THE FACE OF THE WATERS
They wrapped the body of Ramon Bazán in the blanket, and Richard Cary
took the light burden in his arms to carry it back to the ship. It was
right and proper that he should be the bearer. It appealed to him as an
affectionate duty. In the morning they would build a coffin and find a
burial-place beyond high-water mark on the beach. It was a pleasanter
spot to lie than in the unholy desolation of this torn landscape near
the cliff, with its recent memories of bloodshed and commotion, and its
ancient memories of abominably evil deeds.
A subdued procession followed Richard Cary down the dark trail. The
Colombian sailors whispered uneasily and were very willing to await the
friendly light of day before trying to find more treasure. Could it be
that the very touch of the Spanish dollars and bullion had killed Señor
Bazán? Had an unearthly vengeance smitten him because he had led them
straight to the place where the treasure was, with that pirates’ chart
of his? If he had not come to Cocos Island, the secret hoard would still
be undisturbed.
There were things that no man could explain, said they. What was the
message that had warned _El Capitan_ Ricardo to flee from the camp? How
had it been brought to him? It had saved them all from being as dead as
poor Señor Bazán. It was a question whether honest sailormen had not
better let that treasure alone. Life was sweet to them. However, it was
for _El Capitan_ Ricardo to tell them what should be done.
When morning came, the _Valkyrie_ displayed the Colombian colors
half-masted. The owner of the ship reposed in his own room, a peaceful
old man whose fevered anxieties were stilled, who had acquired a certain
dignity denied him in life. Chief Officer Bradley Duff stole in to look
at him. Emotional in such circumstances, he blew his crimson nose and
wiped his eyes. He did not know just why, for there was no reason to
give way to grief. In his time he had seen many a better man slip his
cable. Dutifully he muttered aloud:
“The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, and what do you know about
that? Anyhow, you got what you wanted, didn’t you, Papa Ramon, and you
sailed off into the great beyond as happy as a kid with a Christmas
stocking. There is only one drawback. Coin to blow and no chance to blow
it! It breaks my heart to think of a thing like that. But, hell’s bells,
what could an old man blow it on? Here’s hoping you have laid up
treasure in heaven, for it’s your only bet—”
Richard Cary interrupted this impromptu elegy and beckoned the chief
officer outside to say:
“All hands will go ashore that can be spared from duty, Mr. Duff. Clean
clothes—make them look as smart as you can. At ten o’clock this
forenoon.”
“At four bells, sir?”
“Yes, at four bells. It seems appropriate. Have the bell tolled during
the burial service.”
“Right, Captain Cary. Let me tell you, though, the prickles ran up and
down my back when the man on watch banged out four bells at six o’clock
this morning. If it’s all the same to you, I won’t have four bells
struck after to-day.”
“I am not very anxious to hear it myself, Mr. Duff. And so you heard it
last night when I did? The bell actually rang itself? Did you look at
the clock?”
“I looked at the clock with my two eyes as big as onions,” earnestly
answered Mr. Duff. “It was eighteen minutes after nine. I had come on
deck after saying good-night to the chief engineer. Charlie was fussing
and cussing some because his leg hurt him, and he was missing all the
excitement. _Dong-dong—dong-dong_, went the silly old bell, and I
walked as far as the bridge to bawl out the anchor watch. Nobody was
near the bell. Says I to myself, one of those Colombians has an extra
drink under his belt and is skylarkin’ to get a rise out of me.
“I stood there looking at the shack of a fo’castle we knocked together
and the bell hanging in the frame on top of it. I’m a son-of-a-gun if
the bell didn’t ring again. I was as flustered as a woman with a mouse
in her petticoats. I had heard the yarn—why Señor Bazán insisted on
fetching this old relic along. Well, sir, I was froze to the deck like a
blasted dummy, my mouth wide open, and I’m a liar if she didn’t hammer
out four bells _again_. Three times is out, says I, and something is due
to happen. It did. That infernal explosion made my teeth rattle. From
here it looked as if old Cocos Island had split herself wide open. I was
never so thankful in my life as when you showed up on the beach with all
hands accounted for except poor Ramon Bazán. That was his own private
signal the bell tapped off, as I figure it.”
