IN THE ABBEY GROUNDS
We kept along the ridge of hill towards the east of the island, and
met no one, nor, indeed, were we likely to do. I could look down on
either side to the sea. I saw the cottages on the shore of New Grimsby
harbour on the one side, and on the other the house at Merchant's
Point, and the half-dozen houses scattered on the grass at Old
Grimsby, that went by the name of Dolphin Town, and nowhere was there
a twinkle of light.
Tresco was in bed.
We descended a little to our left, and rounded the shoulder of the
hill at the eastern end of the island, through a desolate moorland of
gorse; but once we had rounded the shoulder, we were in an instant
amongst trees of luxuriant foliage, and in a hollow sheltered from the
winds. The Abbey ruins stood up from a small plateau in the bosom of
the trees, its broken arches and columns showing very dismal against
the sky, and everywhere fragments of crumbling wall cropped up
unexpected through the grass.
The burial ground was close to an eel pond, which glimmered below,
nearer to the sea, and a path overgrown with weeds wound downwards to
the graves.
I could not tell in which corner Adam Mayle was buried, so Roper was
sent forward with the lantern to look amongst the headstones. For half
an hour he searched; the flame of the candle danced from grave to
grave as though it were the restless soul of some sinner buried there.
The men who remained with me grew impatient, for opposite to us,
across the road, lay St. Mary's and the harbour of Hugh Town; and on
this clear night the speck of light in the Abbey grounds would be
visible at a great distance. I was beginning to wonder whether Adam
had a headstone at all to mark his resting-place, when a cry came
upwards to our ears and the lantern was swung aloft in the air.
One loud, unanimous shout answered that cry.
"Come," shouted Glen, and seizing hold of the end of the rope where it
went round my chest, he began to run down the path. The others jostled
and tumbled after him in an extreme excitement. All discretion was
tossed to the winds. They laughed, shouted, and leaped while they ran
as though they already had the cross in their keeping. What with Glen
tugging at the end in front and the others pushing and thrusting at me
from behind, it was more than I could do to keep my feet. Twice I fell
forward on my knees and brought them to a stop. Glen turned upon me in
a fury.
"Loose his hands then, George," said Tortue.
"No," returned George, with an oath, and he plucked on the rope until
somehow I stumbled on to my feet, and we all set to running again.
Things were taking on an ugly look for me. Those men were growing ten
times more savage since the grave had been discovered; they were in a
heat of excitement. In their movements, in their faces, in their
words, a violent ferocity was evident. They had made their bargain
with me, but would they keep it once they had the plan in their hands?
I had no doubt their arrangements were made for an instant departure
from the islands. One could not be a day upon Tresco without hearing
some hint of the luggers which did a great smuggling trade between
Scilly and the port of Roscoff in Brittany. No doubt Glen and Tortue
had made their account with one of these to carry them into France. I
was the more sure of this when Blads returned. I could not but think
he had been sent so that a boat might be ready, and it seemed unlikely
they would leave me alive behind them when the mere scruple of a
bargain only held their hands.
We were now come to the grave. It had a headstone but no slab to cover
it; only a boulder from the seashore by which Adam had lived was with
a pretty fancy imposed upon the mound.
Roper hung the lantern on to a knob of the headstone; and already Glen
had snatched the pick and thrust it under the boulder. It needed but
one heave upon the pick, and the boulder tottered and rolled from the
grave with a crash. It stopped quite close to my feet. I looked at it,
then I looked at the grave, and from the grave to the sailors. But
they had noticed nothing; they were already digging furiously at the
grave. In their excitement they had noticed nothing; even Tortue was
kneeling in the lantern-light watching the gleam of the spades,
sensible of nothing but that each shovelful cast up on the side
brought them by a shovelful nearer to their prize. And they dug with
such furious speed, taking each his turn, each anticipating his turn!
For before one man had stepped, dripping with sweat from the trench,
another had leaped in, and the spade fell from one man's grasp into
the palm of another. Once a spade jarred upon a piece of rock, and the
man who drove it into the earth cursed. I had a sudden flutter of hope
that the spade was broken, and that by so much the issue would be
delayed, but the digger resumed his work. I looked over to St. Mary's,
but the town was quiet; one light gleamed, it was only the light at
the head of the jetty. And even in Tresco such infinitesimal chance of
interruption as there had ever been had disappeared. For the men had
ceased even from their oaths. There was not even a whisper to be
shared amongst them; there was no sound but the laboured sound of
their breathing. They worked in silence.
I had no longer any hope. I saw now and again Roper, as he slapped
down a spadeful of earth beside me, look with a grim significant smile
at me, and perhaps his fellow would catch the look and imitate it. I
noticed that George Glen, as he took down the lantern from time to
time and held it over the trench, would flash it towards me; and he,
too, would smile and perhaps wink at Roper in the trench. The winks
and smiles were easy as print to read. They were agreeing between
themselves: the unspoken word was going round; they did not mean to
keep their part of the bargain, and when they left the Abbey grounds
the mound upon Adam's grave would be a foot higher than when they
entered them.
