“What’s your plan for getting home with all this gold, Henninger?”
asked Elliott “I hardly dared to think of that till we’d got away from
the island.”
It was almost eleven o’clock at night, and the moonlight broke
intermittently from a cloudy sky. The dhow was beating in long tacks
down the Mozambique Channel, with a fresh, warm wind blowing from the
southeast. Elliott was on guard duty at the after-hatch, sitting on an
inverted bucket with a Mauser across his knees; Henninger and Bennett
were lingering about the quarter-deck before turning in, and Hawke
stood sentinel over the door of the strong-room and talked up the
companionway. Day and night two men were always on duty over the
treasure; it had been so ever since the gold had come aboard, and the
system would not be relaxed while the voyage lasted. This would not be
much longer, however, for they were already six days from the latitude
of the battle and wreck, where Sullivan lay in deep water, with three
firebars sewn up in his canvas coffin.
“We can’t sail this craft to England, let alone to America,” Bennett
remarked.
In spite of success, a certain depression seemed to have settled upon
them all. Perhaps it was due to the oppressive heat; perhaps it was
the inevitable reaction from excitement and victory. In the faint rays
of the deck lantern Elliott could scarcely see his comrades’ faces,
but by daylight they looked ten years older.
“This is the plan I had thought of,” replied Henninger, “though I
hardly dared to mention it, as you say, till we had really won out.
We’ll run into Durban and divide the gold on board. Some of it we will
deposit in the banks there; some we’ll deposit in Cape Town, a little
at a time, so as not to attract attention. We can express some of it
to New York, and one or two of us can sail for England on the
mail-steamer and take some of it along. The important thing is to
scatter it, and I think we can get off quite unnoticed, if we are
careful.”
“Just how much did we make of it?” asked Hawke, from the bottom of the
companion-ladder.
“One million, seven hundred thousand, and odd,” replied Henninger, in
an uninterested tone. “Nearly three hundred and fifty thousand apiece.
Of course, if we can find anything of any of Sullivan’s relatives
we’ll fix them up with his share.”
“What are you going to do with your share of it?” Bennett inquired,
curiously.
Henninger gave a short laugh. “How do I know? Blow it in, I suppose,
in some fool way, and go out looking for more. What I imagine I’m
going to do is to live on it for the rest of my life, but I know
myself better than that. It means an income of say fourteen thousand a
year, doesn’t it? I’ve seen that much put on the turn of a card.”
“Don’t go and be a fool,” said Elliott “I’ve lived for most of my
years on about one-tenth of fourteen thousand.”
“And I’ve lived for months on nothing at all. No, it’s no use handing
out nice, sensible motherly advice, for there’s only one kind of life
for me. I’ve got the fever in me, and I’ll be looking for the road to
the end of the rainbow as long as I live, I fancy. Do you remember our
conversation on the Atlantic liner, Elliott? I never said so much for
myself before or since, and I won’t do it now, thanks. Talk to Hawke
and Bennett; they haven’t been on the rainbow road so long.”
“You said that night that you wanted to win this game so as to get out
of grafting,” Elliott retorted.
“Well, so I do—only I know I won’t,” said Henninger.
“Do you know what I’m going to do?” remarked Hawke. “You’ll laugh, but
I’m going to buy a half-interest in a big bee ranch in California.
It’s an ideal life. The bees do all the work, and all you have to do
is to lie in the shade and collect profits once in awhile. You can run
a fruit farm on the side, and there’s big money in it.”
“That’s what I should like above all things,” said Margaret, who came
aft at that moment.
“What will you do, Elliott?” queried Henninger, half-ironically.
“I don’t know,” said Elliott, vaguely, glancing up at the girl, who
leaned against the rail, balancing herself easily as the dhow rolled.
“The first thing is to make sure of getting away with the stuff.
Henninger thinks we had better put in at Durban, Miss Laurie, and
divide the gold and scatter it as much as possible.”
“What for? Will any one rob us?” asked Margaret, quickly.
“Yes—the government police,” said Bennett.
“But I thought—Haven’t we a right to the gold? Isn’t it ours?”
“Heaven knows it ought to be, after all we’ve gone through,” remarked
Elliott.
“But isn’t it?” Margaret insisted.
“You’re not sophisticated enough, Miss Laurie,” said Henninger.