“And you examined the bell?” asked Cary. “I haven’t had a chance to look
it over.”
“Yes, sir. I made myself go for’ard and I climbed on the roof. I laid on
my back and felt inside of this spooky bell. It was a brave deed,
Captain Cary. Please enter it in the log that Bradley Duff was
meritorious. The tongue of the bell is hung on a swivel bolt and there
is a lot of play in it, due to wear and corrosion. The ship was rolling
last night, a strong breeze blowing straight into the bay and
considerable ground swell. The tongue might possibly have swung to
strike the rim of the bell, but it never happened before, not even in
that gale off the Colombian coast. That’s all I can say, sir, and I have
to believe it or admit that I’ve gone clean dotty.”
“What else can we say, Mr. Duff? The more we guess the less we know.”
“But who will it warn next time, now that it has done its duty by Señor
Bazán? What about that, sir?”
Ricardo was immensely startled. This had not occurred to him. He look
frightened as he replied:
“Señorita Teresa Fernandez, his niece? I wonder if I shall hear four
bells if any misfortune hangs over her. I may not know where she is.
Suppose I am not there to help and protect her. You and I are certainly
going dotty, Mr. Duff. I want to get this ship to sea again.”
“First time I ever saw you down-hearted,” said the sympathetic chief
officer. “Sit tight and forget it. Señor Bazán was due to pass out
anyhow. He was living on borrowed time. It’s different with a healthy
girl that knows her way about, though I know there’s nothing worries a
man as much as a sweetheart. Lord love you, I used to have ’em from
Singapore to Rio.”
Cary turned away. The talk was getting too intimate. He called himself
an idiot for letting such strange fancies distress him. He had lost a
devoted friend in Ramon Bazán, for all his whims and crotchets, and he
felt badly shaken by it. When later in the morning the ship’s company
decorously assembled on the beach, he was deeply affected. Solemnly the
bell tolled on the _Valkyrie_. A prayer-book was lacking, but Ricardo
said the verses he had learned at his mother’s knee. And when the grave
was filled, the sailors covered it with gorgeous wreaths of tropical
flowers. An assistant engineer, with cold chisel and hammer, cut the
dead man’s name and the emblem of the Holy Cross. This they did for
Ramon Bazán who had fared venturesomely forth from Cartagena to find his
journey’s end on this lonely, storied island of the wide Pacific.
It was not demanded of them that they should any longer be idle. And so
Richard Cary led them to the devastated camp to view it by daylight.
They were bold and eager again. The terrors of darkness had faded from
their minds. Instantly they fell to enlarging the hole in which they had
discovered the silver. They expected to uncover tons of it.
Disappointment was their lot. In all they uncovered no more than three
hundred weight. This seemed trifling. They were uncertain where next to
explore. At random they shoveled the gravel and threw out scattered
coins and bars of bullion.
The greater part of the treasure might be underneath the vast heap of
rock which had fallen from the cliff, or it might be buried far under
the landslide from the higher slope. All the rest of the day they
toiled, but it was a gigantic task for a few men, and they felt baffled
and discouraged. They doubted the truth of the saying that faith can
remove mountains. There was no inclination to remain away from the ship
after the sun went down behind the lofty hill. The shadows of night were
fearsome company.
For Richard Cary the enterprise had lost its zest. He kept his thoughts
to himself until evening when he went to Charlie Burnham’s room. These
two were kindred spirits, in a way, youthful tropical rovers who had
wandered far from rugged New Hampshire farms. They were sprung from the
same kind of stock. They spoke the same language and were ballasted with
like traits of character. Because they understood each other, Cary could
lay aside the masterful pose of one whose word was law. It was safe to
make a confidant of Charlie Burnham.
“Instead of raising such a row, you ought to be thankful you didn’t lose
a leg,” said Cary as he pulled a chair close to the bunk.
A grin was on the homely, honest face of the chief engineer.
“Little old New Hampshire was never like this,” said he. “Give me
another week and I can steam slow speed ahead on a crutch. All that
really bothers me is that I never got a crack at those outlaws. You’ll
have to hand it to Don Miguel O’Donnell. The trick of bumping you off
with dynamite was neat. He was a mining engineer, all right. What’s the
big idea now? Do we get rich quick or not?”
