A TOMB OF STONE
The ladder that Grenville constructed in the morning was not entirely
new. He had found upon testing the original contrivance, made for his
séance with the tiger, that, although the creepers had become quite
dry, they were neither weak nor brittle.
He fortified the older section with additional material, however, to
make absolutely certain it would not abruptly part and drop him into
the sea. All morning he worked, while his smoldering fires continued
to eat out the hollow for his boat, securing new length to the rungs
already provided, since the distance down from the brink of the cliff
was fully one hundred feet.
To Elaine he explained that he thought perhaps a cave might exist in
the rock. The wailing sounds, it was easy to argue, would indicate
some such cavity, which he felt it important to examine. If she
somewhat divined the further fact that he hoped to discover a possible
retreat, should unforeseen dangers threaten, she made no revelation of
her thought.
It was not without considerable anxiety, however, that she finally
discovered precisely what he meant to attempt. His ladder, she was
certain, was far too frail for any such business as climbing down,
above that boiling tide. One careless step, or a parting of the
strands, and nothing on earth could save the man from death on the
jutting rocks below. She had glanced at the waters under the cliff,
and their crystal depths were not at all reassuring.
The thorough precautions against a mishap that Grenville finally
completed considerably lessened her fears, yet she had no wish to watch
him descend when at length he slipped over the edge. She was gazing
with fixed and wide-open eyes at the heap of rocks in which he had
fastened the ladder.
The matter to Grenville seemed simple enough. The brink overhung the
wall itself, in consequence of which the ladder swung quite free, down
the face of the scarp, till it touched at a jutting ledge below. It
swayed to and fro and sagged a bit loosely at some of the rungs, but it
could not be broken by his weight.
He made no attempt at a rapid descent, neither did he pause to enjoy
the scenery. When the ledge was reached he rested, made certain no
sharp-edged stone could impinge upon and perhaps cut into his twisted
creepers, and again proceeded downward.
His course for a matter of two or three fathoms was rendered rather
more difficult by the fact the ladder lay closely bent against the
wall, instead of hanging free. The rock face was pitted and
exceedingly rough, its indentations ill-arranged for footholds and far
too treacherous for any such employment.
Grenville was nearly at the lower lip of this projection before he
attempted a look below to determine what he was approaching. He
discovered then it was undercut again--and likewise that his ladder was
considerably short. Its lower end dangled about with irregular
gyrations as he shifted his weight from rung to rung. It was fully two
yards above the water. There was nothing in sight on which to plant
his feet, so far as he could discern from the point then occupied.
He continued down the ledge. When he reached its base, his suspicions
were immediately confirmed. It overhung a cavern, which was not,
however, the cave. To the final rung but one of his ladder he
descended, and there he rested to have a look about.
He was hanging directly before a massive pot-hole in the cliff--a huge,
roughly rounded sort of chamber, the roof of which was arched. On the
left, it shared its pitted wall with a second and smaller chamber. On
the right, its edge was jaggedly broken against a yawning hole. This
hole was undoubtedly the cave-mouth described by the documents found in
the hidden tube.
From this point only, as Grenville could see, would its mouth be
readily discovered. Thick curtains of greenery, draped from its
neighboring walls of rock, would shield it from view from passing
boats, unless they should nose to its portals. This, with a swirling
and dangerous tide, no craft would be likely to attempt.
The shrubbery, hanging so thickly from the ledge, afforded Grenville a
puzzle. He knew it could not be a seaweed, since the tide never rose
to such a level. He presently realized it was simply an air plant of
unusually luxuriant growth. Its roots had found lodgment in a crevice,
where nothing would be likely to disturb it in its possession.
Concerning the possible contents of the cave, its extent, or immediate
surroundings, there was nothing to be discovered from his ladder, twist
as he might or crane his neck to stare in the cavern's mouth.
He had practically determined to return to the top, shift his ladder
along, and once more make the descent, when he realized his effort
would be wasted. A thick, broken shelf of the pitted tufa jutted many
feet out above the cave, and even beyond the growing weed. Should he
hang his ladder directly before the opening, he would find himself,
when he came to its end, swung helplessly over the water.
He could see distinctly where the final base of the wall projected into
the tideway. It would certainly be no less than ten feet removed from
the nearest point he could possibly reach by this particular method.
It occurred to his mind he could lengthen his strands, drop himself off
the ladder-end, and swim to the edge of the cave. But, even as he
turned to examine the physical features afforded to a swimmer, a huge
dark form loafed like a shadow through the crystal tide, to rise beyond
and cut the sparkling surface with a blackish dorsal fin. There was no
mistaking Mr. Shark.
Grenville nodded, grimly. "Thanks for the timely suggestion," he said,
as the monster once more sank. He presently added, "It's a boat or no
explorations." Somewhat disappointedly, he returned up the ladder to
the top.
"The cave is there," he told Elaine, who promptly sat down, in sheer
relief, when she saw him finally safe, "but it has to be entered from
the water."
"Oh!" said Elaine. "But why does it have to be entered?"
"Well," said Sidney, at a loss for a better argument, "it might be full
of treasure;" and he smiled.
Elaine was no less ready with her answer. "Treasure is certainly
indispensable to us here. No wonder we've felt that something was
strangely lacking."
"There you are," he rejoined. "I think I can paddle the raft about the
cliff, for the tide could never be better."
She was certain that Grenville attached some unusual importance to an
inspection of the cave.
"Couldn't I help?" she asked him. "What was the fault of the ladder?"
"Fully six feet too short. Perhaps you'd better watch for passing
steamers. If we missed one--whom should we blame?"
They had slowly returned to the shelter, where the table was
attractively spread.