“There’s always a claimant for as much money as this. The gold seems
to have been stolen from the Transvaal government, and it’s certain
that the English government will claim it—if they hear that it’s been
recovered. But we don’t intend that they shall hear.”
“Then this gold belongs to the English government?”
“I thought you understood the situation. Legally, perhaps, it does,
but—”
“Then I shall not take an atom of it,” said Margaret.
“But you must!” exclaimed Elliott. “We’re injuring no one—”
“I’m not a thief,” Margaret interrupted again, and walked forward.
The adventurers looked at one another, disconcerted, and Hawke climbed
up the ladder to look with an alarmed countenance over the deck.
“She’s got to take it,” said Bennett.
“Yes, of course she must take her share,” agreed Henninger. “Gad,
she’s the pluckiest woman I ever saw. She’s been a regular brick all
through this thing.”
“She’ll take it or not, as she pleases,” said Elliott, in an unusually
aggressive tone, and failing to grasp the humour of the situation.
“Maybe you won’t take any of it yourself,” Hawke satirized.
“There’ll be all the more for the rest of you if I don’t,” returned
Elliott.
“The fact is, we’re all getting nervous and morbid,” Henninger
remarked. “A good sleep is the best antidote, and I’m going to turn
in.”
Bennett also swathed himself in his blanket and sought a soft plank by
the lee rail, with the prospect of being rolled across the deck when
the dhow should go upon the other tack. Hawke retired out of sight
below, and Elliott was left to silence.
Under the stiffly drawn sails he could see Margaret still leaning over
the bow. Behind him an Arab bore heavily upon the tiller-head, holding
her steady, and it occurred to Elliott that the man could stab him in
the back with the greatest ease. It would not be an unfitting
conclusion for the adventure that was stained with so much blood
already; and he imagined the sudden rising of the Moslem crew, the
brief melée, the flash of pistols and knives, the massacre on the
reeling deck. But he continued to sit on the keg, with his back to the
helmsman, and did not trouble to turn around.
A yard beneath his feet were nearly two million dollars in hard gold;
the treasure that had spun so much intrigue and mystery over three
continents was in his power at last. But the price had been paid;
there had been blood enough spilled to redden every sovereign or louis
or double-eagle that might ever be minted from the metal. Elliott
fancied he heard the crash of the _Clara McClay_ on the reefs when all
but two of her company had perished. He remembered the revolver drawn
on the platform of the St. Louis train, and the bleeding figure of
Bennett beside the rails. He saw vividly the gambling-rooms; he saw
the missionary reeling back from the red knife; he saw Sullivan with
the widening scarlet stain on his breast, and he heard again the
fierce hail from Sevier’s steamer, and heard the crash as she rammed
the rocks where the _Clara McClay_ had perished months before. And, as
he brooded there in the dark, there arose in him a loathing and a
horror of the gold that had worked like a potent poison in the heart
of every man who had known of it.
In the whole adventure there was but one period that had left no
bitter taste. He remembered the interlude from the treasure hunt at
Hongkong, and the bungalow on the Peak, where for a month there was
neither the bewilderment of tangled mysteries nor the feverish
excitement of greed. The heat, the rain, the miseries that had
tortured him, he had already forgotten, or he remembered them only
dimly as the discomforts that emphasized more keenly the graceful and
domestic charm of such a home as he had never known before.
The Arab steersman droned softly to himself as he leaned on the
creaking tiller behind. Margaret had not yet gone to her hammock. He
could see her still at the bow, looking forward over the sweeping seas
in the cloudy moonlight. She thought him a thief; she had as good as
said so; and he watched her, feeling strangely as if everything
depended upon her staying there till he was released from duty.
Bennett came up at midnight to relieve him, and Elliott went forward
at once. But he could think of nothing in the manner of what he wanted
to say, and after a few commonplaces he fell silent, and they leaned
over the prow together, listening to the sucking gurgle and the
hissing crash as the cutwater split the seas.
“I want you to see clearly just why I insisted on coming with you,”
said Margaret, breaking the silence at last. “I didn’t understand it
at all, then. My father had spoken of recovering this gold—he couldn’t
have known that it was government money—and I supposed that it was
right to do it. In fact, I felt almost as if he had left it to me.