“A tremendous lot of rock and dirt to move, Charlie, and then we don’t
know what’s under it. Too much for this short-handed crew to tackle.”
“I can swing the job, Captain Cary,” eagerly exclaimed Charlie. “It
means a trip to Panama to get me a donkey boiler, for one thing. I can
shift a winch engine ashore and rig a derrick to handle that rock. Then
I’ll want some more iron pipe to run Don Miguel’s hydraulic line over to
our location. We can wash that dirt out in no time. Gosh, we’ll root
that treasure out like a pig in a manure pile. It’s a cinch, now we know
it’s there or thereabouts.”
Cary was unresponsive. His mind was far away. After a long pause he
said:
“Listen, Charlie. Your scheme is good enough, and I don’t propose to
stand in your way. And I waive all claim to any more treasure you may
find. Out of what you have dug up already, I shall take the share that
was promised me as master of the steamer when we sailed from Cartagena.
That will be stake enough.”
“You sound as if you meant to quit us,” was the reproachful accusation.
“Please don’t do that. Why, I can see us cleaning up millions! And there
isn’t a man in the ship that wouldn’t be tickled to death to give you
half of it. You are the whole works, sir.”
“There is nothing to hold me, now that Ramon Bazán is dead,” explained
Ricardo. “I had to stand by—there was an obligation—but now I am free
to look after my own affairs and go my own way. You raise a question
that puzzles me. This steamer is left on my hands. I am Señor Bazán’s
agent, I presume, until I get in touch with Cartagena, or find his
niece. He left no instructions. You can have the vessel for a small
charter price, if you like, to go ahead with your plans. I see no
objection to that. She will be earning something, and Mr. Duff can take
the command. If it costs too much to operate her, why not take her home
to Cartagena and then come back in a small schooner?”
“Great Scott, Captain Cary, we can’t lose all that time!” excitedly
protested Charlie Burnham, rumpling his hair with both hands. “The boys
will want me to charter this old hooker. They have dug up enough silver
to keep things going for some time. But see here, sir, you’ve got me
puzzled, too. How much of this treasure stuff honestly belongs to us?
What if we do find the rest of it? Señor Bazán outfitted the voyage, and
it was his chart that steered us to the right place on Cocos Island. We
might not have found a thing, though, if Don Miguel hadn’t blown the
scenery upside down. What’s the answer?”
“Send me word when you find your millions,” laughed Ricardo. “Then we
can talk it over. I swear I don’t know what the answer is just now. It
is too thick for me. As far as I am personally concerned, I don’t want
to touch any more of the cursed plunder than I can help. All I ask is
enough to send me on my way. A week more, shall we say? This will give
them time to dig their fool heads off and tire themselves out. And by
then you will be able to get down to the engine-room.”
“Huh, the only thing to make you talk this way is a girl,” snorted
Charlie. “It’s all right, Captain Cary, and you have handled this
proposition like a wise guy from start to finish, but the best of us
skid. It’s Cocos Island for mine.”
“Well, I think I got what I was looking for,” said Ricardo, with a
cryptic twinkle. “I have only one fault to find with Don Miguel
O’Donnell. He was born about two hundred years too late. I wish I might
have met him, in these same waters, before machine guns were invented.”
“He would have been there with the goods,” heartily replied Charlie.
Captain Cary spent little time ashore after this. Mr. Duff was delighted
to take charge of the volunteers who grilled in the sun and made slaves
of themselves with pick and shovel. He had been a boss stevedore, among
his various employments, and his Spanish vocabulary was like hitting a
man with a brick. Tremendously he told them what to do and how to do it.
They accomplished prodigies in moving rocks and gravel. He had to admit,
however, that it was a job for Charley Burnham’s ingenuity and
equipment.
They did find more scattered bullion, blown hither and yon from some
undiscovered hiding-place. It handsomely rewarded them for their pains,
but made them more than ever dissatisfied. Not a gold ingot had they
found. Gold was the word to conjure with. It tormented them. At the end
of a week they packed their silver hoard in canvas sacks and weighed it
on the scales in the ship’s storeroom. Captain Cary calculated that they
had scraped together something like eight thousand dollars’ worth of
coins and bullion.
