her while he assisted her to arrange the lamp. "The air, too, is
charged with electricity--that alone will unstring your nerves, to say
nothing of the darkness and the noise of the tempest. I have done
wrong, Barbara; I have selected the worst time for reading this
horrible story to you. I should have chosen one of the bright days
when we could sit on the crags and have nothing but the brilliant sun
about and over us."
She glanced up at him with a smile in her clear eyes--the smile that
never failed to make him think that he had lit on some woman belonging
to another world than his, it was so full of innocence as well as a
simple trust that would have well befitted a little child--and laid
her hand upon his arm as though to assure him that he had done nothing
to affright her. But, as she did so, there came a terrific flash of
lightning which illuminated all the tropical wood outside--as they
could see through the slats of the jalousie--and then a roar of
thunder that made the girl scream and let fall the lamp just lighted.
But Reginald caught it deftly, and placing it on the table said with a
smile--
"It would never do for another lamp to be overturned here as one was
so long ago. Come, Barbara, cheer up, take heart! We will read no more
to-night."
"Yes, yes," she exclaimed. "Read. Go on reading and finish your story.
Besides, we must do something to pass the night--you cannot go to your
yacht, and I--I--; for the first time in my life I fear to be alone. I
dread, though I know not what. I have been alone night after night
here for even weeks and months together, and never feared anything.
Yet, now, I am afraid. Pray, do not leave me to-night."
He looked at her, admiring, almost worshipping her for the innocence
she showed in every word she spoke, and then he said--
"Have no fear, I will not leave you if you wish it. But, Barbara, we
must do something else to pass the hours away than read old Nicholas's
story. What shall we do? Let us have a game of cards."
There were some packs in her house that they had played with before
now--cards brought from other islands by her dissolute brother, with
which to pass the long nights in, as she frankly owned, trying to get
the better of his father; but she would not play now.
"No," she said. "Let us come to the end of the tale. I cannot rest
until I have heard it all. Do, do finish it."
"Very well, if you will," he answered. "And, at any rate, the worst is
told. There is nothing more to shock or affright you. Nothing but the
burying of the treasure in the spot where it now lies, and where we
will dig it up."
The jalousies rattled as he spoke--yet at this moment the wind had
ceased, and nought was heard but the steady downpour of the rain.
But, perhaps because of the incessant noise the storm had made for
some hours, neither of them noticed this peculiar incident, though
Reginald glanced up as the blind stirred.
Then he began again, reading on through Nicholas's strange story, and
doing so with particular emphasis, so that she might grasp every word
of his description as he told how the measurements were to be taken in
the middle Key. And Barbara sat there listening silently. Yet, as he
turned a leaf--having now got to that part of the account where
Nicholas was picked up by the _Virgin Prize_--he paused in
astonishment at the appearance of her face.
For she was gazing straight before her at the jalousie, her eyes
opened to their widest, her features drawn as though in fright, her
face almost distorted.
"Look! Look!" she gasped. "Look at the blind."
And he, following her glance, was for the moment appalled too.
A large hand was grasping half-a-dozen of the slats in its clutch;
between those slats a pair of human eyes were twinkling as they peered
into the room.
As Reginald rose to rush at the intruder, whoever he was, Barbara gave
another gasp and fell back fainting into her chair; and then, before
her companion could ask the owner of those eyes what he meant by his
intrusion, the blinds were roughly thrust aside, and, following this,
there came a man of great size, from whom the water dripped as from a
dog who had just quitted a river--a man whose face was all bruised and
discoloured as though he had been badly beaten.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
THE ISLAND'S OWNER.
"Who are you, and what do you want?" asked Reginald, confronting the
intruder; while, as he spoke, he observed that the coarse and scanty
clothes in which he was clad were drenched with more water than even
the heavens could have poured on him.
He was a man of great bulk, young as himself, and with a mass of
reddish-yellow hair that hung about his face, matted and dishevelled
from the wet in which it was soaked; and as he advanced into the room
the water dripped off him on to the floor.
"Want!" he replied, "want! What should a man want in his own house but
rest and comfort after a storm? Master, this is my house! I had best
ask what you want here? And at night--alone with my sister."
Yet he did not pause for an answer, but going up to where that sister
lay back in the swoon that had overcome her, he shook her roughly by
the shoulder and called out--
"Come, get over your fit. I have bad news for you."
"Be a little more gentle with her!" Reginald exclaimed. "We can bring
her to in a better manner than that;" and as he spoke he went to the
spirit flask he had brought up from the yacht, and moistened her lips
with some of the whisky, and bathed her forehead with water from one
of the calabashes.
"What the devil is the matter with the girl?" asked her brother. "She
has never been used to indulging in such weaknesses--what does it
mean?"
"It means," the other replied, "that the storm has frightened her."
"Bah! she has seen plenty of them since she was born. We are used to
storms here."
"And also," Reginald went on, "she saw a man--you--outside, listening
to us. She saw your hand on the blind and your face through the slats,
but did not recognise you. It is not strange that she should be
frightened."
But by this time Barbara was coming round--she opened her eyes as her
brother spoke, then closed them again, as though the sight of him was
horrible to her, and shivered a little. But, after a moment, she
opened them once more, and, fixing them on him, said--
"You have come back. Where is father?"
"He is dead," he said, using no tone of regret as he spoke, and,
indeed, speaking as he might have done of the death of some stranger.
"He is dead not an hour ago. The storm drove us here, brought us home.
But as we reached the shore, for we could not get round to the creek,
the breakers flung our boat over, and us out of it. I was fortunate
enough to scramble on land, but the old man had no such luck. He was
carried out to sea again, and I saw no more of him."
Barbara had burst into tears at the first intimation of her father's
death, and now she wept silently, her brother sitting regarding her
calmly while he sipped at Reginald's flask as though it were his
own!--and the latter felt his whole heart go out to her in sympathy.
Yet--how could he comfort her? The one whose place it was to do that
was now by her side, but being a rough, uncouth brute, as it was easy
to see he was, he neither offered to do so, nor, it seemed probable,
would he have done aught but mock at any kind words Reginald might
speak.
"Father! Father!" the girl sobbed. "Oh, father! And I have been
looking forward so much to your return--hoping so much from it.
Thinking how happy we might be."
Her brother--who seemed to consider that, after having told her of old
Alderly's death, no further remark on the subject was necessary, and
who, if he knew what sympathy meant, certainly did not consider it
needful to exhibit any--had by now turned his back to them and, going
to a cupboard, was busily engaged in foraging in it. Reginald had seen
Barbara take food out of this cupboard ere this, both for him and for
herself--food consisting of dried goat's flesh, cheese and other
simple things--and therefore he was not surprised at the man doing so
now. But he was somewhat surprised at hearing Barbara, while her
brother's back was turned, whisper to him--
"Say nothing at present about the Key."
He nodded, willing to take his line of action from her in anything she
might suggest in the circumstances which had now arisen; yet he felt
that his silence would make his presence there still more inexplicable
But, also, his trust was so firm in the girl that without hesitation
he determined to do as he was bidden.
Presently her brother turned away from the cupboard, coming towards
them again and bearing in one hand a piece of coarse bread and, in the
other, a scrap of meat he had found.
"Been here long keeping Barbara company?" he asked, while his
twinkling eyes--how unlike hers! Reginald thought--glistened
maliciously. "We don't often get visitors here."
"Indeed," Reginald replied; "I have heard differently. I was told in
Tortola that curiosity about the strange history of your island
brought many people here. And, having a little yacht which I have
hired and being a sailor myself, I ventured to pay a visit."
"Sailor, eh? What line? American and--but, there, it's easy enough to
see you're a Britisher. What is it? Royal Mail, eh?"
"I am in the Royal Navy. A lieutenant. And my name's Crafer."
"Crafer, eh? and in the Royal Navy? I don't think much of the Royal
Navy myself. A damned sight too condescending in their ways, as a
rule, are the gentlemen in your line--that is, when they take any
notice of you at all. Well, if you're going to stay I hope you're not
like that. And my name's Alderly--Joseph Alderly. That's good enough
for me."
"I certainly did hope to stay a little longer. I am on leave and like
cruising about."
"Your boat's in the river, you say?"
"Yes."
"Why don't you live in it instead of in this house, then? Or at
Tortola, where there is a hotel? In some of the islands hereabouts my
sister would get a bad name if it was known she was entertaining young
English officers all alone."
At his words Reginald sprang to his feet, Barbara also rising, her
hazel eyes, that were usually so soft and innocent, flashing indignant
glances at her brutal brother.
"You don't know, you don't understand," she began; "if you did you
would behave differently. Mr. Crafer has come----" But Reginald was
speaking also.
"Mr. Joseph Alderly," he said, "this is the first night I have ever
stayed in your house as late as this. I should not be here now were it
not for the storm. However, I will trespass upon your hospitality no
longer. Miss Alderly, I wish you 'Good-night.'" He touched her hand as
he spoke--not knowing what her glance meant to convey, yet feeling
sure that there must be much she would have said to him if she had had
but the opportunity--and then he turned on his heel, passed through
the jalousie, and so out on to the verandah.
The storm was ceasing as he went forth, the clouds were rolling away
to the south; around him there were the odours of all the tropical
flowers, their perfume increased threefold by the rain. He knew the
path so well now from having traversed it many times backwards and
forwards from the _Pompeia_, that it took him very little time even in
the dark to reach the bank of the river, to unmoor the dinghy, and to
get on board the craft. Then, lighting his pipe, he sat himself down
in his little cabin to meditate on what this fresh incident--the
arrival of Joseph Alderly--might mean.
"I should know better what to think," he mused, "if I only knew how
long he had been behind the blind. The brute may have been there for
sufficient time to have heard all the last instructions of old
Nicholas about finding the treasure which I read out. Or he may have
heard only enough to give him an inkling that I know where the
treasure is. Let me see," and he put his hand in his pocket and drew
forth his forerunner's narrative.
"Yes," he muttered, as he turned over the leaves, "yes, I had got
far enough--having reached the rescue of Nicholas by the _Virgin
Prize_--for him to have heard all if he was there. If he was there;
that's it. Only--was he? or did he come later when there was nothing
more to be overheard than the description of Nicholas leaving the
island?"
Again he pondered, turning the arrival of Alderly over in his mind,
and then he remembered how the jalousies had rattled at a time when
the wind had lulled, though he had taken little heed of the fact
beyond glancing up from the papers. Yet, as he racked his mind to
recall what they had been saying, or he reading, at the moment, he
remembered the words he had uttered--
"There is nothing to tell you now but the burying of the treasure in
the spot where it lies and where we will dig it up."
These had been his words, or very similar ones. If Alderly had been
there then--if he had arrived on the verandah by the time they were
uttered--he knew all. He had heard the middle Key mentioned, he had
heard how the measurements were to be taken, he knew as much as
Reginald and Barbara knew. But--had he been there? was it his hand
that shook the blind, or was it some light gust of air, a last breath
of the storm? That was the question.
Still, independent of this--indeed, far beyond the thought of the
treasure, which he had definitely decided he would take no portion of,
since it was not, could not be, his by any right--his mind was
troubled. Troubled about Barbara and her being alone with the savage
creature who was her brother--"Heavens!" he thought, "that they should
be the same flesh and blood!"--troubled to think of what form his
brutality might take towards her if he suspected that she knew where
all the long-sought wealth was hidden away.
"But," he said to himself, as he still sat on smoking, "no harm shall
come to her if I can prevent it--if I can! nay, as I will. He may
order me out of these moorings since the whole island is his--well,
let him. If he does, I will find out Nicholas's cove and anchor myself
there--or, better still, I will go and lie off the middle Key. And, by
the powers! if he does know that the treasure is there and begins to
dig for it, not a penny, not a brass farthing shall he take away
without my being by to see that he shares fair and fair alike with his
sister. He seems capable, from what I have seen of him and she has
told me, of taking the whole lot off to Aspinwall or Porto Rico and
losing it in one of his loathsome gambling dens, while he leaves her
here alone!"
He went on deck of his little craft as he made these reflections, and,
more from sailor-like habit than aught else--since no one ever came
into the river--he trimmed his lights and arranged them for the night,
and then went to his cabin and turned in. But before he did so, he
cast a glance up to where Barbara's home was, and saw that on the
slight eminence there twinkled the rays of the lamp through the now
opened windows. All was well, therefore, for this night.