"What a luncheon!" said Grenville, enthusiastically. "I'll eat in a
rush and be back before you know I've gone." He certainly ate with
lively promise.
But, after the raft was launched on the tide, he lost all sense of
time. He had left his shoes and stockings on the shore. He had
brought a torch, lighted, which he lashed in an upright position on the
raft. Wading and paddling, punting, pulling, and at times even pushing
his craft along the beach, he warmed to his work in the briefest space,
since the tide could hardly have been more favorable to his needs.
The pole he had brought had a hook at the end, bound firmly in place
with copper wire. This was an excellent provision, especially when he
came to the cliff, where wading was out of the question. He was thus
enabled to catch at a ledge, or any open crevice, and draw his unwieldy
float along, while fending it off from various rocks on which it might
otherwise have pounded.
His work was hard and slow. The distance was not discouraging,
however, and with some of the swirls to assist, here and there, he
finally came to a broken sort of cape, from which he readily saw his
dangling ladder. After that a hot bit of fighting was required to
maintain his position near the wall. The tide was uneasy--a hungry,
ugly swirl that alternately came and subsided.
When he passed it at last his task was done, for the cave was a stone's
toss away. It was not even then to be seen, and its presence in the
cliff would scarcely have been suspected. But Grenville knew the
luxuriant plant that grew across a portion of its entrance. When he
presently moored his raft to a rock fairly under the shadow of the
weed, the cave was just above him.
Under his feet the ledge was rough and sloping. It was pitted so
completely as to form a rude natural stairway to the opening under the
overhanging shelf. This mouth to the cavern was hardly six feet wide
and not more than four in height. Its access was comparatively easy.
Grenville, with his torch in hand, was presently gazing within.
Obliged to stoop, and beholding nothing but absolute darkness ahead of
his light, he stumbled against a lumpy vein of rock--and nearly met
with disaster. He barely halted at the edge of a pool of ebon water.
After all his effort to gain the cave, it appeared to be filled with
this inklike accumulation. The pool was absolutely still. Not a
ripple disturbed its shining surface. How deep it was and how far it
extended from the ledge that held it from flowing into the sea, could
not be gauged by Grenville's torch, as he held it aloft to stare at the
wall of velvet gloom.
He sounded a note that rolled about and reverberated weirdly. But he
could not determine from the echoes how far the waves had traveled.
Casting his dull-red illumination to the left, and lower down, he
proceeded a little along the ledge, till it merged in an upright wall.
There was nothing at all to be seen in this direction save water and
rock, that faded away into Stygian darkness beyond.
He retraced his steps and explored the ledge on the right. This led
him considerably further than the first had done before it was
similarly ended. He was then aware the cavern was of no inconsiderable
dimensions, at least with regard to its width. He raised his eyes
towards the ceiling, where nothing was to be seen.
At length he bethought him of another test--that of throwing lumps of
rock against the walls. There were fragments in plenty scattered
loosely at his feet. The first one he threw went straight out
ahead--and presently thumped on something solid. He reckoned the
distance some sixty feet away, but admitted it might have been eighty.
Every missile he cast right, left, or at an angle promptly reported a
wall; and some plumped back into water. The cave was not gigantic, but
all its floor was apparently flooded. His hand, which he thrust in the
water where he stood, groped blindly and found no bottom. He rolled up
his sleeve and tried again, without more definite results. The water,
however, was warm.
"Good place for a swim, in any case," he told himself, aloud; and,
planting his torch with a sudden determination that he would not
retreat with information so utterly meager, he stripped off his
clothing at once. He let himself into the ebon depths, with his torch
held well above the water. He had rather expected to be able to wade,
but he sank to his neck without sounding to the bottom.
Swimming almost perpendicularly, employing one hand only, he presently
lost all sight of the walls and was out in an unknown pool of
blackness. Save for a slight sensation of its weirdness, the
experience was decidedly pleasant. He tasted the water as he swam and
found that it was fresh. He turned to look out at the opening, but
could barely see light through the weeds.
Some twenty or thirty feet from the ledge, his feet encountered a
ridge. It was stone, and across it he waded to a greater depth beyond.
Yet once again he was soon enabled to stand erect and walk along the
bottom. The broken, uneven surface that he felt with his feet made his
progress slow and careful.
He had presently crossed the underground pond, up the sloping bank of
which he was soon making rapid progress. He emerged on a dry ledge
beyond. Even then the walls were not to be seen till he walked a rod
straight onward.
The briefest examination sufficed to establish the fact he had come to
a sort of natural antechamber to the larger cavern he had crossed.
Also, apparently, the entire place was as empty as a last year's
bird's-nest.
Vaguely disappointed, though he hardly knew why, the man surveyed the
place anew, by the light that entered at the opening as well as by that
of his torch. He saw at once that, could it be drained, the place
would afford a retreat of amazing security for anyone needful of
shelter. He was also certain he could drain it in a day by blasting
through the ledge of rock that blocked the entrance from the sea and so
retained the pool.
With one more brief and cursory examination of the rocky structure
about him, he was turning away when something foreign about a slab of
stone, that seemed a fragment of the solid wall, attracted his
attention.
He laid his hand upon its top as if to pull it down. It came away so
readily it all but fell on his feet. Behind it the crudest sort of
masonry walled up a natural door.
Ten minutes later, standing on the heap of blocks he had tumbled
rapidly down in forming a gap through four feet at least of this
bulkhead, Grenville thrust his torch within a nichelike chamber of the
cavern.
A low exclamation of astonishment burst from his lips at the vision
thus suddenly encountered.
The place was a tomb for dead kings' gold and precious stones that
threw back the gleams from his torch!