Then I had no money—nothing. I knew that I was dependent on you for
everything. It was even your money that brought me from China; I know
it was, though the consul said he advanced it to me. It nearly
maddened me with shame, and—I didn’t know what to do. Only I knew that
I couldn’t take anything more from you. I thought I had a right to a
share of this gold, but I couldn’t even let you go and do the work for
me. I had to help, and do my part—and so I did it.
“But now it’s all over. I understand it all as I didn’t before, and
you see that I can’t take a cent of this money. I should feel myself a
criminal as long as I lived. But I don’t blame you for taking it, if
you feel that you can.”
“I’m not going to take any of it, either,” Elliott interrupted.
She was silent for nearly a minute, and then said, in a curious,
almost harsh, voice, “Why not?”
“Because there are other things I value more—your good opinion, for
instance,” said Elliott, with difficulty, feeling all the painful joys
of renunciation. He wanted to say more; he struggled vainly for words,
but after an ineffectual effort he fell back upon a practical
question.
“What will you do, then?”
“I’ve been thinking of that,” she said. “I shall try to get something
to do at the Cape. I can always make a living. I can do almost
anything.”
“Oh, heavens! You mustn’t do that. You sha’n’t!” groaned Elliott.
“Why not?” she said, with a smile. “Do you know, it is almost a relief
to have the weight of that terrible treasure taken away. It has been a
sort of curse to every one, I think. But it seems a pity, doesn’t it,
that we should get nothing at all for having worked so hard and
travelled so far and risked so much. The government ought to refund
our expenses, anyway.”
“Salvage! I should think so!” cried Elliott, smiting his hand on the
rail. “Why didn’t I think of it before? Of course we have a claim for
our trouble and expense, and we can collect it, too, if we turn in our
share of the stuff to the Crown.”
“But I suppose they would allow us only a trifle, after all,” said
Margaret.
“Not a bit of it. Twenty to fifty per cent. of the value is always
paid for salvaging a cargo. Your share now is nearly three hundred and
fifty thousand dollars, and at least a hundred thousand of that will
be honestly, lawfully yours. Any court will award it to you.”
“But will Mr. Henninger—”
“Henninger and the others will never give up a cent of their share; I
know that. We mustn’t spoil their plans, I suppose, so we will give
them time to get safely clear. Then we will surrender our part of it,
and present our bill for expenses, and say nothing about any more
having been recovered. The Crown will be glad enough to get any of it
back.”
“This is the best news of all!” said Margaret, with a long breath. “A
hundred thousand dollars! That will be fabulous wealth to me! I can
have all the things, and see all the things, and do all the things
that I dreamed of all my life and never expected to realize. Now I
believe I’m really glad to be rich again. Aren’t you?”
“I don’t know,” Elliott muttered.
“I think we ought to try to use this money so as to justify having
it,” Margaret went on. “It has cost so much misery and so many lives,
and I want to spend it so as to make it clean again. I want to make
others happy with it, as well as be happy myself. What are you going
to do with it?”
“I don’t know,” Elliott burst out. “I don’t value this money, whether
it’s a hundred thousand or a million, not a straw. I’d throw it away;
I’d blow it in, like Henninger—God knows what I’ll do with it. There’s
only one thing that I really want I told you what it was at that hotel
in New York, and you ordered me never to speak of it again. If I can’t
have that I don’t care much what becomes of the money, or of anything
else.”
“Don’t say that. Don’t speak of that—not now!” murmured Margaret; and
as he hesitated she turned quickly away and slipped toward the stern
companionway. “You won’t lose by waiting,” was what she left in a
semi-audible whisper as she vanished, and Elliott had this to ponder
on as he stood watching the heavy swell rolling blackly toward Africa,
toward Durban, where the dhow was due in another day.
But it was really two days before she glided up the port and anchored
innocently in the bay, looking anything but the treasure-ship she was.
And now the most harassing, the most anxious and delicate part of the
whole adventure was begun.
Margaret went on to Cape Town at once, with instructions to secure a
maid in that city as a travelling companion and to sail direct for
London. And in her absence the gold was taken ashore piece-meal, in
pockets and travelling-bags and hat-boxes, and little by little
exchanged for clean Bank of England notes and shiny sovereigns. Over
$150,000 was sold in Durban, and then the party proceeded to Cape
Town, where, following the same procedure, nearly twice as much was
passed over to the banks for specie.