Yet he could not sleep. He could not rest for thinking of the girl up
there with no one but that brutal kinsman for a companion; with no one
to help her if he in his violence should attempt to injure her--a
thing he would be very likely to do if he questioned her about aught
he might have overheard, and she refused to satisfy him.
At last this feeling got too strong for him--so strong that he
determined to go and see if all was well with her. Therefore, ashore
he went again, and, making his way up quietly through the glade and
the little wood, he came within sight and earshot of the hut. And
there he soon found that, no matter how fierce and cruel a nature
Alderly's was, he at least meant no harm to the girl herself.
She, he could see from the close proximity to the hut which he had
attained, was lying asleep upon a low couch on which he had often sat,
a couch covered with Osnaburgh cloth and some skins. Alderly was
sitting at the table, drinking and smoking and occasionally singing.
He had evidently found some liquor of his own--probably stowed away by
him ere setting out on his various cruises--and was pouring it out
pretty rapidly into the mug he drank from.
"Heavens!" exclaimed Reginald. "How the past repeats itself! Here
stand I, a Crafer, watching an Alderly in his cups, even as, two
hundred years ago, my relative stood here watching this man's. And he
sings there as he drinks, even as his rascally forerunner sang,
too--the one when his father has not been dead many hours, the other
when he had murdered a man! And Barbara,--well, there is Barbara in
place of the fancied Barbara the other conjured up. It is the past all
over again, in the very same place, almost the very same hour at
night. Let us hope that, as all came well with Nicholas afterwards, so
it may with me. And with Barbara, too. Yes, with Barbara, too."
Whereon, seeing that all was well for the present at any rate, he
moved silently away and so regained his boat.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
JOSEPH ALDERLY.
In the morning, when he woke and went on to the deck of his little
craft, he saw Barbara standing on the river's brink--evidently waiting
for him to be stirring. Therefore, he at once got into his dinghy and
went ashore to her.
"What is he doing now?" he asked, as he took her hand and noticed for
the first time the absence of the splendid flush of health upon her
face that was generally there. This morning she had dark purple rings
under her eyes--as though she had not slept or had been weeping.
"He is asleep now," she said, "after sitting up drinking, singing, and
muttering to himself till nearly daybreak. Oh, Mr. Crafer!" she broke
off, "what is to be done?"
"What does he know?" asked Reginald in return. "Did he hear any of the
story I read to you? How long had he been at the window before you
noticed him?"
"I cannot tell. Yet I think he suspects. Before I went to sleep he
asked me what brought you here, and whether you were hunting for the
treasure, and also what that paper was you were reading to me?"
"And what did you tell him?"
"I would not tell a lie, therefore I said it was an account of the
island, written by a connection of yours who had been here long ago."
"And then?"
"And then he said he would like to see it. He said he was sure you
would show it to him."
"Was he! I am sure I shall do nothing of the kind. Yet I do not know,"
and Reginald broke off to meditate. Following which he went on again.
"But he must see it after all. Barbara, the treasure is his and yours.
He must be told."
"No, no," she said. "It is not his--it is yours--yours--yours. Oh! it
would be wicked, shocking, to think that you, the only person in the
world to whom the chance came of finding out where it is hidden,
should not be entitled to it, or at least to half of it. And think,
too, of the journey you have made, the expense you have been put to,
the trouble you have taken. And all for nothing; to get nothing in
return."
"I have got something in return," he said. "Your friendship! Have I
not, Barbara?"
"Yes," the girl whispered, or almost whispered, while to her cheeks
there came back the rose-blush he loved so much to see. "Yes. But what
is that in comparison to what you ought to have?"
"Everything," he replied earnestly. "Everything. Far more, perhaps, to
me than you think. But now is scarcely the time to tell you how dear
that friendship is. Instead, let us think of what is best to be done."
"At present," she replied, "I am sure the best thing is to keep the
secret. If he knew it was there he would get it up somehow--and, I
think, he would go away with it. Then you would get nothing."
"But I want nothing."
"I don't care," she replied. "I am determined you shall have half. Oh!
promise me, promise me you will tell him nothing unless he agrees to
give you half."
At first he again refused, and still again, but at last he agreed to
her request, or at least so far consented that he said he would make a
proposal to her brother. He would suggest that, on his being willing
to divide whatever they should find into three parts--one for Alderly,
one for Barbara, and one for him--he would inform him where he thought
the treasure was buried. But that he would take no more than a third
he was quite resolved, he told her.
"It will be useless," she said, "useless to do that! He will never
consent to my having a third; if he did he would take it away from me
directly afterwards."
"Would he!" exclaimed Reginald. "Would he! I would see about that."
"At any rate, he would try to do so. Therefore, it would be far better
for you to insist on one half. By taking one third you would only get
a lesser share, while he would get more."
At last, therefore, Reginald determined he would go and see her
brother and, as he said, sound him. Only he was resolved on one thing.
Alderly should neither see Nicholas's manuscript nor be told the exact
spot where the buried treasure was until they had come to some terms.
"And, remember," he said to her, "if I get one half from him, you take
from me what represents one third." To which again the girl protested
she would never consent.
After this they parted, she going back to the hut, and he saying he
would follow later, since they resolved it would be best to keep the
knowledge of their having met that morning from her brother.
When, however, Reginald himself arrived at Alderly's house he found
that person gone from it and Barbara alone--standing on the verandah
and evidently watching for his coming.
"He has gone down to the shore," she said, "to see if he can find
anything of poor father's body. At least that is what he says he has
gone for, as well as to see if his boat is capable of being repaired.
Alas! I fear he thinks more of the boat than of father's death."
"If he thinks so much of the boat," Reginald remarked, "it scarcely
looks as if he has much idea of there being a large treasure to his
hand. However, I will go and see him. Where did he come ashore last
night?"
"Very near to the Keys," she answered. "Indeed, close by."
So Reginald made his way across the island to that spot, and, when he
had descended the crags and reached the small piece of beach there, he
saw Alderly engaged in inspecting the wrecked craft which had brought
him safely back to his island overnight. It had been at its best but
a poor crazy thing--a rough-built cutter of about the same size as the
_Pompeia_, but very different as regards its fittings and
accommodation. It was open-decked, with a wretched cabin aft into
which those in her might creep for rest and shelter, and with another
one forward--but these were all there was to protect them.
"She is badly injured," Reginald said, after having wished Alderly
good-morning and received a surly kind of grunt in reply. "I am afraid
there is not much to be done to her."
"Mister," said Alderly, suddenly desisting from his inspection, and
turning round on the other man without taking any notice of his
remark, "I am glad you came here this morning. You and I have got to
have some talk together, and we can't do it better than here."
"Certainly," replied Reginald. "What would you like us to talk about?"
"It ain't what I'd _like_ to talk about, but what I am _a-going_ to
talk about as you've got to hear. Now, look you here. I ain't no
scholar like Barb over there--she was sent to school because the old
man was a fool--and I'm a plain man. I've had to earn my living
rough--very rough--and p'raps I'm a bit rough myself. But I'm
straight--there ain't no man in the islands straighter nor what I am."
"Being so straight, perhaps you will go on with what you have to say.
Meanwhile, Mr. Alderly, let me be equally straight with you. Your
manner is offensive, and, as you say, 'very rough.' Therefore, I may
as well tell you that it doesn't intimidate me. We are both sailors,
only I happen to have been in a position of command, while your rank,
I gather, has been always more or less of a subordinate one. So, if
you'll kindly remember that I expect civility, we shall get along very
well together."
Alderly glanced at him, perhaps calculating the strength of the thews
and sinews of so finely built a young man; then he said--
"This is _my_ island, you know, mister, and all that's in it."
"Precisely. And you mean that I am in it. Well, so I am. Only, you
understand, I can very soon get out of it. The sea isn't yours as
well."
"Suppose I wasn't to let you go! Suppose I stopped up the mouth of the
river where your craft is a-lying! Then you'd be in it still."
"Yes," said Reginald, "so I should. Only, all the same, I should go
when I pleased. I am not a baby--but, there, this is absurd. Say what
you want to say."
"Well, I will. What was that paper you was a-reading to my sister in
my house last night?"
"A little history of this island, which a forerunner of mine happened
to visit some two centuries ago."
"Two cent'ries ago! Oh! It didn't happen to say anything about the
treasure old Simon Alderly had stowed away here, did it?"
"Since you ask me so directly, and as it is your business, I will
reply at once. It did."
For a moment Alderly's face was a sight to see. First the brown of his
face turned to a deeper hue, then the colour receded, leaving him
almost livid, then slowly the natural colour returned again, and he
said, huskily--
"It did, eh? So I thought, though I don't know why the wench, Barb,
told me a lie."
"Are you sure she did tell you a lie? I don't think your sister seems
a person of that sort."
"Never mind my sister. Tell me about the treasure--_my_ treasure. I am
the heir, you know; I am the only Alderly left after two cent'ries
hunting for it--you was right about them cent'ries, mister. Two it
was. Where is that treasure? Go on, tell me."
"I have not quite made up my mind about doing that," said Reginald.
"It remains for me to decide whether I shall do so just yet."
"It remains for you to decide whether you will tell me where my
property is! It does, does it? And what else?--what do it remain for
me to do?" and he advanced so close to Reginald and looked so
threatening, both from his angry glances and his great height and
build, that many a man might have been cowed. But not such a man as
Reginald Crafer!
"What do it remain for me to do--eh?" he asked again. "To kill you,
p'raps."
Reginald's laugh rang out so loud at this that it might have been
heard on the Keys outside--the Keys whereon the treasure was. And it
made Alderly's fury even greater than before.
"I _could_ kill you, mister, easy, if I wanted to. And no one would
never know of it except Barb. And if she knowed of it, why, I'd kill
her too. Anyhow, I mean to have my fortune."
"As to killing," said Reginald, "I don't quite agree with you. You
seem to me a powerful kind of a person, without much knowledge,
however, of using that power." Here Alderly stamped with fury.
"Therefore, you are not so very terrible. However, about _your_
fortune. To begin with, are you quite sure it is yours?"
"Why! whose else is it if it ain't mine?" the bully asked, stupidly
now. "Ain't this island mine now father's dead?"
"You say it is, though I am sure I don't know whether you are telling
the truth or not. It might be as much your sister's as yours." Alderly
burst out laughing, scornfully this time; but Reginald went on. "Your
father might have left a will, you know, leaving her a portion of it,
or, indeed, the whole, if he didn't approve of your general
behaviour."
Alderly laughed again--though now he looked rather white, the other
thought; and then he said emphatically:--
"Father didn't leave no papers. So I'm the heir. Girls don't count,
I'm told." All of which--both laughter, pallor, and remarks--led
Reginald to form a suspicion that whatever papers the elder Alderly
might have left had been destroyed.
"I think they do," said Reginald, "and certainly Miss Alderly counts
in my opinion. For, if eventually I decide to tell you where your
treasure is, she will have to have her portion."
"She will have her portion," said Alderly decidedly, "which will be
that I shall look after her. And I suppose you'll want a portion,
too."
"Yes, rather," the other replied, remembering that he had promised to
make no stipulations about Barbara. So he corrected himself now, and
said, "Of course I suppose you will look after her. Well, remembering
that, I shall want one half."
"One half!" exclaimed Alderly, almost shouting out the words in his
excitement. "One half! My God! One half of all that treasure! Just for
coming here to tell me where it is! Why! you must be mad, Mr. Crafer,
or whatever you call yourself. Mad! Mad! Why! sooner than do that I'd
fetch a hundred o' my pals and mates from all around, from the islands
and up from Aspinwall and Colon, and dig the whole place up till we
found it. One half!"
"And dig the whole place up!" repeated Reginald. "Just so. Only, you
know that when your ancestress, the first Barbara, and her son came
here they found the treasure had been removed from the place where
Simon left it, and none have ever been able to find it since. Isn't
that so?"
"Yes," muttered Alderly, "it is, damn you!"
"Very well. You don't own all the islands round, of which there are
some scores, inhabited and uninhabited. And, presuming that the
treasure in question has been moved to one of these--and there is no
one knows whether it has or not but myself" (he determined not to
bring Barbara in further than was necessary)--"what good would all the
digging of you and your 'pals and mates' do in this place, Mr.
Alderly?"
To which the other could only answer by a muttered curse.
CHAPTER XXXV.
DANGER IMPENDING.
