"By Jingo!" said Tom, with a deep breath, bending down and helping Hiram
to clear away the weeds and debris from the rotten old door, now clearly
disclosed to view. "Jest fancy our lighting on it like this!"
"Perhaps it isn't a cave at all," said I, likewise breathless with
excitement, but not wishing to place my hopes too high, lest I should be
disappointed; "it's too far from the sea, I think."
"Nary a bit," retorted Hiram, doggedly. "I'll bet my bottom dollar it's
the place sure enuff. Hyar goes, anyhow, fur a try."
So saying, rising from his stooping posture, he administered a thumping
kick with his heavy seamen's boot against the rotten woodwork.
This instantly gave way, a thick cloud of dust rolling up; and then, a
hollow dark cavity appeared right in the centre of the mound, which we
could now see was heaped up over the wooden framework, so as to conceal
it from the notice of any one passing by.
"Hooray!" shouted Tom Bullover, waving his hat and jumping up in the air
to further express his emotion. "We've found the buccaneers' blessed
treasure. Look out for the ghost, Hiram!"
"Durn the ghost!" retorted the other; "not twenty on 'em wu'd kep me
back now, I guess!"
At the same moment, he made a dive to enter the opening, but Tom put his
hand on his shoulder and half pulled him back.
"Stop, bo," he said. "There might be foul air in it, 'cause of its
being so long closed up. Let's wait and see."
"How ken ye tell thet?" asked Hiram; "guess it don't matter a red cent
if ther air."
"You just wait," insisted Tom. "I'll find out in a jiffey; and then, if
it's safe, we can venture in. The cave ain't a-goin' to run away from
us, and you know the old saying, `more haste less speed!' We're going
to do things in proper shipshape fashion, bo, so none o your rushing
matters; it'll all come right in time!"
With these words, Tom, who was a sensible, matter-of-fact fellow, with
his head screwed on straight and all his wits about him, took out a box
of matches from the inside lining of his hat, where he always kept his
pipe and tobacco and such things that he did not wish to get wet; and,
lighting one of the matches, he proceeded to hold it within the dark
cavity.
The flame flickered and then suddenly went out, although there wasn't a
breath of air stirring, the trees around preventing the sea-breeze from
reaching the spot where we stood--a sort of little hollow between the
hills.
"There you are, bo," said Tom; "see that?"
"Guess I don't underconstubble," answered Hiram, staring at him in
perplexity. "What d'ye mean, hey?"
"Didn't you watch the match go out?" returned Tom. "Lord, I never did
see such a feller!"
"Wa-al, what ef the durned match did fiz out?"
"Don't yer know what it means?"
"Guess not."
"It shows as how there's foul air there, bo--that's what the match's
going out means. It tells us not to go in!"
Tom said this with a chuckle, for which Hiram gave him a dig in the
ribs.
"Hev yer own way, Chips, fur a bit," he said; "but I'm jiggered if ye
air a-going to kep me from prospectin' thet thaar hole."
"Nobody wants to," retorted Tom. "Only just wait a bit till the
wentilation gets better and blows out all the gas. It would a-pizened
you if I'd let you go in at first, as you wanted."
"Wa-al, go ahead, an' hev another try fur to see ef it's right now."
In reply, Tom lit a second match, and held it in the opening of the cave
as before.
This time it did not flicker so much, burning for a longer time, before
the faint flame finally expired.
"Better," said Tom; "but it ain't quite safe yet."
"Hurry up," replied Hiram. "I'm bustin' to see thet boocaneer tree-sor
ez the mate wer talkin' on!"
After an interval of another quarter of an hour or so, while we all
waited on the tenter-hooks of suspense, an inquisitive land tortoise
waddling up to see what we were about, Tom lit a third match.
This time it burnt bravely with a clear light, which showed us something
of the interior of the cavern. It did not show us much, though, the
darkness being too great for such a feeble illuminant to penetrate far
into it.
"Now, boys," said Tom, "I think we may venture in, as the foul air must
be pretty well spent by this time; but we'll have to get a torch or
something to see our way by, or else we shall be breaking our necks or
smashing our heads against the roof."
"Guess one o' them port fires we hev aboard would lighten it up to
rights."
"So it would," replied Tom; "but we ain't got it now, and must try and
find somethin' else to make a flare up."
"Hyar's some o' the old wood," observed the other, taking up a fragment
of the broken door, which was crumbly with age. "Strike another match,
will ye. I think this timber 'll burn long enuff fur us to git inside
an' prospect a few."
"Right you are, my hearty," returned the other, carrying out this
suggestion; and the next minute, the piece of old oak was in a blaze,
when, holding it up in one hand, Hiram stooped down once more and
stepped within the cave.