The rest, Henninger decided, could best be disposed of in America, and
he was, besides, anxious to get out of British territory as soon as
possible. Accordingly the dhow was dismantled, the crew paid off, the
reis given a present of two hundred sovereigns above his salary, and
Henninger, Hawke, and Bennett sailed for New York direct, with a
mountain of trunks, each containing a few gold blocks packed among
unnecessary clothing. And two days afterward Elliott took passage for
England with six hundred and forty thousand dollars, being his own and
Margaret’s share of the cargo of the _Clara McClay_.
Margaret was prepared for his coming, and between them the treasure
was safely deposited in the bank, at which Elliott felt an incubus
lifted from his mind. The next step was to secure an experienced
marine lawyer to forward their salvage claims.
This gentleman, after passing through a stage of stupefaction at their
unexampled scrupulosity, advised that a claim of forty per cent. of
the value be made, in consideration of the circumstances of the case.
They made it, and then there was long to wait. Red tape, Treasury
tape, Admiralty tape, civil tape was unrolled to a disheartening
length, and the new Transvaal Crown Colony even put in its claim, as
the original owner of the bullion. In the midst of the delay Elliott
received a message from Henninger:
“We have disposed of all our goods,” he wrote. “Go ahead and make the
best terms you can. Hawke has gone to California to start his bee
farm, but he thinks he will look into a few mining deals in Nevada
before he gets there. Bennett is playing the races on a system. I am
saving my money at present, but I see a chance to double my money in
Venezuela. The treasure trail is a long trail, and we’re not at the
end of the rainbow yet.”
And in England Elliott and Margaret were finding the latter stages of
the treasure trail long indeed. The salvage case took a great deal of
deciding; the courts appeared to be convinced that some occult
dishonesty must be concealed beneath the offer to restore any part of
the lost treasure, and haggled over the percentage in a manner, it
appeared to Elliott, highly unworthy of the traditions of a mighty
nation. Ultimately, however, a compromise was arrived at. The
government would pay thirty-three per cent.; and Elliott surrendered
the bullion and received back two hundred and twelve thousand dollars,
which he divided equally with Margaret. Six days later they were at
sea, bound out of Southampton for New York.
Surely, Elliott thought, this was the last of the long trail, as he
listened to the regular “swish—crash!” on her bows that had become so
odiously familiar; and he determined that all should be settled before
he sighted American land.
“If I ever get ashore again,” he remarked to Margaret, “I’m going to
the quietest, sleepiest country town I can find, and never set eyes on
a steamer or a railway train again as long as I live.”
They were looking over the stern, where night had fallen on the
heaving swell. It had rained hard, but was clearing; an obscured moon
faintly lit the sea.
“And do some sort of good work,” said Margaret. “You’ve got ability,
money, and every chance of a happy life.”
“It’s in your hands,” Elliott declared, feeling his opportunity.
“It’s not!” she cried, vehemently. “It’s in your own. You’re too
strong to depend on any one else for your life’s success. I don’t like
to hear that!”
“Listen,” said Elliott. “You wouldn’t let me say this when you were
poor; perhaps you’ll hear it now when you are rich. I was going to
give up every cent of my share of the gold to try to please you—to do
what you thought was square. I’d have given up the whole ship-load—no,
that’s absurdly small, for there simply isn’t anything in the world,
past, present, or future, that I wouldn’t give up and call it a good
bargain if it would make you care for me a little. The best time I
ever had was when I was luckily able to help you, and now I could
almost find it in my heart to be sorry that you have all you need, and
don’t need me any more.”
She touched his arm ever so gently, and he turned and looked squarely
at her.
“Not need you!—you!” was all she said.
The sudden throb of his heart made him gasp. The deck was full of
people, but he put his hand hard down upon hers as it lay on the rail,
and he felt her fingers curl up into his palm.
“Be careful,” said she, with a new, subtle thrill in her voice. “Oh,
look!”
From the clearing sky astern the moon was now pouring a full, glorious
flood upon the heaving Atlantic, where the heavy swell ran in
ivory-crested combers. In the pure white light the foam glittered with
prismatic colours, wave after wave, like a long broken rainbow fallen
upon the sea, and sparkling with the streaks of phosphorescence of the
steamer’s wake.
“The rainbow road,” as Henninger calls it; “the treasure trail,” said
Elliott. “The trail’s ended.”
But Margaret shook her head. “No,” she said. “The rainbow road has
just begun.”
THE END.