Alderly was now at bay!
For a couple of days he raved, stormed, and alternately endeavoured to
extract from Reginald and from his sister a hint as to which of the
islands the treasure had been removed to. But it was all of no avail.
Barbara, whose gentle nature had conceived almost a hatred against her
unnatural brother for the utter indifference he had shown to their
father's fate, avoided him as much as she could, and, when not able to
do so, refused to acknowledge that she knew anything more than that
Mr. Crater possessed the secret of the hidden store.
While, as for Reginald, he simply said, whenever Alderly sought him
out--which the latter did frequently, since the other would go no more
to his hut,--"One half is what I want if we dig it up together."
But to Alderly, who among all his other bad qualities possessed that
of inordinate greed, this proposal appeared so enormous that he could
not bring himself to consent to it.
"And if we don't dig it up together," said Reginald, who had not the
slightest compunction in playing on the fears and covetousness of the
man, "why, I shall have to dig it up by myself--which you cannot
prevent my doing if it is not on your property, you know. Then I shall
take it all, except what I hand over to some lawyer, or English
representative, in one of the islands for your sister's use."
"But it is mine, mine alone!" the infuriated wretch would exclaim.
"Mine, even if it is outside Coffin Island. Simon was my relative, and
he found it."
"And Nicholas Crafer was mine," replied the other, "and he found it,
too. It belonged to him as much as to Simon, and, what's more, the
secret belongs to me and not to you. And as you are a card player and
a 'sportsman,' Mr. Alderly, you'll understand what a strong card that
is in my favour."
It was so strong a card that Alderly acknowledged to himself in his
own phraseology that "he was beat." That is, he was "beat" by fair
means, and, being a brute and a savage in whose nature there seemed to
run all the worst strains of his ancestor, Simon, he soon took to
turning over in his mind how he could win by means that were foul.
And on how these means could be brought about he pondered deeply,
roaming round the island as he did so, Barbara's gun under his arm
with which to shoot, now and again, a gull or some other equally
harmless or useless bird; or sitting on the crags, or the beach when
the tide was out, thinking ever. And what he thought about more than
anything else was, "How could he obtain possession of that paper which
he had seen in Grafer's hand?" For in that paper lay the secret, he
felt sure, of the spot to which the treasure, _his_ treasure, had been
removed.
It may be told here that, although he had been outside the jalousie on
the night of the storm which drove him home, and his father to his
doom, for longer than either Barbara or Reginald knew, he had gleaned
but a very imperfect knowledge of what the latter had read out. Some
words he had caught, such as "when you have taken your first
measurement from the spot where you land, you stick in the ground your
sword, and then make, or persevere until you make, all your other
strides correspond with what I have wrote down." Yet this told
nothing. He had not heard nor caught the mention of the Keys,
therefore the measurement might apply to any of the scores of little
islands in the Virgin Archipelago. Also he had heard Reginald read out
from his papers, "now here is a little map, rough as befits a drawing
made by me, yet just and true." But of what use was this map--unless
he could set eyes on it! Ah! that was it. If he could set eyes on it!
He had heard other sentences, too; a portion of the conclusion of
Nicholas Crafer's narrative, but they would not piece together into
one explicit whole. He was, indeed, at bay. He knew the treasure had
been moved somewhere, and he knew that, in the possession of this
fellow who was now in that gimcrack yacht in the river, was a
description of where the treasure was, as well as a map showing the
spot; but he knew no more.
And as he thought it all over, sitting upon a crag, he ground his
large white teeth and beat the rock beneath him with the butt of
Barbara's gun in his rage. But, at last, it seemed that he had made up
his mind, had resolved upon his plan; for with a smothered oath--the
use of which expletives he was very frequent in--he sprang to his
feet, while he muttered to himself--
"One half! One half! Ho! Ho! No! Not one half, not one shilling, not
one red cent."
As he rose, there came across the little grassy plateau behind the
crag his sister, Barbara. For a moment she paused and glanced at him,
and, perhaps because she knew him so well and had studied all his evil
moods from infancy, she observed something in his face more evil, more
threatening than usual. Then she said--
"I want my gun."
"What for?"
"There are some large parrots come across from Anegada. You said you
wanted some for your supper when next a flock came. See, there are two
in the gros-gros down there. Give me the gun," and taking it from his
hand, she cocked it and aimed at the two birds in the palm-tree
half-way down the cliff.
"What is the use?" he said roughly. "They will fall into the sea below
and we can never get them, it is too deep."
But ere he could say more she fired, missing her mark, if, indeed, she
had aimed at it. Then she uttered an exclamation and dropped the gun,
letting it fall a hundred and fifty feet below into the deep sea.
"You fool!" he said, "you infernal fool!" And he looked as though he
were going to strike her for her carelessness. "You fool! it was the
only firearm we had in the island, and now you have let it go where we
can never get it back. Barbara, a beating would do you good. I have a
mind to give you one or fling you over the cliff after it."
"It kicked," she said, "and hurt me. And, after all, it doesn't matter
much. It was old and scarcely ever shot straight. I could do nothing
with it."
"I could, though," he replied, still scowling at her. "It would shoot
what I wanted. That was good enough for me."
And Barbara, as she looked him straight in the eyes, said inwardly to
herself--
"I know it would shoot what _you_ wanted. That is why it will never
shoot again."
He changed the subject after grumbling at and abusing her for some
time longer, and said--
"Where's that fellow now, that admirer of yours? I haven't seen him
to-day."
"I saw his yacht go out two or three hours ago," she said, treating
the remark about Reginald's admiration with infinite contempt--as of
late she had treated most of his speeches. "I suppose he has gone for
a sail. Or, perhaps, over to Tortola or Anegada to buy himself some
food. Since you will not show him much civility, I suppose he does not
want to be beholden to you for even so much as a mango or a shaddock."
"I've a mind to put a chain across the river's mouth and stop him ever
coming into the river again." But while he spoke he started at a
thought that came into his mind, and said--
"My God! Suppose he is gone to the island where he knows the treasure
was removed to! Suppose that! And to dig it up and be off with it.
Barbara!" he almost shrieked, "which is that island--where is it?"
"Offer him the fair half he requires," she said, "and find out. That's
the best thing you can do."
People who live in civilised places do not often see a man with the
temper of a wild beast exhibit that temper. There are many men with
such tempers, it is true, in the most enlightened and refined spots;
but their surroundings force them into some sort of decency, however
much they may be raging inwardly. Here, in Coffin Island, civilisation
was, if not nonexistent, at least at a discount, and Joseph Alderly,
who had the disposition of a tiger without the tiger's redeeming
quality--love for its own kind--gave way at Barbara's last remark to
such a tempest of fury as would have disgraced that animal. He rushed
at his sister, howling, cursing and blaspheming, with the evident
intention of hurling her over the cliff, which she--agile as a
deer--avoided, so that had he not thrown himself down violently, he
must have gone over instead; and then he gave his vile infirmity full
swing. Curses on her, on Crafer, even on himself, poured from his
mouth; he dug his heels into the earth and kicked stones and, pebbles
away from him as though they were living creatures which could feel
his fury; and all the time he interlarded his blasphemy with such
remarks as, "It is mine, mine, mine. I will have it, even though I cut
his throat. Mine! mine! mine! One half--my God! One half!"
Thus the savage exhibited his temper without restraint; it was his
only manner of doing so. Had he been an English gentleman, he would
probably have had just the same temper, only it would have taken a
different shape. He would have browbeaten his wife or female kin, have
bullied his servants, and probably kicked his dog. And then, as
Alderly soon did, he would have calmed down, feeling much relieved!
Barbara waited until at last he seemed quieter--regarding him with
scorn, though not surprise, since she knew his disposition--when she
said:
"I don't think you understand Mr. Crafer. Like all his countrymen he
can be very firm, I imagine, and like all English sailors"--and there
was a perceptible accentuation of the word "English"--"he seems very
brave. You won't frighten him."
He still muttered and mumbled to himself--though it seemed to her he
was meditating something all through the end of his paroxysm--and at
last he said:
"When is he coming back? I suppose you know."
"How should I know, and why should he come back? Your welcome has not
been very warm, and, as you say, he may have gone to the other island
where the treasure has been removed to."
Again at this, to him, awful suggestion, it seemed as if his brutal
fury was going to break out once more, but this time, by an effort
that was no doubt terrific, he calmed himself and was contented to
exclaim:
"I don't believe that! If he came to fetch it away, why didn't he do
so before now? There was no one to interfere with him. You may depend
it's all a lie--the treasure's here in my island, and he hasn't dug it
up because he couldn't. He was afraid of you before I came back."
"My admirer--and afraid of me! Well!" exclaimed Barbara, with a
different note of scorn in her voice now.
"Or he was playing at being your admirer to throw dust in your eyes
and get away with it all somehow."
Here Barbara shrugged her shoulders; but even that significant gesture
was allowed to pass also without an explosion. He was calming himself,
taming himself, she saw plainly, and she guessed at once that he had a
reason for what he did. What was that reason? She resolved to know.
"I suppose I must yield," he said, with a strange look in his eyes.
"Barbara, we must give in. You go and see him and tell him I'll go
halves. Though it's a cruel shame, a wicked shame."
"Is it? I don't think so. He came all the way from England to get it
all for himself, and it was only when he found that there were
descendants of Simon on the island that he resolved to give it--to
share it!" she corrected herself.
"Well, we must do it. But to think of his taking half away! When will
he come back?"
"I tell you I don't know."
Her brother again plunged into meditation. Then he said:
"You go down to the mouth of the river and watch till he comes in. You
can talk to him better than I can--you're what they call a lady, I
suppose. At any rate, you're edycated. Then tell him what I say--that
I'll give in and go shares--that is, if you can't wheedle him into
taking less. You're a fine-looking girl, Barbara, as good a looking
girl as ever I've seen in Jamaica or Darien, or even up to New York;
if you played your cards right we could get the lot out of him."
The girl shrank away from him with such a look of disgust--for the
odious leer upon his face told her quite as plainly as his words did,
if not more so, what he meant--that he refrained from continuing.
Whatever plot he was maturing--and he was maturing a deep-laid one--he
saw that this was not the way to work it. Therefore he continued his
instructions.
"Go down and meet him when he comes in. It will be to-night when the
tide sets here from Tortola. Then come home and tell me. And
to-morrow--" he said the word "to-morrow" slowly, and with a sound in
his voice that roused her--"to-morrow, if he's willing, we'll get to
work. Now go."
She turned on her heel without a word beyond saying "Very well," and
in a moment she was gone, her lithe form disappearing instantly
amongst the bamboos and Spanish bayonets, the poinsettias and
begonias, that grew up close to the plateau And beyond the chattering
of the aroused _vert-verts_ and _Qu'est-ce qu'il dit's_, there was
nothing to show that she had set out upon her errand.
He, the savage owner of that beautiful island, sat exactly where he
had been sitting so long, still muttering to himself, laughing once or
twice, and repeating over and over again the words, "To-morrow,
to-morrow." And as he did so, a pleasing vision came before his eyes,
and only once it was marred--by what seemed to be a great wave of
blood passing before them. Otherwise, it showed him all that could
gladden such a heart as his. A southern gambling-hell with the tables
piled with gold, all of which he was winning for himself by the aid of
the vast capital he possessed. A gambling-hell with the lights turned
down low for coolness, and with iced drinks being passed about to all
therein; a place through which the sound of soft music was borne, in
which fair-haired women caressed him, and made much of him. Then,
next, he saw a verdant hill above a summer sea, a villa with marble
steps and corridors; outside, the splashing of fountains amidst the
palms around them. And still the golden-haired women were ever
present, contending with each other for his favours--his, the
wealthiest man in those tropic regions!
That was the vision he saw, before rising and going slowly down the
path that led to the beach where his patched-up cutter was moored.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
BEWARE!
The girl went on her mission willingly enough--indeed, had her brother
not ordered her to go and watch for the return of Reginald, she had
quite determined in her own mind some time before to seek him out, and
to wait for his coming back.
For she, who had observed Joseph carefully all her lifetime, could
read his nature as easily as a book; she knew what those tempests of
fury, followed by an enforced self-subduing, meant. Above all,
she knew what the sudden determination on his part to share the
treasure--or the appearance of sudden determination--meant also. It
meant either trickery, or violence, or murder. Most probably the
latter!