But this unspoken understanding had no longer any power to frighten
me. I tried to catch Peter Tortue's attention; I shuffled a foot
upon the ground; but he paid no heed. He was on all fours by the
grave-side peering into the trench, and I dared not call to him. I
wanted to contradict what I had said outside the shed upon the
hillside. I wanted to whisper to him:
"The plan you search for is not there."
If they were meaning to break their part of the bargain it mattered
very little, for I was unable to keep mine.
I had suspected that from the moment the boulder was uprooted; I knew
it a moment after the lantern was hung upon the headstone. The stone
had rested on that grave for two years, yet at the fresh pressure of
the pick it had given and swayed and rolled from its green pedestal.
It had tumbled at my feet, and there was not even a clot of earth or a
pebble clinging to it. Moreover, on the grave itself there was grass
where it had rested. For all its weight, it had not settled into the
ground or so much as worn the herbage. Yet it had rested there two
years!
The lantern was hung upon the headstone, and its light showed to me
that close to the ground the headstone had been chipped. It was as
though some one had swung a pick and by mistake had struck the edge of
the headstone. Moreover, whoever had swung the pick had swung it
recently. For whereas the face of the granite was dull and
weatherbeaten, this chipped edge sparkled like quartz.
The aspect of the grave itself confirmed me. Some pains had been taken
to replace the sods of grass upon the top, but all about the mound,
wherever the lantern-light fell, I could see lumps of fresh clay.
The grave had been opened, and recently--I did not stop then to
consider by whom--and secretly. It could have been opened but for the
one reason. There would be no plan there for Glen to find.
Roper uttered an exclamation and stopped digging. His spade had struck
something hard. Glen lowered the lantern into the trench, and the
light struck up on to his face and the face of the diggers.
I hazarded a whisper to Tortue, and certainly no one else heard it,
but neither did Tortue. Roper struck his spade in with renewed vigour,
and a stifled cry which burst at the same moment from the five mouths
told me the coffin-lid was disclosed. I whispered again the louder:
"Tortue! Tortue!" and with no better result.
The pick was handed down at Roper's call. I _spoke_ now, and at last
he heard. He turned his head across his shoulder towards me, but he
only motioned me to silence. The pick rang upon wood, and now I
called:
"Tortue! Tortue!"
Still no one but Tortue heard. This time, however, he rose from his
knees and came to me. Glen looked up for an instant.
"See that he is fast!" he said, and so looked back into the grave.
"What is it?" asked Tortue.
"The plan has gone. Loose my hands!"
I could no longer see Roper; he had stooped down below the lip of the
trench.
"Gone!" said Tortue. "How?"
"Some one has been here before you, but within this last week, I'll
swear. Loose my hands."
"Some one!" he exclaimed savagely. "Who? who?" and he shook me by the
arms.
"I do not know."
"Swear it."
"I do. Loose my hands."
"Remember it is I who save you."
His knife was already out of his pocket; he had already muffled it in
his coat and opened it; he was making a pretence to see whether the
end was still fast. I could feel the cold blade between the rope and
my wrist, when, with a shout. Roper stood erect, the stick in one
hand, a sheet of paper flourishing in the other.
He drew himself out of the trench and spread the paper out on a pile
of clay at the graveside. Glen held his lantern close to it. There
were four streaming faces bent over that paper. I felt a tug at my
wrists and the cord slacken as the knife cut through it.
"Take the rope with you," whispered Tortue.
The next moment there were five faces bent over that paper.
"On St. Helen's Island," cried Glen.
"Let me see!" exclaimed Tortue, leaning over his shoulder.
"Three--what's that?--chains. Three chains east by the compass of the
east window in the south aisle of the church."
And that was the last I heard. I stepped softly back into the darkness
for a few paces, and then I ran at the top of my speed westwards
towards New Grimsby, freeing my arms from the rope as I ran. Once I
turned to look back. They were still gathered about that plan; their
faces, now grown small, were clustered under the light of the lantern,
and Tortue, with his flashing knife-blade, was pointing out upon the
paper the position of the treasure. Ten minutes later I was well up
the top of the hill. I saw a lugger steal round the point from New
Grimsby and creep up in the shadow towards the Abbey grounds.
I spent that night in the gorse high up on the Castle Down. I had no
mind to be caught in a trap at the Palace Inn.
From the top of the down, about an hour later, I saw the lugger come
round the Lizard Point of Tresco and beat across to St. Helen's. As
the day broke she pushed out from St. Helen's, and reaching past the
Golden Ball into the open sea, put her tiller up and ran by the
islands to the south.
There was no longer any need for me to hide among the gorse. I went
down to the Palace Inn. No one was as yet astir, and the door, of
course, was unlocked. I crept quietly up to my room and went to bed.