There was nothing there, however.
Nothing!
"Wa-all," exclaimed Hiram, after bending here and there, and searching
in every direction. "I calls this a durned sell, I dew!"
"Hold the light up again," said Tom; "a little more to the right, bo, so
as to throw it on that dark corner there."
But nothing was to be seen save the rocky walls of the cave, which was
of peculiar shape, and more like a sort of fissure in the rock, riven
open possibly by some volcanic shock, than if made by man. The roof was
formed of lava, it seemed to me by the light of our impromptu torch,
similar to the same substance we noticed on the arid plain near the
shore of the bay, and again below the sand at high-water mark.
There were queer fragments of rock also, placed round the hard floor of
the cavern like seats, with regular intervals between them; while
apparently in the middle, as near as we could approximate, was a raised
portion of the under stratum of rock shaped like a pulpit.
"Guess if thaar's airy tree-sor hyar, b'ys," observed Hiram, pointing to
this, "it's thaar!"
"No, bo," replied Tom, laughing, "that's the black man's pulpit, where
he preaches a Sunday, same as our `Holy Joes' do when they're ashore!"
Hiram paid no attention to this remark, but continued poking about the
place, stamping with his feet and trying in every way to see whether the
treasure we were in search of might not be buried in some spot or other;
but his trouble was all in vain.
Presently, the piece of blazing wood began to give forth a more feeble
light, being almost burnt out; and, then, all at once Hiram and I
noticed another spark of light like a round hole, at the opposite end of
the cave.
"Hillo!" shouted Hiram, "I guess thaar's another end to the durned hole,
an' we hev taken the wrong track!"
Making our way slowly, so as not to extinguish the torch, we advanced in
the direction of the new light, which got bigger and bigger as we
approached nearer to it.
There was no doubt it was another entrance to the cave, and a far more
convenient one, too, for it opened out on to a little spur of the hill
that ran down a somewhat steep declivity to the seashore below.
"It must be the buccaneers' cave," said Tom. "It's just the sort o'
place men that were sailors would choose. I misdoubted it at first,
from being so far inland, as I thought; but now I see it's near the
sea."
"But there ain't nary a tree-sor thaar!"
"Don't you be too cocksure o' that," returned Tom, looking about him
well, to make certain of his direction. "Howsomdever, we ain't got the
time to search the place properly now, as it'll be dark soon, and we
ought to be aboard."
"Durned if I likes givin' it up like this."
"Never mind, bo; there'll be plenty of time for us to look the cave over
to-morrer arternoon, and I'll bring one o' them port fires you spoke on
to light up the place."
"Guess thet'll jest about do, Chips," replied Hiram, turning round, as
if about to go back within the entrance, loth to leave without finding
the buccaneers' hoard, repeating his previous exclamation: "I'm durned,
though, if I likes givin' it up like this!"
"Come along, my hearty!" cried Tom. "Come along, Charley. But, mind,
neither on you be telling the hands what we've found out! There
wouldn't be a chance for us if the skipper or that drunken cur Flinders
knowed on it."
"Not me," replied Hiram, following Tom along the curve of the shore
towards a little group of trees, which I recognised now as immediately
above the pool frequented by the doves. "I won't tell nary a soul, an'
I reckon we ken both on us anser fur Cholly?"
"Certainly," said I, replying to his implied question, as I came up
behind the two, and we started off retracing our way at once to the
ship, on the fo'c's'le of which we could see several of the men already
gathered together. "I'm sure I won't tell anybody, for I have nobody to
tell except you, Tom, and Hiram--you're my only friends on board."
"Wait till you get hold of the buccaneers' gold, Charley," said Tom
dryly. "You'll get plenty o' chums then, for money makes friends!"
Nothing further was said by either of us, and we presently found
ourselves once more on board, when I turned in at once, for we had
walked a goodish distance, and I was tired out.
The next afternoon, when work was ended and Hiram and I were ready to
start on another excursion to the cave, we could not find Tom.
"Nary mind thet, Cholly," said Hiram. "I guess we ken go 'long, an'
Chips 'll pick us up by-an'-by."
Passing the grove and pool of the doves, we made our way over the brow
of the little hill beyond, and sighted the second bay; when, just as the
opening to the cave became visible, both of us heard the familiar sound
of Sam Jedfoot's banjo.
It was passing strange!
The same old air was being played upon it that we had heard immediately
before the ship struck--and, indeed, almost always prior to every
catastrophe and mischance that had happened throughout our eventful
voyage.
Hiram turned pale.
"Jee-rusalem, Cholly!" he exclaimed, at once arresting his footsteps;
"what on airth air thet?"