His greed for money to squander on himself had always been great, even
from boyhood. In those days, and before he could earn anything for
himself, he would rob his father of small sums, pilfering them from
his pocket when he slept, or from places where he kept his earnings;
later on, if a goat or a sheep were taken by him to Tortola and sold,
there would be always some dispute about the price obtained, always
something missing. And when he was a man the scenes between him and
his father, the fights and the ill-treatment to which old Alderly was
subjected, were sufficient to make him stand forth in very distinct
characters.
Therefore, she knew that he intended something now against Reginald
Crafer--she felt perfectly sure that never would her brother allow the
latter to become possessed of one-half of whatever buried treasure
there might be. What his exact intentions were she could not, of
course, make sure. It might be that he meant to watch him, until, in
some way, the spot where the treasure was should be revealed, when, by
some trickery, Joseph would manage to secure it all; it might be that
he had resolved to do the worst and slay him. For, if he could do
that, then he would become possessed of the papers which told where
the treasure was, and, since he was able to read enough, she thought,
to decipher even the crabbed, indistinct characters in the writing,
as she had seen them to be, to thus possess himself of all. And she
knew, too, that whatever Joseph did would be done by stealth and
craft--the only way in which he ever worked when not consumed by his
passion--and, therefore, he was doubly to be suspected and guarded
against.
All through the warm tropical afternoon she sat on by the bank of the
river; it was the very spot, as she knew, or thought she knew, where
two centuries ago Simon Alderly had slain the diver--thinking always,
and taking no heed of all the multitudinous animal life around her.
The humming-birds hovered in front of her, bright specks of gorgeous
colour; the butterflies, representing in their brilliant bodies every
known hue, flitted backwards and forwards; sometimes a monkey peered
at her with wide-open eyes from moriche and bamboo, and insects of
numerous varieties crept about the bush-ropes and the fan-palms, while
all around her was the warmth and perfume of the tropics.
Yet she heeded none of these things. They were the accompaniments of
the whole of her young existence, and--even had they not been--she
would not now have noticed them. Her thoughts were intent on the
saving of a human life--a life she had come to love, the life of the
handsome Englishman who had journeyed from far-off England to her
lonely, desolate home.
Presently she knew that night was at hand, that it was coming swiftly.
The atmosphere was all suffused by a rich saffron hue, into which the
crimson tints of the sun and the blue of the heavens were being
absorbed; the sun itself was sinking over the mount behind her; even
the air was cooling and becoming fresher.
"If he would only come," she whispered to herself; "if he would only
come before night falls."
And then she resolved to go to the mouth of the river and look for
him. To do so meant that she must force her way through a hundred
yards of undergrowth of cacti and all kinds of clinging creepers; yet
she was so anxious to see him and to warn him of the danger in which,
she felt sure, he would stand on his return, that she did not hesitate
a moment. Therefore she plunged bodily in amongst the luxuriant
vegetation, and, after a considerable amount of struggling and a
numerous quantity of scratches received, stood at last upon the beach,
gazing almost south towards Tortola.
And soon she saw that he was coming back--as she had never doubted he
would come: he had not parted from her in a manner that meant a last
farewell!--he was very near the island now, not a quarter of a mile
away.
Presently he, too, saw her standing there regarding him, and, as he
did so, took his handkerchief from his pocket and waved it to her. And
five minutes later the _Pompeia_ passed in between the river banks, so
that they could speak to each other.
"Why! how did you get through the undergrowth, Barbara?" he asked,
astonished to see her on the beach, which, from the landing path, was
almost inaccessible.
"I wanted to see if you were coming back," she answered, "and so
forced my way."
"Wait till I have anchored opposite the path," he said, "and I will
come back with the dinghy and bring you off." And so he passed on to
the usual place where he moored the yacht--simply because the path
from the hut to the river came down opposite--and then, anchoring, he
got into the dinghy and went to fetch her.
"Shall I put you ashore," he asked, "or will you come on board?"
"On board," she said; "we can talk better there. Ashore there may be
ears hidden behind any palm or under any bush. Take me on board."
He looked at her with one swift glance, wondering what could have
happened now, but he said nothing; and after a few strokes they stood
on the deck of his little craft. Then he brought her a tiny deck-chair
and bade her be seated, while he leaned against the gunwale by her
side.
"What is it, Barbara?" he asked, looking down at her. "What is it
now?"
"I do not know," she said, speaking very low and casting glances over
to the bank of the river, as though doubting whether that other one
might not be hidden somewhere beneath the thick foliage of the shore.
"Yet, Mr. Crafer, I fear."
"For what?"
"For you. He is meditating something. I am sure of it. He has bidden
me come to you and say that, to-morrow, he will agree to share the
treasure with you if you will show him where it is. No," she went on,
seeing a smile appear upon Reginald's face, "no, it is not so simple
an ending as you think. I am certain--I feel positively sure from what
I know of him--that he means to do nothing of the kind."
"Then why the suggestion?" he asked. "What is the use of it?"
"To gain time, to have the night in which to think over and work out
some scheme. Perhaps," she said, leaning a little forward to him in
her earnestness, so that, even in the now swift-coming darkness, he
could see her large starry eyes quite clearly, "to have the night in
which to attempt some injury to you. Oh! Mr. Crafer, for God's sake be
on your guard. You do not know him as I do."
"Have no fear," he said, touching her hand gently, as though in thanks
for her warning, "have no fear. Yet I will be careful. But what can he
do to-night, even if he wished to do harm? I am as safe here in this
little yacht as in a castle."
"You do not know. With him one can never tell what he is thinking of
doing--what his designs are. His life has been terribly rough, and he
has lived among lawless people and in lawless places. And his desire
for wealth is such that, knowing your life is the only thing that
stands between him and a great sum of money, as he believes, he would
hesitate at nothing. No! Not even at taking that life."
Then she told him of the incident of the gun, and how she had let it
fall into the sea so as to put it--the only firearm in the place--out
of harm's way. He thanked her again for this precaution for his
safety, and then she said that she must go. It was dark now, and
doubtless her brother would be waiting for Reginald's answer, since
she thought it very probable that he was quite as well aware that the
_Pompeia_ was once again anchored in the river as she was herself.
"Heaven bless you, Barbara, for your kindly, generous nature, and,
above all, for your thought for me," Reginald exclaimed. "That I shall
remember it always you cannot doubt. And be sure I will be very
careful, even here, aboard. Though I do not see what he can do. Our
old friend, Simon, would have attacked Nicholas openly if the
circumstances had been similar, and they would have fought it out to
the grim death. Your brother can't do that, and--short of an open
fight in the river--he can do nothing. Therefore, Barbara, have no
fear for me. And I am armed, too. See!" and with a smile he showed her
a neat little revolver--one of Webley's New Express--a powerful
weapon, though light and handy.
"God grant it may not come to that!" she answered, with a shudder.
"Bad as he is, it would break my heart if he should die at your
hands."
"It shall not come to that," Reginald replied. "I only showed it to
you to ease your mind. And you may be sure that since he has no
firearms I would not use one on him."
Then, as he put her ashore in the dinghy he said that, of course, she
would tell her brother that he was willing to come to terms. "That
is," he explained, "to go halves. Which halves mean that I am looking
after your interests, you know, and----"
"Pray, pray," she interposed, "do not let us even think of such things
now. If I have misjudged him, as I hope most earnestly I have, then
there will be time to talk about shares and so forth. If I have read
him aright----" but here she broke off with a little shiver, and,
holding out her hand to him as they stood on the river's brink, wished
him "Good-night."
"Good-night!" he exclaimed. "Good-night! Why, surely, I may accompany
you part of the way at least? I always do so when we are any distance
from your home."
"No," she answered, "no. Go back at once to your yacht. At once, I
say, and get on board her. Oh! if you did but know the terror I am in
for your safety."
"Barbara!" he exclaimed. "Barbara! Why! it is a dream, a fantasy----"
"No," she said, "no. It is no dream, no fantasy. For my sake, for my
sake, I beseech you--go back and make yourself secure. Believe me, I
know him!" and she turned as though to run up the slight ascent.
"For your sake, then, I will," he said. "For your sake. We will
meet to-morrow. Good-night, Barbara." Then he suddenly asked,
anxiously--"But you--there is no danger to you?"
"No! no! Good-night," she said, "God keep you. Oh! this dread is
terrible," and then, giving him a sign to go without further loss of
time, she sped up the path.
He did not share at all in Barbara's dread of her brother, perhaps
because he was a man, and, perhaps, also, because he had not been used
to witnessing years of violence on that brother's part; indeed, he
believed her terrors to be purely feminine--the terrors that many
women feel in all parts of the world for that worst of despots, the
domestic tyrant. But being neither vain nor conceited, he did not for
one moment associate those terrors with any regard she had allowed
herself to conceive for him, nor, thereby, make allowances for them in
that way. Indeed, he had very little idea that she regarded him as
anything more than a stranger, who, by the peculiar knowledge he
possessed of the buried wealth, was far more interesting than the few
tourists were who sometimes visited Coffin Island. Yet he forgot she
allowed him to call her Barbara, while always herself addressing him
with formality.
He was not, however, so foolhardy as to neglect a caution given him by
one who was not only interested in him but, also, thoroughly well
acquainted with the scheming and violently dangerous nature of Joseph
Alderly. He therefore, on regaining the deck of the _Pompeia_, took
such precautions as were possible. He drew up the little dinghy from
the water and placed it on the deck parallel with the port side, and,
when he entered his cabin, he was careful to leave the door open so
that any outside sounds from either the river or the banks would be
plainly heard.
Then--since there was no more to be done--he went into the cabin and,
mixing himself some whisky and water, prepared to watch as long as he
could keep his eyes open, making one sacrifice to the supposed
necessity for a caution in so far that he decided not to lie down
during the night.
"There is nothing else to do," he reflected; "hardly any danger to
ward off. He can't make such an attack on me as I suggested his
ancestor, Simon, would very likely have done, and there is no other
way possible, for he cannot get on board without my knowing it, and,
if he could, I am as good a man as he!"
Yet still he determined to watch carefully until at least the dawn had
come; for then would be sufficient time to begin considering how he
should meet Alderly and arrange for digging up the buried treasure.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
"AND DEATH THE END OF ALL."
It was a particularly dark night and all was very calm. The moon did
not top the eastern bank of the river until long past midnight, and
the stars gave but little light. Also, the silence was extreme.
Sometimes, it is true, he could hear the rustling of birds and small
animals in the luxuriant vegetation on either bank, or catch the
whisper of the soft night breezes among the _gros-gros_, the moriches,
and the great leaves of the green bananas; but that was all. And
sparkling all around him, as they whirled in their evolutions, were
the myriads of fireflies that make every tropical acre of ground look
like an illuminated garden; but, beyond these and the dim stars above
the opening between the two banks, there was nothing else to be seen.
Even the great trunks of the trees were shrouded in gloom, and seemed
nothing but dense patches on the sombre background.
Reginald sat on in his cabin, his pipe in his mouth, his tumbler by
his side, the portholes and the door open for coolness and also for
precaution's sake. And on the table upon which he leant his elbows
there lay the revolver. He had promised, voluntarily promised Barbara,
he would not use the weapon upon her brother, who had none; yet he did
not know but that, should a crisis come, he might have occasion to do
so. If Alderly were the scheming scoundrel the unhappy girl believed
him to be, then it was by no means unlikely that he, too, might
possess, secretly, a similar pistol which he had carefully kept her in
ignorance of. Or, since he was so big and powerful, if by any chance
he could board the _Pompeia_--as he might do by swimming from one of
the banks--it might come to a hand-to-hand fight, in which Alderly
would possibly be armed with other weapons, and thereby force Reginald
to use his own. But he was resolved there should be no use of it
unless absolutely necessary.
"How quiet it all is," he meditated, as he sat there, "how
undisturbed. Surely Barbara had no need for fear on my account! Why,
Nicholas could hardly have been more secure when he had the island all
to himself after Simon Alderly's death, than I am now."
And this thought set his mind off into another train, a reflection of
the similarity there was between him and his kinsman, and between
their actions in this spot--in spite of two hundred years having
rolled away.