They held a conference. Mr. Panchito, the cheery second mate, addressed
them with his arm in a sling. As a compatriot he was able to bombard the
crew with an oration. He persuaded them to demand no more than their
wages, to be paid them on arrival at Panama. The greater part of the
booty was to be entrusted to the chief engineer as the managing
director. He would make all the necessary arrangements for a return
voyage to Cocos Island.
“Alas, my brave men, we must lose _El Capitan_ Ricardo,” passionately
declaimed Mr. Panchito. His eloquence was hampered because one arm was
in a sling. “What shall we do without _El Tigre Amarillo Grande_ who
conquered Cartagena with an iron bar in his hands, who has conquered
this Cocos Island with nothing but his courage in his hands, who has
conquered his brave shipmates with the goodness of his heart, who laughs
at us naughty children and punishes us when we deserve it. _Viva El
Capitan!_ Shout as loud as you can.”
They shouted, and Ricardo blushed. In this manner the finish of the
chapter of Cocos Island was written for him. The _Valkyrie_ sailed at
daybreak, her engines complaining loudly as she plodded out to sea.
Charlie Burnham sat on a stool in the stifling compartment and luridly
told the engines what he thought of them. The firemen briskly fed the
coal to her and, for once, there was no grumbling. They were rich men
and they expected to become vastly richer.
It seemed as though ill omens and misfortune had been left astern. An
ocean serenely calm favored the decrepit _Valkyrie_ as she laid a course
for Panama. Only one of the wounded men was still confined to a bunk. It
was a ship whose people had been welded together in a stanch
brotherhood. Nothing could dismay them.
They made light of it when Charlie Burnham sent up word that the crack
in the propeller shaft didn’t look any too healthy to him, and he
thought he had better tinker with it. Give him a day and he could fit a
collar and bolt it on the shaft before it broke clean in two and punched
the bottom out of the ship or something like that.
Captain Cary approved. The engines were idle while the _Valkyrie_ rolled
with an easy motion, and Charlie’s assistants hammered and forged and
drilled. Night came down with clouds and rain, and strong gusts of wind.
There was nothing to indicate seriously heavy weather. It was murky,
however, with a rising sea. Soon after dark Captain Cary went to the
bridge to relieve Mr. Duff.
“With no steerage way she slops about like a barge,” said the latter.
“It may turn a bit nasty before morning. The barometer doesn’t say so,
but my feet ache more than usual.”
“It will be a thick night, and some sea running, most likely,” remarked
Cary. “I don’t look for a gale of wind.”
“In a steamer not under control it feels worse than it is, sir. How is
Charlie coming along with his shaft collar?”
“He’ll have us shoving ahead by morning, Mr. Duff. And a couple of days
more will see us in Panama Bay.”
Walking the bridge alone, Captain Cary had never seen a blacker night
than this, with the rain beating into his face and the spray driving
like mist. Her engines stilled, the ship felt helpless and dead, while
the seas swung her this way and that. It was a tedious watch to stand
while the captain fought off drowsiness as the hours wore on.
It was almost time to go below when he saw a steamer’s lights so close
at hand that it startled him. Invisible at a distance, they suddenly
appeared, glimmering red and green, out of this shrouded night. They
indicated that this other steamer was on a course to strike the disabled
_Valkyrie_ which could do nothing to avert collision.
Cary held his breath, expecting to see the vessel turn in time to pass
ahead of him. Instead of this, she threw her helm over too late.
Blundering hesitation and a poor lookout made a smash inevitable.
Richard Cary gripped a bridge stanchion and awaited the shock. There was
nothing else to do. He heard a confused shouting in Italian. Then the
vague shadow of a prow loomed a little way forward of the _Valkyrie_’s
bridge, moving slowly as the other steamer trembled to the thrust of a
propeller thrashing hard astern.
They came together with an infernal din of fractured plates and twisting
frames. With a fatal momentum, the stranger clove her way deep into the
_Valkyrie_’s side. It cracked her like an egg. Here was one peril of the
deep which she was entirely too decrepit to withstand. It could not
fairly be expected of her. She heeled over with a lugubrious lamentation
of rivets snapping, of beams buckling and groaning. It shook the bridge
like an earthquake. Captain Cary clung to his stanchion for dear life
and stared with a horrified fascination. He was wondering whether this
misbegotten Italian freighter proposed to cut clean through the
_Valkyrie_, like a knife through a cheese, and proceed on her way. The
crumpled bow could drive ahead no farther, however, and the two ships
hung locked together.
