AN INTERRUPTED DIVERSION
Not only had Grenville to a small extent succeeded in smudging the
outside terminal of the passage discovered through the rock, but also
Elaine had discovered the smoke so strangely ascending in the air.
She had been thoroughly mystified by the singular sight, but had crept
about the place inquiringly, expecting perhaps a volcano to begin some
destructive demonstration. She had likewise fancied that rumbling
sounds proceeded from somewhere in the "mountain." The entire
phenomenon had finally ceased, however, greatly to her relief.
On a narrow ledge, some four feet down from the terrace-level, and
directly beneath the extensive crack that had once been formed in the
massive upheaval of tufa, the broken fragments that blocked the
subterranean hallway were wedged to their places in the wall. The
place was sunk in a shallow niche that was screened by the trees of the
jungle.
This ledge Grenville not only promptly rendered accessible, but, after
the opening had once been cleared, he fashioned a door of the lightest
construction, that still resembled solid rock, with which to conceal it
again.
His door was of wattle, plastered with clay, which he then thrust full
of tufa fragments. These, when the substance presently hardened, were
found to be substantially cemented to the framework. The clay itself
dried yellowish gray and could hardly be distinguished from the rock.
He was thus enabled to plaster over all the chinks and other ragged
openings which the door could not completely cover. When the job was
done, not the faintest suspicion of anything unusual about the niche
could the keenest eye have discovered. Grenville was none the less
glad, however, that the tallest foliage of the near-by growth still
further concealed the spot.
He was toiling no less feverishly than before, thankful each day that
the tidal wailing still continued and anxiously watching the round of
the purple horizon for the cut of a rakish sail.
Despite the fact that several days had passed since the passage was
discovered, he had made no effort to return to the treasure crypt
below. The communicating gallery was too important to be neglected.
He had spent long hours in its upper reaches, clearing the rock from
underfoot, to make its use entirely practical for Elaine and himself in
all conditions, either with or without some needed burden.
He had managed to widen the narrowest squeeze by chipping the rock with
his chisel. He had carefully rearranged the broken fragments down
where the corridor entered, or branched from, the cavern, and there
provided a second of his wattle doors, considerably heavier than the
first and more artfully studded with stone. This he had made to be
adjusted from without or within the passage it concealed. From within
it could also be barred in place with a heavy billet of the toughest
wood his brazen tools would shape.
This late afternoon, when the last of his jugs had been taken down and
concealed by the spring, all ready for filling and carrying back the
moment occasion should arise, Grenville felt that, save for a meat
supply, he had made nearly every possible provision against attack and
siege.
The day was practically spent. He glanced at the sun. Undecided
between an hour of hunting with his bow and a quick excursion down to
the crypt of treasure, he remembered certain ornaments Elaine might
wear and decided to go for the gold and gleaming jewels. They had meat
for dinner, already being roasted in a sandpit with several newly
gathered yams.
Elaine, with a basket of tempting fruits, returned to the terrace from
the thicket before he was ready for his trip. The fact that he bore a
torch and basket aroused no query in her mind, so frequently had he
made his underground excursions.
He left the door at the gallery entrance open and made an easy descent.
Glad to be independent of both the tide and his raft, he paused when he
came to the main cave's ragged opening, for a moment thoroughly
startled.
The weird tidal wail had just commenced, so close at hand it echoed all
through the place. It had never before occurred while he was actually
in the cavern. Immediately rendered curious to see whence and how it
was produced, he hastened down the outside ledge, completely baffled by
the intermingled reverberations.
He had barely concentrated his attention on a certain hole in the rock,
below the tidal level, when the last uncanny moan seemed choked to a
horrible gurgle which could not be renewed.
The thing had never before been so brief or so abruptly ended. Its
brevity jarred upon him no less unpleasantly than its prolongation had
done when he and Elaine first arrived upon the island. As if the
occurrence sounded a warning not to be mistaken, he proceeded at once
within the cave.
His mind was filled with thoughts of native visitors, who might only be
waiting for this natural phenomenon to cease before they came swarming
across the sea, perhaps to search and loot this very cavern. He
reflected they might have searched it before, and had either been
baffled by the water it formerly contained or had missed the niche his
accidental interest had discovered.
Though he thought that less than half the wall he had previously
assaulted could now remain in the arch of the treasure cavern, yet
fully a half-hour's labor was essential before he could worm his way
inside where the gold and the stones dully glittered. He cleared out a
few more stones to admit his carrying basket.