"Nicholas had his galliot anchored here," he thought; "perhaps in the
very spot where I am now. He, too, used the path up to the hut--not
far away from here the Snow was sunk--and--and--and----" He gave a
start and shook himself. He had nearly fallen asleep! He was very
tired, for the day had been a long one, what with sailing back from
Tortola--to which he had gone, as Barbara surmised, to purchase
provisions--and his having been now awake and on the stretch for more
than eighteen hours. Therefore, to try and arouse himself, he went on
to the deck of the _Pompeia_, and inhaled the fresh night air as he
peered all around. But there was nothing to be seen, nothing. Nor, had
there been anything out of the ordinary, could he have seen it. The
darkness was intense.
He sat down again on the locker which ran round the cabin and formed a
seat, sitting bolt upright this time to prevent sleep coming upon him,
though all the while he kept telling himself that such precaution was
unnecessary. Alderly was safe asleep in his own house, he felt sure,
or was sitting up drinking and carousing by himself, as, so Barbara
told him, was always his habit. He would sit and drink, she had said,
and smoke, and as often as not play a game of cards by himself with an
imaginary opponent, and go on doing so far into the night. Then, when
at last he was exhausted and could drink no more, he would roll off
his chair on to the floor, and so lie there and sleep off his nightly
debauch. He was doubtless doing that now.
As Reginald pondered thus, he again let his elbows rest on the table
and put his head in his hands.
"The air is so hot!" he murmured, unloosing his flannel shirt-collar
as he did so, "so hot! And--there--is--no--danger. Yet I promised
her," again rousing himself, "yet--yet--Alderly stabbed the diver--if
he had had a revolver--in the casket--Barbara----"
He was asleep. Asleep peacefully, though wearily, worn out with his
long day; and presently there was no noise in all the tranquil night
but the sound of his regular breathing, and the ripple of the little
river against the bows of the _Pompeia_, as it flowed down to the sea.
Yet once he started from his slumbers, hearing in them, as he thought,
a distant shriek, and hastily went on deck, wondering if aught could
have befallen the girl up at the hut, but only to find that it was
some night bird that had alarmed him. For in the woods, away
up towards where the Alderlys dwelt, he could hear the macaws
chattering--the birds which occasionally passed from one island to
another--and an owl hooting.
"It is nothing," he said wearily, "nothing. My nerves are
overstrung--I have heard such sounds often at night since I have been
here. It is nothing. They are fast asleep enough up there. And--and--I
need watch no longer."
So, utterly overcome now by the desire for slumber that had seized
upon him, and not more than half awakened even by the visit to the
deck, he stretched himself out at full length on the locker to get an
hour or so of rest. Yet he was careful to place the revolver near to
his hand.
It wanted still an hour to the time when the moon would be above the
fronds of the tallest palms on the eastern bank--a time at which even
all the insect life of the island seemed at last to be hushed to
rest--when, to the ripple of the river and its soft lap against the
yacht's forefoot, was added another sound--the sound, subdued, it is
true, yet still one that would have been perceptible to anyone who was
awake in that yacht--of something disturbing, something passing
through the waters; but, had the sleeper awakened to hear it, he could
have seen nothing. All was still too dark, too profound.
But he himself was seen--seen by a pair of gleaming eyes staring at
him through the cabin window, the blinds of which had not been drawn,
nor the latchwork closed; a pair of eyes that glistened from out a
face over which the hair, all dank and matted with water, curled in
masses. The face of Joseph Alderly!
Presently an arm came through the cabin window, an arm long, bare, and
muscular, the hand stretched to its fullest length, the fingers
sinuous as all powerful fingers are, and striving to reach the pistol
on the table, across the body of the sleeping man. Yet soon they
desisted; they were half a foot off where the weapon lay; any effort
to project more of that arm into the cabin would almost certainly
awake the sleeper. So arm and hand were withdrawn, and again the evil
face of Alderly gazed down upon Reginald Crafer. Once, too, the hand
that had failed in its endeavour sought its owner's breast pocket, and
drew forth a long glittering knife; once through the open window it
raised that knife over the other's throat--all open and bare as it
was!--and then the hand was drawn back, the face and arm were
withdrawn; the villain had disappeared.
And still Reginald slept on, unknowing how near to death he had been,
how near to having the shining weapon driven through his throat. Slept
on and heard nothing. Slept on while the lamp hanging in the cabin
burnt itself out--he had not fed and trimmed it overnight--and until,
above, through the fan-like leaves of palm, bamboo, and cyclanthus,
there stole a ray of moonlight that shone down directly on the
sleeping man's features.
Half an hour later he began to turn restlessly, to mutter to
himself--perhaps it was the flooding of the rays of the now fully
uprisen moon upon his face that was awaking him--and, gradually, to
return to the knowledge of where he was. Yet still he could not for a
moment understand matters--the lamp was burning brightly when he went
to sleep, and all was dark as pitch outside; now the cabin was
illuminated by the moon, and all outside was light. Then he recognised
he had been asleep, and also that he was in his yacht.
He turned round to get up and go on deck to see if day was breaking,
and, as he did so and put his feet to the cabin floor, he started. It
was covered with water--water a foot deep--half up to his knees.
Looking down, he perceived it shining in the rays of the moon as a
large body of water always shines beneath those rays.
"Heavens!" he exclaimed, "she is filling, sinking! She will not float
another ten minutes; the water is almost flush with her deck already."
And he rushed to the cabin door.
He had left that door open ere he slept, he felt positive. Now it was
shut.
"She has listed a bit, perhaps," was the first thought that came to
his mind. Yet in another moment that idea was dispelled. The _Pompeia_
was sinking on as even a keel as did ever any water-logged boat; there
was no list in her. Then, almost feeling sure of what he would
discover a moment later, he tried to open the door.
_It was fast_.
"I knew it," he muttered through his teeth, as he shook and banged at
the door--there was no time to be wasted; even now the water was on a
level with the top of the locker on which he had lately slept; a few
more minutes and the yacht must sink--"I knew it. It is the whole
history over again. Phips was locked in his cabin--damn the door and
he who closed it!--and I am locked in here to sink with the boat and
be drowned like a rat. There's no chance--a child could scarcely
escape through those windows! Oh! Joseph Alderly, if I ever----"
He stopped. Across the stream, from down by the mouth of it, there
came the most awful, blood-curdling cry he had ever heard, the death
cry of one who knew he was uttering his last shriek, knew that his
doom was fixed. A horrid shriek, followed by the words, "Help!
help!"--and then silence--dense as before.
"Ay! call for help," muttered Reginald. "Whoever you are, you do not
want it more than I. Another five minutes and the end will have come."
He looked round the cabin in hope of some means of escape presenting
themselves, and his eyes lighted on the revolver. Then he knew that,
if he were but accorded time, only a few moments, he might get free.
But more than two or three such moments would not be his; the water
was nearly to his waist now. Once, twice, thrice, the report of the
pistol rang out from that doomed yacht, each shot shattering the lock
and panels; and then one sturdy push was sufficient to force the door
open against the water, and for him to be standing half in the river,
half out; and at that instant he felt a heaving beneath his feet, he
felt he was sinking to his shoulders, that he was swimming with
nothing beneath him any longer. The yacht was gone; he had not been a
minute too soon!
The current was strong--the river being swollen with the recent
rains--and it bore him downwards to the mouth, he not struggling
against it, as he knew very well that he could easily land on the
sea-beach outside. So he went with the tide until gradually he reached
the outlet, and there he saw a sight that might well affright him,
even after what he had gone through. He saw the face of Alderly on the
waters, an awful look of fear in the wide-open eyes, and the jaws
tightly clenched, but with the lips drawn back from the white teeth on
which the moon's rays glistened. And he saw that he was dead.
"My God!" he exclaimed. "How has he died?" And as he so pondered he
swam towards the villain, whose head bobbed about on the water as
though there were no limbs, nor even trunk, beneath. But all the time
as it turned round and round the eyes gleamed with a horrible light
under the moon, and the great strong teeth glistened behind the drawn
lips.
Another moment, and he knew how Alderly had died. The water in which
he swam towards him tasted salter than sea-water as it touched his
lips, and its clearness was discoloured--crimson! And even as Reginald
seized the head of the now limbless trunk and towed it to the bank,
striking out with all his power for fear of a similar dreadful fate
befalling him--which was probable enough, since the shark is, like the
tiger, eager for more when once its taste is whetted--he thought to
himself:
"Out of the depths, out of the depths the past rises again and again."
Then, sweating with fear, he gave one last masterful side-stroke and
landed safely on the shingle, dragging his gory burden after him.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
THE OWNER OF THE TREASURE.
The white shark--for such it is which is the most terrible in these
regions--that had taken both Alderly's legs off above the knee, so
that he must have soon bled to death, had doubtless done so while his
intended victim was escaping from the trap he had set for Reginald.
Each bite--for the brute must have given two--was as clean as though
the limbs had been snipped-off by a pair of blunt scissors, and, as
Reginald regarded the mangled trunk in the moonlight, he could not but
thank his Maker that he had not been the next victim, for he
recognised how narrow his own escape was. His experience as a sailor
told him that where the sharks have found one prey they will,
sometimes for weeks, hover about in expectation of another, and
he could only wonder--while his wonder was tinged with devout
gratitude--why he should not also by now be torn in half.
As he dragged the body up the slope of the shingle, meaning to cover
it over with palm leaves until Barbara had seen the face--the lower
part she must not be allowed to see--and then to bury it, a bundle of
papers fell out of the pocket of the dead man's rough shirt, which he
picked up and put in his own. It must be handed to Barbara, he
reflected, who was now the last of the Alderlys, and consequently the
heiress to all the wealth of the Key!
"Which is," reflected Reginald, "the very best thing that could
possibly have happened. She will now be able to lead the life so
beautiful a woman ought to lead, a life which she by her education and
womanly ideas is fitted to lead. For her, nothing could be better than
Alderly's death."
Yet, when he thought of her inexperience--had she not believed that
Trinidad was the world!--and of how she was all alone now without kith
or kin, he could not but wonder what would become of her.
"At least," he pondered, "I pray she may fall into the hands of no
such an adventurer as this," and he glanced at Alderly's mangled body.
"That would be too awful. Better anything than that, even to finding
her fortune gone when we dig up the Key. Though that would be a
strange climax, too, to all that has taken place. Gone! great heavens,
what an idea! To think of it! To think that when we go to unearth it
we may discover there is nothing to be got. The very thought makes my
blood run cold. But--bah! it is nonsense. It must be there!"
His blood was running cold, though not from this idea which had come
into his mind, but from the wetting he had received.
Therefore, as soon as the sun burst upon the island once more, he
stripped himself of his clothes, and, laying them out to dry,
proceeded to dry himself also by the old-fashioned method of running
up and down the beach. Then, when but a short exposure of his garments
to the sun had sufficed to render them once more wearable, he put them
on again and set out for Barbara's home.
"Though," he said to himself, "it is no easy task to break such news
to her. Alderly was not kind to her, and she knew his failings and
despised him--yet he was her brother, and his death was awful. But it
must be told."
He made his way with the usual difficulty through all the entanglement
of the luxuriant vegetation that grew down to the beach, and at last
reached the path leading to the hut. Indeed, he was eager to get there
in spite of the fact that he had such dismal news to break to Barbara,
since he was somewhat surprised that he had neither seen nor heard
anything of her now. He had almost feared to denude himself of his
clothes at daybreak, thinking that at any moment the girl might come
down to him--it being her custom to rise at that time--and when an
hour had passed, as it had now done, he was still more astonished at
not seeing her. She must know by now that her brother was not in his
house; she must, have known long ago that he had not sat up carousing
far into the night as was his habit. Where was she? What could have
happened?
His fears became intensified as her house came into sight. For he soon
perceived that the jalousies were not opened, and that the door on the
verandah was closed--a thing he had never known before to be the case,
from daybreak until late night--nay, worse, more appalling than all to
him, was to see that behind the slats of the jalousie of the front
room there was a light burning--the light of the lamp that stood
always on the table in the middle of the living-room.
Springing up the wooden steps leading to the verandah, he rattled the
slats in great agitation, and called loudly, "Barbara! Barbara, are
you there?" a summons which, he thanked Heaven, instantly produced a
reply. He heard the bark of her dog, who knew him well now; but no
answer came from her.
Unable to bear any further suspense, fearing the worst, namely, that
her brother had murdered her before he set forth on his attempt to do
as much for him, and remembering--fool that he was, as he called
himself!--the shriek he had heard in the night and attributed to some
of the disturbed denizens of the island, he tore the jalousie aside
and entered the general room.
