
lagoon, and I caught sight of the boat about half-way between the shore
and the ship."
"Oh well, if that's all, there isn't any great harm done. Mr. Ditty
will send out and pick up the boat."
"But there's something else, sir," went on the seaman hoarsely. "As I
looked out, it seemed to me, sir, as if the reef had closed up behind
the schooner."
"What?" roared the captain.
"It's gospel truth sir," persisted the second officer. "I thought at
first I must be dreaming. But I looked carefully, sir, and you can
call me a swab if it isn't so! I couldn't see any sign at all of the
passage where we came in, sir."
The captain's bronzed face paled, as the full significance of the news
burst upon him.
"Come along and show me the place where you can see the schooner," he
commanded, and started to run, followed by the whole party.
They had not far to go. At a place where the earthquake had rooted out
a monster tree, a clear view could be had of the entire lagoon.
There lay the _Bertha Hamilton_, straining at her cable in the
commotion of the waters that had been stirred up by the earthquake.
And there was the small boat tossing about like a chip. But the
captain wasted not a second glance at these. He had seized his
binoculars and his gaze was fixed upon the reef. As he looked, his
visage became ashen.
The passage through which the ship had come into the lagoon was
entirely closed!
A barrier had been thrown up from the ocean floor, and this completely
landlocked the lagoon in which the schooner rode at anchor. The lagoon
had welcomed the ship as though with extended arms. Now those arms
were closed and the hands were interlocked.
The captain groaned at the magnitude of the disaster.
"Oh, Daddy, dear!" cried Ruth, darting to his side. "Don't take it so
hard! There'll be some way out!"
"Never!" cried the captain. "The _Bertha Hamilton_ is done for.
There's no way to get her out. She'll lie there now until she rots."
"And we're prisoners on this island," gasped Drew.
They looked at each other, appalled. This last statement seemed to be
irrefutable. They were captives on the island, which seemed itself to
be in the throes of dissolution.