“Hold where you are!” roared Captain Cary. “Keep the hole plugged! Don’t
back out! Let me get my people off before this vessel sinks.”
The frightened Italian skipper was more concerned with investigating his
own damages. Paying no heed, he kept his engines reversed and sluggishly
backed out of the gap he had torn. Hysterically blowing his whistle he
drifted off in the darkness until his lights were lost to view.
Richard Cary lost no time making signals of distress. His job was to get
the crew off a ship that was dropping from under their feet. He could
hear the sea rushing into the hold.
His first thought was for the men in the forecastle. He made his way
over the splintered deck which was humped like a cat’s back. Beyond the
chasm in the ship’s side, he found the wooden structure still intact,
but tipped at a crazy slant. Already the men were bringing out the one
wounded comrade who was unable to help himself. They were excited and
noisy, but ready to do whatever _El Capitan_ said. He drove them aft
ahead of him, telling them to find their stations just the same as at
boat drill.
By now the others came rushing up from the engine-room and stoke-hole.
The safety-valve had been opened to let her blow off. This was the only
farewell ceremony that any one had delayed to perform. The water had
been splashing to their knees when they scrambled for the ladder.
Luckily the crippled Charlie Burnham had turned in for a nap and came
hobbling from his room in the state of mind of a young man who regarded
this as one thing too many.
There was no panic. As a ship’s crew the habit of obedience was more
than skin deep. This was the finish of the old hooker and it was time
for them to go. Two boats were promptly swung out. There was room and to
spare in them.
“Mr. Duff takes the number one boat,” said Captain Cary. “Stow Mr.
Panchito carefully and look out for his broken arm. The chief engineer
goes in the other boat.”
“What about our treasure?” demanded Charlie Burnham, in anguished
accents. “If we have to lose it, this shipwreck is a mighty serious
affair, let me tell you, sir.”
“Let ’em go get it then,” rapped out Captain Cary, “but you’ll all be
drowned if you fiddle here five minutes longer.”
Jubilantly they dragged the canvas sacks from the storeroom and flung
them into the boats. Even this brief delay was perilous, but Cary had
not the heart to refuse them. So fast was the steamer sinking that the
waves were even now breaking across her well deck. She was going down by
the head, and her stern was cocking high in air. Had they stayed too
long? As he shouted to lower away, Cary wished he had parted the fools
and their money.
One boat plopped upon the back of a crested wave and was safely shoved
away from the perishing ship. The other waited for the captain, but he
told them to let go and pull clear. Glancing forward, he saw the
_Valkyrie_’s bow plunge under in a ghastly smother of foam. Were all
hands accounted for? He had to satisfy himself of this before he was
willing to quit the ship. It was the imperative demand of duty, the
final rite of a commander faithful to his task. Had any of those
reckless idiots been left in the storeroom wrestling with their cursed
bags of silver? He felt sure he had shoved or thrown them all into the
boats, but he could not afford to carry the smallest doubt with him.
The ship was deserted. This he ascertained in a minute or two. Running
to the side, he was thankful to find the second boat well away without
mishap. They were yelling to him to jump. Just then a tall wave flashed
and toppled across the deck. It washed him from his feet, rolled him
over and over, and flung him against a skylight. The breath was knocked
out of him. He felt the ship lurch and quiver in the last throes. A
rending concussion tore her apart. Clouds of steam gushed through
gratings and hatches. The stern rose until it stood almost on end as the
_Valkyrie_ plunged under the sea.
Whirling like a chip, Richard Cary was sucked down with her. He was
unable to help himself. Some convulsion of water spewed him to the
surface in an eddy of foam and vapor. He was too feeble to swim or to
cry out. Instinctively he kept himself afloat. All sense of direction
was lost. He did not know where the boats were. The sea was much rougher
than had appeared from the deck. It battered and strangled him. It bore
him down into dark, seething valleys of water and tossed him up again.