And then he knew why Barbara had not come to seek him at daybreak as
was her wont.
She was lying on the lounge, or rude sofa, her hands bound in front of
her, her feet tied together, and in her mouth a rude gag made of a
coarse pocket-handkerchief. By her side was the dog, moaning and
whimpering, but making, when he entered, an attempt to jump up and
fondle him. It also was tied, to the foot of the couch.
"Oh! Barbara!" he exclaimed, rushing forward to her, while he saw with
infinite thanks that her eyes were open, and that she seemed to have
suffered no further brutality than being made a prisoner of. "Oh!
Barbara! that he should have treated you so!"
Then in a moment he had taken the gag from her mouth and had set her
free, while all the time he was speaking kindly and considerately to
her, and pitying her for having been so treated. And her first words
were:
"Thank God, you are alive! I have been picturing you to myself for
hours as dead. Did he not try to kill you?"
"Yes, Barbara," he said, after a moment's pause, almost dreading to
tell her the tale, yet recognising that he must do so. "Yes, he tried
to kill me."
"How?"
"By drowning. He must have bored some holes in the yacht unknown to
me, when I slept. Oh! Barbara! I know I promised to keep careful
watch, yet I was so tired, and at last I fell asleep. When I awoke the
yacht was full of water--was sinking. Then----" he hesitated to tell
her of how he had been locked in the cabin--"I--I escaped--I swam for
my life."
"And he?" she asked faintly, almost in a whisper. "What of him?"
"He is dead."
"Ah! yes," she replied, with a shiver. "I know. I heard the report of
your revolver. Then I knew all. Oh! how I wish he had not died at your
hands!"
"He did not die at my hands, Barbara. He was dr----; he died in the
water."
"Tell me all," she said, still faintly. "Tell me all."
Therefore he told her the whole of the dreadful story, omitting only
the most blackening act, the double treachery and attempt of Alderly
to take his life without giving him one chance of escape.
"I never thought to see you again," she whispered, when his recital
was finished. "Never, never. For," she went on, telling now her
experiences, "I knew by midnight that what I had dreaded he would
attempt was about to take place. At that hour he left off drinking,
having taken much less than was usual all the evening, and rising he
went to the cupboard, from which, though he thought I could not do so,
I saw him take out his long knife. It was one he brought back from
Uruguay, from Paysandu, where they slaughter the oxen wholesale. I
have heard him say more than once that it was too good to slay beasts
with, and more fit to use on men--and once he drew it upon father. So
that I knew he meant ill to you. Then I tried to escape to give you
warning, only he would not let me. He seized me, tied me as you saw,
and gagged me, though I shrieked once, hoping to alarm you--indeed,
he threatened to kill me. And, at last, after he had also tied the
dog--he would have slain that too, I feel sure, had it uttered one
cry--he left me to the horrors of the night. Without one word he went
away, not even saying when he would return. And," the girl concluded,
"when I heard your pistol shots I fainted from fear--fear of what was
going on. Oh! thank God, thank God, that he did not murder you--that
you were not obliged to take his life in self-defence."
"I am thankful, too," he said; "above all things, thankful for your
sake." After which he added, "Now, Barbara, would it not be best for
you to come with me and see his body? I must bury it, you know, and
then I ought to go over to Tortola and tell the Commissioner. I
suppose he should be informed of his death."
"I suppose so," she said. "Only--how are you to go? The yacht is
lost."
"There is his own boat. Where is that?"
But Barbara could not tell him, and soon after he found out. But now
he prepared to go back to the beach to bury her brother's body, and he
was not altogether surprised when she refused to accompany him.
"You have told me he is dead and how he died," she said. "That is
enough--what more can I need? And for himself--oh! why should I see
him? He never cared for me as a brother should, his last act was one
of cruelty to me, and he went forth to murder you. Moreover, he was
callous about father's death, did indeed rejoice in it, I believe,
because by it he became master of the place. No, I will not go and see
him; I could not bear to look upon him again. And," she concluded, "my
only regret is that you should have the task of burying him. It would
have been better almost had he sunk to the bottom of the river."
Therefore Reginald went off upon this duty, but before he did so he
gave to Barbara the water-soaked packet of papers which he had taken
from Alderly's shirt-pocket.
"They fell out," he said, "after I had brought him ashore. There was
nothing else. The knife you speak of must have sunk to the bottom;
perhaps he even tried to defend himself against the shark with it in
his last moments. We shall never know!"
Nor did he ever know how that long Uruguay knife had once been nearly
thrust into his breast as he lay sleeping; nor that with the knife,
which had, indeed, sunk to the bottom of the river, had also sunk the
auger with which he had bored half-a-dozen holes (each of the
circumference of an ordinary cork) in the bottom of the _Pompeia_. One
thing did, however, strike him as strange as he meditated over it all,
namely, that from the time when Alderly must have bored those holes in
the yacht to the time when she sank a considerable period had
undoubtedly elapsed. And he wondered if it was during that period that
he had managed to get on board and close the cabin door. Then, as he
was burying him, he knew; he found out that his would-be murderer had
indeed visited the _Pompeia_.
For he was mistaken when he told Barbara earlier that there was
nothing else on her brother's body. As he prepared to put the trunk
into the hole he had dug for it--while still the fixed open eyes
stared up at him, this time in the morning's sunlight, and still the
beautifully white teeth gleamed in that light--he observed that,
besides the papers which had dropped from his shirt, there were still
some others that had remained within the pocket.
And drawing them out he saw that, all soaked as they were like the
others, they were the narrative of Nicholas Crafer.
"So," he thought, while he felt faint and sick as he mused--"so he
was in the cabin, after all! Heavens! he must have crept in while I
slept, have rifled my pockets in the dark when the lamp had gone out,
have--faugh!--had his foul hands all about me! Thank God! he must have
come when the light had burnt out, otherwise he would have seen the
pistol."
He never knew that the ruffian had, in truth, known the pistol was
there, but had forgotten, or feared to use, it when in the cabin later
on.
He tossed the remains into the hole he had dug, touching them with the
greatest disgust and loathing, and then covered the spot up hurriedly
and stamped the earth down over it, and took his way back to Barbara.
And, as he went, he determined that he would not tell her of this
further instance of villainy on her brother's part. Henceforth she
should learn no more of the workings of that wicked heart and brain.
When he reached the hut he saw her on the verandah, seated in the
usual chair and with tears in her eyes. The papers he had given her
were stretched out on a table before her, and, as he mounted the
steps, she held out one to him and bade him read it. A glance showed
that it was a will made by her father, a will properly drawn up and
attested at some lawyer's office in Tortola; a will by which
everything was left to her, including the island and the treasure if
ever found--indeed, all that he possessed.
"Because," he read, in the cramped legal hand of the person who had
drawn it out, "of the cruelty, the greed and the evil temper of my son
to me, as well as his ill-treatment of me and my dear daughter,
Barbara, I give and bequeath to her all and everything of which I may
die possessed, including Coffin Island, any buried treasure that may
chance to be found," etc., etc., etc.
"Great heavens!" Reginald thought to himself, as he handed her back
the will, "there was no end to the scoundrel's wickedness. How could
this villain be Barbara's brother?"
CHAPTER XXXIX.
THE APPROACHING SEARCH.
Reginald found Joseph Alderly's boat on the same evening, when he was
out on a tour about the coast of the island on the lookout for it. As
he suspected, Alderly had brought it round to the neighbourhood of the
river's mouth, preferring to get at him that way instead of by the
path down from his house. His reasons for doing so might have been
manifold, the young man knew very well--reasons that would, doubtless,
at once occur to such a scheming brain as that of the dead ruffian.
For, independently of the fact that he would have strongly wished to
avoid any encounter with him on shore--and, for aught he knew,
Reginald might be ashore at any period of the night--he might have
brought his cutter to that neighbourhood so as to be able to get away
from the island at once, after the sinking of the _Pompeia_ had been
accomplished.
For instance, had his plan succeeded he could have sailed to Anegada
or Tortola within two or three hours from the time of the crime being
committed, and, arriving at either place in the night, could have very
easily induced the belief that he had anchored much earlier than he
had actually done. In those spots very little, if any, notice is taken
after dark of what boats are about--especially such boats as
Alderly's, which are common all over the islands--and his _alibi_
would consequently have held good when Reginald was reported missing.
And even the report of his being missing would not have spread abroad
for probably some time after the event. None but tourists came to
Coffin Island, and Barbara would have been unable to get away from it;
while, since the _Pompeia_ would have disappeared for ever from human
eyes, no one could have absolutely said that her temporary owner was
dead. He might just as well have gone off with her to some other
island as she have sunk to the bottom of the river, and Alderly could,
therefore, have returned without his sister being able to advance one
proof that Reginald Crafer had been made away with.
"Though," said Reginald to himself, as he mused over the matter while
he inspected Alderly's own boat, "if I had been drowned after she
heard the pistol shots, she would certainly have thought I had died
trying to defend myself. And, had her scoundrelly brother managed to
survive me, Barbara would, if I mistake not, have taxed him very
plainly with my death."
He found the cutter anchored in about three fathoms of water, and had
to get out to her in such a crazy, water-logged punt--in which Alderly
must himself have come ashore--that he feared every moment the thing
would sink under his weight, and expose him to the chance of a similar
fate to that which had overtaken its owner. However, it was sounder
than it looked, and, on inspecting the larger craft, he came to the
conclusion that she would be navigable across to Tortola if she
escaped bad weather--of which there were no signs now. The dead man
had managed to patch her up in a manner very creditable to his
knowledge of seacraft, and to set right the injuries she had received
when cast ashore; so that, as far as the journey over to the
Commissioner was concerned, he might start at once.
"Though," he pondered, as he inspected the cutter and found nothing
inside her beyond her ordinary gear but a bottle of rum, some meat and
coarse bread, and a pipe--"though there is no reason why I should
hurry myself. We had better begin to dig up the treasure now, I think,
and, meanwhile, this dog's hole of a boat will serve for my habitation
as well as the poor _Pompeia_, though it's not quite so sweet and
wholesome."
Whereon he hauled up her anchor, got her round to the river, and
moored her as near as possible over the spot where the sunken yacht
lay.
"I may have to pay Juby a good deal, for her," he mused, as he went up
the path to Barbara's house. "However, we ought to find the
wherewithal on the Key to do so. I suppose she will give me enough to
do that." And he laughed to himself as the thought passed through his
mind.
Barbara was eating her evening meal when he reached the hut, and he
sat down to share it with her, telling her that henceforth she would
have to keep him in food as long as they were together.
"I had loaded the _Pompeia_ up with all sorts of good things such as
are to be procured in the islands and at their stores," he said,
trying to be gay and also to brighten her up, "but I might have saved
myself the trouble. They are at the bottom of the river, and there
they will stay until they are rotten. So, Barbara, I must live on
you."
She gave him one swift glance from the sweet hazel eyes under the
straight black eyebrows--eyes whose lids were red now from long
weeping--and he understood it well enough. He knew that she would give
him everything she possessed in the world, including her very life, as
well as the fortune that was now to be hers--if old Nicholas had made
no mistake, and if no one had ever lighted on the Key and its contents
between the time of his departure and the coming of the other Barbara.
"By-the-bye," he said, as they ate their supper side by side, and
Barbara tried to put such choice morsels of her poor plain food as
there were on his plate, which attention he managed sometimes to
avoid--"by-the-bye, we don't know after all what we are really going
to discover. Nicholas managed to lose one of the most important parts
of his manuscript, the list, as he calls it, of part of what he found.
It is a good thing he didn't mislay the description of the Key and the
measurements as well. If he had done that we should have been in a
fix."
"But," said Barbara, "he has said what is in the long box. We know
that, at any rate. Surely that's a fortune in itself?"
"What! six thousand pounds! Why, Barbara, when you go out into the
world, the real world, London, the Continent, swagger German and Swiss
places in the summer, and Rome and the Riviera in the winter, you'll
find what a little bit of money six thousand pounds make. No! Nick's
fifty thousand 'guineas' must be found for you before you become
anything like a swell heiress with a romantic history, run after by
all the men for your beauty and your wealth."
"Don't--don't talk like that!" the girl said. "It pains me to hear you
joking like that. I know nothing of the places you mention, and as to
men running after me--oh, don't, don't! And besides, you have
forgotten--it is not mine."