A thrill went through him as he laid his hands upon the priceless
treasures disposed in the tomblike place. Notwithstanding the fact the
cave had been scaled, almost hermetically, a coating of thin,
impalpable dust veiled everything he touched. The things had
undoubtedly been here years on years, till perhaps tradition only still
affirmed their existence, while old fanatics might, for generations,
have persisted in tattooing that "map" on some victim's breast for the
cavern's living concealment and the faithful preservation of its
contents.
The gold was all wrought in ornaments--like anklets, bracelets,
amulets, and girdles. It had all been crudely pounded into shape from
virgin metal. There were pieces of odd, unfamiliar shape, the uses for
which could hardly be conjectured. It was all of it heavy and massive,
many pieces crudely resembling cumbrous seals with mystic devices
stamped on either side.
Of the stones--comprising principally diamonds, rubies, and
sapphires--many were still uncut, while others, by the handful, were
crudely mounted in hammered gold to form girdle after girdle. A crown,
exhibiting nothing of the jeweler's modern or even ancient craft, was
none the less of extraordinary intrinsic value for the heft of gold
that formed its band and the huge stones thrust rudely through its
substance.
Despite his impatience to collect the lot in his basket and depart the
place, Grenville remained there inactively, absorbed in a study of this
piece or that, to identify, if possible, the curious workmanship. That
much, if not all, the gold work argued craftsmen of the African wilds
he felt convinced. But the stones could have come from India only, he
was sure, either through tribute or plundering, and the latter was by
far the more likely method.
He had heard from one of his oldest friends, who was likewise the best
informed of all his military acquaintances, that the West Coast
Africans still conceal vast treasures of kings or chiefs deceased, such
buried wealth to be utilized by former possessors in some life beyond
the grave. That this hoard, by some strange and unusual chance, had
resulted from that barbaric practice he felt there could be no doubt.
The fact it was hundreds of miles from Africa argued nothing against
the theory, since either by imitation or as a result of far excursions
over sea the present collection could have landed here in this
remarkably hidden and "spirit"-guarded cave, where even the hardiest,
cleverest seeker of fortune would never be likely to search.
He was still engaged, like some merely scientific archeologist, in
examining piece after piece of the metal, or one after another of the
stones, which were cut as never he had seen them before, when he
fancied some weird, faint echo called his name.
With pounds of the trinkets in his hands, he returned to the broken
heap of stones he had lately overthrown. Out of the ringing silence of
the larger cave came a distant wisp of sound----
He knew that Elaine was calling from somewhere in the passage.
It was only the work of a moment to catch up his basket and place in
its hold the small stone sarcophagi of jewels. Carelessly then, on top
of these, he swept in the ornaments of gold. They fell, dully ringing,
from the shelves, where perhaps they had lain for above a century--a
heterogeneous collection which he was sorry to disturb till the various
positions in which they had been disposed could be noted and remembered.
He was certain no less than a hundredweight of the treasure taxed his
strength when he presently lifted his burden from the place and bore it
across the larger chamber.
Elaine was calling again. Her voice was clearer in the passage.
Grenville came there, panting from his effort, with his dusty and
useless riches. He answered at once on entering the gallery, where he
paused to close and secure his concealing door.
"Please come!" was the cry, in response to his shout, like an unreal
voice from the blackness of a tomb. "They're here! They're close to
the island!"
With a short but inarticulate ejaculation, Grenville once more took up
his basket, blundered forward with it a few feet only, and set it down
against the wall. Why he had paused to bother with it, for a moment he
did not understand. With his torch flaring back, in his greater speed,
he plunged along and up the passage.
Around the first of the sharper angles he came upon Elaine. She had
brought no torch, in her hurry to sound the alarm, but had groped her
way downward through the Stygian blackness of the gallery, calling time
after time as the gloom rendered up no reply.
Her eyes were dilated wildly, from her efforts to see in the dark. Her
face seemed intensely white against the impenetrable ebon.
"Oh, I thought you'd never come!" she said, as Sidney approached with
his light. "They were almost up to the island before I dreamed such a
thing could be! The tree must have hidden the sail!"
Grenville placed the torch in her hand and urged her upward before him.
They presently emerged on the ledge.
He had no more than crept to the terrace-edge and studied the craft
below on the sea than he came once more to Elaine.
"No use in striking our flag," he said. "They've seen it. We'll fly
it till the end."