"Why, Sep, Uggleston!" he exclaimed; "you here?"
"Why, father!" I cried, catching him by the arm. "I thought you had
gone."
"The pony broke down, my boy," said my father, "and I have had to bring
him back here--walking all the way; and I was undecided as to whether I
should pay someone to take him home, or lead him myself, and make a
fresh start to-morrow."
"Come back," I said with a look full of delight. "He ought to come
back, eh, Big?"
Bigley nodded and smiled, and then I eagerly told him all.
"It was Bigley's doing, father," I exclaimed. "He found it out."
"My lad," said my father huskily, "you have saved me, for I could only
have sold my property at a terrible loss."
"And you will come back with us, father," I said.
"Come back, my boy? Of course. Why, Bigley, my lad, you have always
looked at me as if I felt a grudge against you for being your father's
son; now, my boy, I shall always have to look at you as a benefactor,
who has saved me from ruin."
Bigley tried to say something about that dreadful night, and the attack
on the mine premises, but my father stopped him.
"Never mind about all that," he said; "let's get back and see if you are
right, and that it is not a solitary chest which the Frenchmen have left
us."
"No fear of that, sir," cried Bigley. "I was down long enough to see
that there was quite a lot of them."
"Or of pieces of rock," said my father smiling. "I'm older than you
are, my lad, and not so sanguine."
"But I feel so sure, sir," cried Bigley.
"That's right, my lad. I'm glad you do; but you have seen them, I have
not."
"But Sep saw them too."
"I saw the box we hauled up," I said; "but I could not be sure about
what was at the bottom amongst the rocks and weeds."
Bigley looked so disappointed that my father smiled.
"Come," he cried; "you think I am ungrateful, and throwing cold water
upon your discovery, when there is plenty over it as it is. So come,
let us assume that the treasure is there, and begin to make our plans
about how to recover it."
At the last moment we had been obliged to leave the pony at the little
inn, and we were walking steadily back as this conversation went on.
"Well, sir, it will be very easy," said Bigley eagerly.
"Not so easy," said my father. "We shall want a couple of men who can
dive."
"Oh no, you will not, sir," replied Bigley. "I have thought it all out.
All we shall want will be a clear day with the sea smooth."
"Yes, highly necessary, Bigley," said my father.
"Then we should want a very long smooth pole, and if we could not get
one long enough two poles would have to be fished together."
"And then you'd fish for the boxes?" I said.
"No," said Bigley seriously; "you would have to sink the pole just down
to where the chests lie, and rig up a block at the top, run a rope
through it, hold one end of the rope in the boat to which the pole is
made fast, and at the other end have a thick strong bag made of net."
"Well, what then?" said my father.
"Why, then you would put a big pig of lead in the bag, let me take hold
of the bag, let the rope run slack, and I should go down to the bottom
in an instant. Then I should lift a box into the net-bag and come up,
leaving it there for you in the boat to haul it up."
"Yes, that sounds very simple," said my father; "but could you do it?"
"Could I do it!" cried Bigley. "Why, sir, we did get one up to the top
without any proper things. I can dive."
"Yes, he can dive, father," I said eagerly. "You need not be afraid
about that."
My father looked at us both, and grew very silent, as we trudged on, to
reach the cottage at last utterly tired; and though Bigley proposed that
we should go on and see whether the buoy we had left was all right, my
father said that it might very well wait till morning, and Bigley stayed
for the night.
"I thought your father would have been ever so much more eager and
excited about it," said Bigley, speaking to me from the inner room where
he slept, the door having been left open.
"He is excited," I said in a low voice, for across the passage I could
hear him walking up and down in his own room; and that kept on till I
dropped off asleep, and dreamed that the French had landed with four
large boats and a great pole which they lowered down into the sea. Then
they seemed to have got me fastened to the rope that ran through the
wheel-block at the head, and they had fastened a pig of lead on to my
chest, which pressed upon me as they hauled me up out of the boat, and
then let go.
It was all wonderfully real. I felt myself suspended over the water,
which looked black as ink instead of lit up by the sun as it was when
Bigley went down. And as I hung there, the oppression from the pig of
lead was terrible, and it seemed to please Captain Gualtiere, who was
there in a boat opposite, giving orders and laughing at my struggles to
escape. "Now," I heard him say in his Frenchy English, "cease to hold
ze ropes, and laissez let him go."
Then there was a dull splash, and with the weight always upon me I
seemed to part the waters and go down, down, down, into the deep black
depths, which appeared to have no bottom. There was a growing sensation
of suffocation; my boots hurt my feet, and the blister I had made upon
my heel smarted, and all at once the pony, as it stood at the half-way
house door, kicked out at me, just as I was beginning to suffocate; and
this broke the rope, and I shot up to the surface.
In other words, I started up awake, to find that I had been lying on my
back, that I was bathed in perspiration, and that my father was still
walking up and down his bed-room.
"What stuff to go and dream!" I said to myself, as I felt very much
relieved. "That comes of eating cold beef and pickled cucumber for
supper."
I turned upon my side to settle myself off to sleep again; but I could
not doze off; and do what I would, the thought of being sent down into
the black water with a pig of our lead upon my chest, and the pony down
below ready to kick out at me kept haunting my mind, while across the
passage there was my father still keeping up the regular tramp.
Just then the clock at the bottom of the stairs began to strike, and I
thought that it must be a dark morning and about four, but to my
astonishment it struck eleven, and I felt sure that it must be wrong.
And all this while there was the restless pace up and down my father's
room, making the jug in the basin rattle faintly, and after turning over
three or four times I made up my mind that it was impossible to sleep,
so I would dress, and then go and wake Bigley and sit and talk.
I had just made up my mind to this, as it seemed to me, when Bigley
stood in the doorway and said:
"Now, Sep, old fellow, wake up."
I started up in bed and stared, for the room was flooded with sunshine,
and I knew that I must have been sound asleep, while from across the
passage came the regular pace of my father walking up and down, and the
jug clattered in the basin.
"Has he been walking up and down all night?" I said sleepily.
"Oh, no!" said Bigley. "I have only just called him, and heard him get
up. But make haste. It's a splendid morning, and the sea's like
glass."
"And the skin's all off my heel," I said; "and it's as sore as sore, and
so is one of my toes."
"Sep!" shouted my father just then; "make haste down, and tell Ellen
that we want the breakfast as early as possible."
"Yes, father," I said; but at the same moment Kicksey's voice came up
the stairs as she heard what he said, and it was to announce that
breakfast would be ready in ten minutes' time.