"Every penny of it!" exclaimed Reginald, "except what Mr. Juby wants
for the yacht if uninsured."
"No! no! no!" she said. "Remember, it is not in the island--my island,
I suppose, now. The Keys are as much yours, or anyone else's, as mine.
And if it had been on the island, and we had dug it up, I would not
have taken it. If you would not have shared it with me--I--I--well, I
would have thrown it into the sea."
"What a nice ending to poor old Nick's troubles and labours here in
finding it, and at home in writing his long account in that queer fist
of his! And also to all that your people have gone through, from your
namesake downwards. No, no, Barbara! We won't throw it back into the
sea, at any rate. And to-morrow we'll dig it up. Shall we?"
This was agreed upon, and then Reginald prepared to leave her. He
offered to stay in the house if she felt nervous--as she had once
before implored him to do; but now she said, "No, she was not nervous.
She feared nothing now. There was no one else who could come to harm
him or her; the island was theirs and theirs alone." He noticed that
she called it "theirs" and not "hers," but made no remark on the
subject, since an idea had arisen in his mind: he knew now what the
future of the treasure, of Barbara, and of himself must be!--and he
proceeded to arrange for their movements on the morrow.
"It will be low water two hours after daybreak," he said, "and by that
time I will have brought the cutter and the boat round to the strip of
beach nearest to the Keys. You might meet me there, Barbara, and bring
some food and fresh water, and then we will begin. Meanwhile, let me
have whatever tools and implements you possess for digging. I will
take them with me and bring them in the cutter in the morning."
In the shed behind the hut they found what was required, an old spade
and a nearly new one, a pickaxe and some ropes--for the Alderlys,
father and son, had had to attend to their garden in this tropical
island almost as much as though they had lived in Europe--and these
would be enough, he thought.
So, shouldering them, he bade her "Good-night"--it seemed to each as
though their hands were clasped together longer and more tightly now
than they had ever been before!--and went his way down to the river
once more.
It would have been strange if, to-night--the night before the story,
that his ancestor had written in those long past and forgotten years,
was to be realised--he should not have had a host of thoughts whirling
through his brain; if past and present had not been strangely confused
and jumbled up together in that brain.
There lay the cutter, a dark indistinct mass, in the midst of the
stars reflected from above; in the very self-same spot where so many
other small vessels, all connected with him, with Barbara, and with
the treasure, had lain before. Itself the property of a villain whose
villainy was inherited through centuries, it occupied the spot in that
little river where once the _Etoyle_ had been moored, where she had
been sunk, and where Simon Alderly and his murdered victim, the diver,
had got ashore. Also there, or close by, had been the galliot of
honest Nicholas with its dying and dead crew, and with Nicholas
sleeping, or trying to sleep, in that place of death, or watching
Alderly in his murderous madness as he slew his companion. And he
pictured to himself the sloop with the unknown Martin having probably
been anchored there before those days--doubtless as full of reckless,
bloodstained scoundrels as was the _Etoyle_ herself; he remembered
how, not twenty-four hours before, the graceful and pretty _Pompeia_
had ridden at anchor on the river's bosom--and now she, too, had gone
to join the other wrecks below the water.
He shuddered as these thoughts passed through his mind; shuddered at
all that the treasure had led to in the way of murder and death.
"It was here, here where I stand," he whispered to himself, "that the
diver was slain; there, in the river, that the bones of the pirates
lie, and also those of the crew of the galliot; above--where she, the
pure outcome of so much evil, dwells--that Simon Alderly died mad and
without time to repent."
A slant of the rising moon gleamed through the wood on to the bank and
played on the waters of the river lower down; the ray was thrown upon
the very spot where, last night, he had seen the staring eyes and the
glistening teeth of Joseph Alderly, as the limbless body swirled round
with the stream--and he started and shivered.
"Heavens!" he exclaimed, "it is a charnel-house, a place of horror!
I--I cannot sleep in that boat to-night."
He turned from the accursed spot--all beautiful as it was now beneath
the rising moon, and illuminated with myriads of fireflies, while
over and above all was the luscious perfume of tropical plants and
flowers--and went his way through the thick underbrush to a part of
the shore beyond the spot, where the body of Joseph Alderly had been
buried, avoiding that place as he proceeded. Then, when he had gone
some distance, he chose a bit of the beach high and dry above the line
of the already receding sea, and, laying himself down upon it, gazed
far over the waters to where a few lights sparkled at intervals from
the little island of Tortola.
But ere he slept, and when a deep sense of fatigue was stealing over
him, he rose once more, and, kneeling down by the spot he had
selected, he prayed long that, whatever the morrow might bring forth,
at least one thing might be granted. He prayed that all the bloodshed,
and the cruelty that that treasure had been the cause of for more than
two centuries, had ended at last, never more to be renewed--he prayed
that, henceforth, it might bring only happiness and peace in its
train.
"For her, for her," he whispered. "For her and for me."
And, feeling sure that his prayer was heard and would be granted, he
laid himself down again and soon was sleeping peacefully.
CHAPTER XL.
THE SEARCH.
As the dawn came, and a cool wind blew over the water and brushed his
cheek, he arose from a night of refreshing slumber--the first for two
days--and took his way back to the cutter. Then, reaching her, he soon
unmoored, made the boat fast astern, and, getting down the river,
sailed round the island to the spot where the Keys were.
It took him an hour to fetch the beach in two tacks, and then he saw
that, early as he was, Barbara was there before him, and that she was
seated on the shore, the dog at her feet and a basket by her side.
This morning her eyes were no longer red--she had done with weeping
for her vile brother, he thought--and her colour, always beautiful,
except since the events of the last few days had driven it all away,
had now come back to her. She, too, he knew, had slept peacefully at
last, and in that peaceful rest all her loveliness had returned.
"Now, Barbara," he said, after they had exchanged their morning
greetings, he from the boat, and she from the shore, "we'll call the
boat away, and off we go to your inheritance. In a few hours you will,
I trust, be put in possession of it." Saying which, he anchored the
cutter, got into the boat and cast her off, and so rowed ashore for
Barbara. He had found out that the capabilities of this boat--crazy as
it seemed--were quite equal to carrying them, and the implements for
digging, out to the Key a hundred yards off, and he also knew that, by
leaving Barbara on the middle Key when they had found the treasure, he
could convey each of the boxes, or coffers, back to the island one by
one. Then, as to the final removal of them and their owner from Coffin
Island--well, that would all be arranged for later.
A few minutes only and they stepped out upon the soft wet sand of the
middle Key--they stood upon the place that, perhaps, no other foot had
trodden since Nicholas left it more than two hundred years ago. There
was nothing to bring anyone to that particular atom of an island among
all the thousands upon thousands of islands with which the marine
surface of the world is dotted, not even a search for the turtles and
the eggs they laid. For, in these regions, those creatures are so
common that nobody desiring to procure one would have even troubled to
visit the middle Key while the outer ones were easier of access.
"I begin to feel very nervous now we have reached here, and the search
is about to begin," Barbara said. "Oh! what shall we find--or shall we
find anything?"
"Make your mind easy," Reginald replied, although he himself felt
unaccountably excited, too, at what was before them. "The story left
by Nicholas bears the stamp of truth on every line of it; I would
stake my existence on his having buried the boxes as he wrote. And as
to their having been disinterred, why! there is no possibility of
that. Come, let us begin."
He looked round at the sea as he spoke, and scanned the little
crisping waves as they rolled on to the Key's shore, and,
involuntarily and sailor-like, searched the horizon to see if there
was any sail in sight, any likelihood of their being observed. Yet, as
he knew and told the girl by his side, there was no chance of that.
"On this, the east side of the Key," he said, "there is nothing nearer
than the Cape de Verd Islands and the African coast, and nothing
passes east or west within twenty miles of this place. We will make a
beginning."
Then they sat down on the brushwood of the island, disturbing as they
did so a great two-hundred-pound turtle that crawled gasping away, and
Reginald, taking out the now water-stained and blurred pages of
Nicholas, began to read over carefully his measurements and
instructions for finding the exact spot where the buried treasure lay.
"'From the north side of the middle Key is fifty-one good strides of
three feet each,'" he repeated from the paper; "'from the south side
is fifty-three, from the east is forty-nine, from the west is fifty
strides and a half.' Barbara, let us measure. I will begin from this,
the south side."
Very carefully he paced out the strides, "good ones," as his
predecessor had directed, only, instead of sticking in the ground a
sword--which, of course, he did not possess here--he put a large white
stone. Then, as Nicholas had himself done, three times did he go over
the ground, making all the strides correspond with the ancient
manuscript; and at last he said to Barbara, "Now we will dig."
"It is only three feet from the surface to the topmost turtle shell,"
he remarked, as he took off his light jacket and rolled up his
sleeves. "Ten minutes will show if we have hit it right."
At the end of those ten minutes he found that, though he had made a
mismeasurement of a foot and a half from the east to west, he had
otherwise judged his distance with sufficient accuracy. The treasure,
certainly the topmost turtle shell, was there. The spade struck
against the edge of that shell instead of the exact middle of it; in a
few minutes more, by digging the sand up further to the west, the
whole of it was exposed, its convex side rising towards them.
"We have found it," he exclaimed. "We have found it, Barbara! The
treasure is--yours!"
* * * * * *
What was in the oblong box has been told by Nicholas himself,
therefore it is not necessary to write down an account of its contents
again. Roughly, too, he has told what he found in the first two
"coffers" or chests, including the "grinning skull," which they, of
course, found also. But Nicholas's list had been lost, therefore one
somewhat more full shall now be given, leaving his account of the
first strong box to speak for itself. And also in the second, "the
Spanish pieces of eight, the Portyguese crusadoes, English crowns, and
many more French coins as well as hundreds of gold pieces of our kings
and queens away back to Elizabeth," were all there as he has
described, so neither need they be again set down. It was when they
came to the third coffer that their curiosity was the most aroused,
for with it began their search for something he had left no account
of, something that was described in that "list" which was missing.
Therefore, they opened it with almost trembling hands--when it had
been brought up to the surface--wondering what they should find.
On the top lay a deerskin, dressed and trimmed, showing that whenever
it might originally have been put in, it had at least belonged to
people who had some of the accessories of civilisation about them,
since, had it belonged to wild and savage persons, it would have been
hardly dressed at all, nor would it have possessed any trimming at the
edges. This they lifted off, only to come to a variety of smaller
skins, such as those of fox, goat, and sheep, which it was easy to
perceive were simply used as wrappers to large substances within them.
"These coverings," said Reginald, as he unwrapped one, "seem to point
to England, or at least Europe, as the spot whence they came; well,
let us--ah!"
There rolled from out the one he was at that moment unwinding a beaker
a foot high, of a dull copper colour, much embossed with leaves and
flowers. Yet, dull as it was, even their slight knowledge was enough
to tell them it was gold. Also its shape was antique enough to show
that it was no new piece of workmanship, even when Simon Alderly had
found it--if he did find it, as seemed most likely; its long, thin
lip, thin neck, and big body proclaimed it of the middle ages at
least.
"So," said Reginald, giving it a rub with some of the sand by his
side, under which the dim coppery hue turned to a more golden yellow,
"this is Number Three. If the other box is full of such gold
ornaments the find will be worth having."
In this box itself there were no more gold beakers, only, instead, it
was full of silver plate of all kinds, and all enveloped in skins.
There were also two more beakers, but in silver, many cups and
chalices, some with covers to them and some without, several silver
ewers, a long vase all neck and spout, some extremely ancient
candelabras, and a woman's silver dagger, known in old days as a
wedding knife.
"Oh!" said Barbara, appalled at the sight of objects so unfamiliar to
her, who had never drunk out of aught but calabashes, gourds, and
cheap earthenware--"Oh! it seems a sin to dig all these beautiful
things up."
"A greater one to let them lie in the earth," said Reginald with a
laugh. "Come, let's go on to Number Four and see what he has got
inside him."
"Now, Barbara," Reginald said next, as they began on Number Four.
"Shut your eyes until I tell you to open them."
The girl obeyed--indeed, all through this treasure hunt, or, as it had
now become, treasure inspection, they were more like a boy and girl
playing with new toys than a grown man and a young woman just about to
leave her teens behind her--and, when he told her to open them, she
saw that he had come upon a number of little plump bags tied at the
neck. These bags were made of a coarse kind of linen cloth, or Russia
duck, and were much discoloured; yet, rough as they were, they did not
prevent the impression of coins being seen inside.