A broken piece of timber scraped his shoulder. He thrust an arm over it
and so eased his exertions. He tried to shout, but his voice was weak
and broken. Frequently the water submerged him. Suffocation constricted
his lungs. The strength had been hammered out of him. Once he caught a
glimpse of the masthead light of the steamer which had sunk the
_Valkyrie_, as though she were groping about to find the survivors.
He took it for granted that his own boats were searching for him. So
black and windy was the sea that it was very possible to miss him. They
would expect to be guided by his strong voice calling to them. He was
drifting away from the spot where the ship had gone down. His energies
were so benumbed that the loudest sound he could make was like the cry
of a gull, unheard above the hissing clamor of the seas that broke over
his head.
For perhaps an hour Richard Cary clung to the drifting piece of timber.
Once or twice he fancied he saw the shape of a boat, but it was well to
windward of him and his voice was blown away. Finding a man afloat in
such a night as this was merest chance. Loyal as his shipmates were,
they were men accustomed to the hazards of the sea and it would be
concluded that he had been drowned with his ship. It was a miracle, as
he well knew, that he had been cast up alive.
He did not see the masthead light again. Probably the Italian freighter
had picked up the boats and resumed her voyage. All hope of rescue was
gone. Unless the sea quieted, he could not struggle much longer.
Daylight was far away. Ramon Bazán and his ship, both gone, and now it
was Richard Cary’s turn. But they were old and worn-out. They had lived
their lives. He had been so strong in the sense of invincibility, so
secure in the supremacy of youth and strength. Life and youth, love and
strength and ambition, the sea extinguishes them all.
Tenaciously enduring, refusing to surrender until the last gasp, he
heard the galleon bell! It was tolling for him. He was too far gone to
wonder. It seemed not in the least fantastic that the bell should be
tolling his requiem, even though it had gone to the bottom of the sea.
At first faint and far away, it was growing louder. A phantom bell that
tolled in mockery! Its grave reverberations rose above the commotion of
the waves to signal the passing of the soul of Richard Cary.
It tormented him to listen to the bell that had been drowned fathoms
down. Why could it not let him go in peace? He rallied from his stupor.
A phantom bell? He wildly denied and denounced it.
He became conscious of a curious illusion that the bell was drifting
past him. Could he be wrong? Was it calling to him with a voice of help
and guidance instead of mockery? It had saved him from death on Cocos
Island. Was this another intervention?
He released his hold of the piece of timber and swam in the trough of
the sea, gaining strength for this last effort. What difference if he
hastened the end by this much? The bell tolled in the air above his
head. It was so near that it could not elude him, he babbled.
Like surf on a rock, the waves spouted over some dim floating object
that bulked large. Richard Cary saw the wan flicker and curl of them. He
put out an arm to fend himself off. His hand slipped along the edge of a
board. He groped again and caught hold of a massive upright. Painfully
he hauled himself up on a platform of boards awash with the sea. There
he sprawled flat.
Soon he was able to sit and maintain his grasp of the upright which was
firmly fastened to the platform. He could breathe and rest, although the
water gushed over him. Reaching up, he touched the rim of the galleon
bell. It vibrated to the strokes of the heavy tongue as the platform
tossed and pitched with a motion giddily violent.
His refuge was the roof of the wooden forecastle house which had been
torn bodily from the bolts securing it to the _Valkyrie_’s deck.
Loosened by the collision, it had been carried down and later brought to
the surface by its own buoyancy, perhaps not until after the boats had
abandoned the search for their lost captain.
A haunted bell, but one that could be kind as well as cruel. Twice now
it had preserved Richard Cary from the immediate certainty of
extinction. He clung to his wave-washed raft with the bell clanging over
him, but he had ceased to despair of rescue. He was granted a surcease
from the unavailing struggle to survive. He dared hope to see another
blessed dawn. With clearing weather and a falling wind, he might hang on
and keep alive for two or three days. Other castaways had done so with
much less pith and endurance than his own.
Meanwhile the galleon bell, riding in its frame, would be a conspicuous
beacon by day. At night its brazen-throated appeal would carry far over
the face of the waters.
His courage was hardened, the spark of confidence rekindled, and he felt
strong in the faith that this was not to be the end of Richard Cary.