"Here we come to the money--let's hope it's not copper!" exclaimed
Reginald.
Again, when they opened the first bag and poured out the contents into
Barbara's lap, it looked as though they had found copper; but again,
as before, what seemed copper was in reality gold. But the pieces
which they saw were such as they had never seen the like of before,
such as they never were able to guess the name of until some time
afterwards, when more experienced numismatists than this young sailor
and the girl by his side had the handling of them. What they
absolutely found was: First, a bag full of Elizabeth "soveraines,"
valued in her time at 30s. each, it containing two hundred and six of
these pieces. Then there was a bag full of angels of the same reign,
valued at 12s. each, of angelets at 6s., and of quarter angels at 3s.,
there being of these smaller coins three hundred and eleven in the
little sack. The third bag they opened--a larger one--contained fifty
gold crowns of Henry VIII.'s reign, fifty gold half-crowns of
Elizabeth's--the former having the figure of the king on
horseback--and in it, also, were one hundred and thirty rose nobles,
eighty-five double-rose nobles, eighty-three double-rose rials, or
reals, each of the value of 30s., and two double gold crowns, these
two being the largest and most valuable of any of the coins they
found.
"We are getting on, Barbara; we shall have a nice stock to take back
to the hut," Reginald said, as he tied the bags up again exactly as
before. "However, let's continue. This box is a monster and contains
the most of all."
Whoever had put together all this treasure of money--as well as what
was to come--was, it is certain, a methodical person; for, with the
exception of the above coins of Henry VIII. being mixed with those of
his daughter (there was not one of her sister, Mary's reign), the
different monarchs had been kept separate and distinct from one
another. This was shown by the next three bags, two of which contained
gold coins of James I.'s reign, but of no other English king. Of
these, the first had in it two hundred and one spur-rials of the value
of 15s. each--these coins being so called from the rays, issuing out
of the sun upon them, resembling the rowels of spurs--one hundred and
three of the single rose rials, and four single crowns. The second bag
had exactly one hundred single crowns by themselves; the third had two
hundred and two small gold pieces, French ones, they being crowns of
the sun as originally coined by Louis XI., and valued in England in
Elizabeth's time at 7s. each.
"Well, Barbara," Reginald said, as they finished these bags, "what do
you think of your fortune as far as it has gone? After we have had
some food we will go on and see what more there is."
"I think," the girl replied, as she opened her basket and took from it
some bread, eggs, a piece of cold roasted goat's flesh, and some of
the fruit which grew in such profusion on Coffin Island--"I think as I
have always thought, namely, that it is not my fortune but yours, and
that----"
"Ah!" interrupted Reginald. "Well! we won't quarrel over that now. So
I'll put my question in a different way. What do you think of the
fortune as far as it has gone?"
"I think it is a shame to dig it up. It seems like digging up the poor
dead creatures who put it first in the vault--who wrapped it all up so
carefully, and tied the money up in bags as if they felt sure the day
would come when they, or those dear to them, would inherit it all. And
think of what strangers it has come to, not only now but before! Simon
Alderly had no real right to it, neither had Nicholas Crafer, nor have
you nor I."
"You or I--you, of course--mean to keep it, though, Barbara. It has
been ours for two hundred years: yours by the first discovery--namely,
by the respected Simon; mine by the second--namely, the worthy
Nicholas; and, in spite of any silly old laws about treasure trove,
why, finding's keepings. Besides, the treasure trove was two hundred
years ago. Our ancestors are responsible for that part of it. We, on
the contrary, can show a two centuries' title--that's good enough for
all the lawyers in the world, I fancy."
With jokes and _badinage_ such as this the young man passed the
luncheon, dinner, or meal-hour--whichever it should be called--away.
Indeed, at this time, when the long-buried wealth of the past was
being at last revealed to its ultimate heirs and possessors, he was
anxious above all things to keep off the discussion of whose it was,
and who was to have it and who was not. As has been suggested a little
earlier, _he_ saw, _he_ knew--or felt almost positive that he saw and
knew--what was the final disposition of all that the Key was now
disgorging, only--the present was not the time to speak about that
disposition to Barbara. So, as much as possible, he kept to other
matters in connection with the task they were now engaged upon.
"Whoever they were," he went on meditatively, as the simple repast
drew to an end, "who originally owned it all, they must almost
certainly have been our country people. Although we don't either of us
know what those coins are, we can at least see that they are mostly
English, and all about one period, namely, Elizabeth's and her
successor's, James. Now, let's see. Charles I. succeeded James, eh,
Barbara?"
"Yes," said the girl. "Yes. At school we thought Charles I. the most
interesting of all the English kings."
"Ah!" said Reginald; "well, I've heard other people say differently.
Our chaplain in the _Ianthe_, for instance, used to wrangle with the
paymaster for hours about him, and call him all kinds of names.
However, let's put two and two together. Charles's was an
uncomfortable sort of reign, for others besides himself, and all sorts
of rumpusses were going on--people flying from England to America, _et
cetera_. I wonder if the gentleman who owned all these things was one
of those? He might be, you know, and have got drifted down here after
making bad weather of it in the Atlantic; or the pirates--hem!--of
_his own_ day, Barbara--no allusions meant to respected
ancestors!--might have seized on him--or--or--half a dozen things. I
don't suppose we ever shall find out."
"No," she said, "I don't suppose we shall. Perhaps it's better that we
never should. It might interfere with _your_ enjoyment of it all."
Whereon Reginald laughed once more, while a beautiful but tell-tale
blush came to the girl's face--possibly it had dawned on her, too, by
now, how the ultimate possession of the treasure might be
arranged!--and then they proceeded to inspect what remained.
CHAPTER XLI.
THE END.
What did remain in this big chest was now to be examined, and they
observed that the same precautions had been taken in the way of
coverings and wrappings as with all the previous finds.
"Which," said Reginald, descanting thereon as he unwound the wrappers,
"shows one thing, if no more. It testifies that all the spoil belonged
to the same individual, or individuals. But who was he, Barbara, who
was she, or who were they? That's what I want to know."
It was, however, what neither he nor Barbara nor anyone else were ever
to know--the treasure hidden centuries ago was, indeed, found, but all
knowledge of who or what they were who had so hidden it away was lost
for ever. The treasure of those forgotten ones remained to come to
these young people at last, but all history, record, and memory of the
owners had vanished entirely from the world.
"What's this?" exclaimed Reginald, unwinding a roll as they continued
their inspection--"what's this?" while, as he spoke, there was
revealed to him a band of metal that looked as though it was a portion
of some circular object. It was, in truth, the front part of an
ancient coronet, or crown, having set into it five rubies and a
diamond, the gold being in this case far more yellow and less coppery
looking than that of the coins had been. And as Reginald turned the
thing about in the glowing light of the Caribbean Sea, the gems
sparkled and winked and flashed their many-coloured rays in their
eyes, as though they themselves were pleased once more to be free from
the darkness in which they had lain so long.
"Swells in their day, no doubt," said the young man, referring to
those who had once owned all these valuables, "to have worn such
things." And again he exclaimed: "Who on earth could they have been?"
The next things they unrolled were five bars of gold, or rather lumps
of gold, since instead of being of the shape and form bars are now,
they were in cubes, though one was triangular. "A quarter of a pound
weight each, Barbara," the young man said, balancing them on his hand.
"A quarter of a pound each, if an ounce. I wonder the Respected One
could refrain from carrying all this wealth off to his own particular
Barbara, or that old Nicholas didn't try to get it away in the
Galliot."
Barbara only smiled--indeed, at this moment, woman as she was, she was
trying the effect of the front part of the coronet as a bracelet on
her arm, and was turning her wrist about to observe the flashing of
the stones--and then Reginald proceeded with his inspection.
"Hullo! what have we got now?" he exclaimed, as he unfolded the next
object that came to hand.
What he had got now proved to be a sword-handle, cross-shaped and
broken off sharp about an inch below the silver guard-plate. In this
handle, which itself was massive silver, roughly fretted so that a
firm grasp might be obtained, were more precious stones, mostly
diamonds, but with one or two missing from their sockets or settings.
"Undoubtedly swells," murmured Reginald again, "or else freebooters.
Fancy, Barbara, if, after all, the original depositor of these things
was a sea-robber or pirate himself! One would imagine he could hardly
have got such a collection of things otherwise. Unless, on the other
hand, he had been a pawnbroker, called, I believe, in those days a
Lombard merchant. What do you think?"
"I am getting tired of finding these things," the girl said,
listlessly. "I hope there are not many more."
"We'll soon see."
They had, however, nearly finished their work by now; the remainder of
the chest's contents were soon examined. They found, to conclude, a
little bag of unset gems--a handful of rubies and diamonds; they found
also a gold musk ball, and a little silver casket full of musk, the
aroma of which had long since departed, and they also discovered a
small iron-bound box full of gold dust. Some drinking cups, very small
ones, they likewise found, and some pieces of ivory sawn into slabs,
several extremely curious and very unwieldy rings with precious stones
in them, a pouncet box in gold, and various pieces of antique lace,
black with age.
And this concluded their find
"Altogether," said Reginald, "I'll bet that Nicholas was not far wrong
in his computation of the value of the things in his own day, and, I
expect, even in these times, the contents of the oblong box and the
chests won't fall far short of his 'fiftie thousand guineas.' But one
thing we ought to keep for luck, Barbara, and never part with--and
that's the skull, or 'Death,' as Nick called it. It kept its watch and
ward well through all the years."
* * * * * *
That evening, as the sun dipped below Porto Rico, they sat once more
together, as they had so often sat in the last month, upon the
verandah of Barbara's house. Within, in the living-room, were piled
the chests and the oblong box, all having been brought from the Key to
the shore, and from the shore to the building, by their united
efforts. And on Barbara's face there was a look of sadness pitiful to
see, and in her eyes the signs that the tears were not far away.
"It seems," she said, speaking very low, "as though with the finding
of this treasure my life is finished, even as the quest of my family
is finished, too. There is nothing more to be done."
"Is there not, Barbara?" asked Reginald, also speaking low, and with
more seriousness in his tone than had been apparent since they had
grown such friends and intimates. "Is there not? Is there not a long
lifetime before you in which to enjoy your new-found wealth--the
wealth that has come to you after two centuries of search for it?"
"Oh!" she exclaimed, springing to her feet and standing before him,
"why speak in that way? Why say such things? The wealth is yours,
yours only, and you know it. It was you who brought it to light. It
was your ancestor's, who might have taken it away with him for ever
had he chosen. And when it was at last found, where was it? Not even
on our land, on the property that is mine. What part, what share have
I in it?"
"I will tell you, Barbara," he said, rising himself, also, and
standing by her, while, if possible, his voice became now more deep
and earnest. "I will tell you what part and share is yours. The share
not only of all that we have to-day unearthed, but of my life. The
share of everything I have in this world, even this treasure, if it is
rightly mine. My sweet, I loved you almost from the very first, I
loved you beyond all doubt from the time that _he_ came back, and I
knew that, together, we must protect ourselves from him. Barbara, I
love you now, and shall love you all my life until I die. Will you not
share that life with me, share all with me for ever?"
His arm stole round her as he spoke and he drew her softly towards
him, while, as he did so, her golden head drooped to his shoulder, the
soft eyes looked up at him from beneath the dark lashes, and, for the
first time, their lips met.
FOOTNOTES
[Footnote 1: Afterwards King George I. of England.--Ed.]
[Footnote 2: The drink of the Navy prior to the introduction of rum by
Admiral Vernon.]
[Footnote 3: He was Astronomer Royal from 1719 to 1742, but in Phips'
time had made many improvements and suggestions in the necessary
apparatus for divers.--J. B.-B.]
[Footnote 4: 1st lieutenant.]
[Footnote 5: Passenger.]
[Footnote 6: Peter Martyr calls it a solid piece of gold, and says
more than a thousand persons had seen and handled it.--J. B.-B.]
[Footnote 7: This would appear at first sight to be an error on the
part of Nicholas Crafer. It was not so, however; Cardinal Bourbon was
elected King of France by the league in 1589 (against Henri IV.),
under the name of Charles X., and some coins were struck by
him.--J. B.-B.]
THE END.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Hispaniola Plate, by John Bloundelle-Burton