CHAPTER XXIX
"No, lad, the risk is too great. Ye'd be in worse plight than before, ifthey caught ye, and with a score of the ruffians searching the islandover, ye'd run too long a chance. Better be satisfied with what's here,and stay where we can at least defend ourselves."
Amos Swan was speaking. On the deal table before him, a heap of greatgoldpieces gleamed in the firelight while seated around the board werehis two sons and Bob.
It was Tom who answered. "True enough, father," he said, "and yet thisgold is ours. We own the island by the Governor's grant. If we sit idlethe pirates will surely find the treasure and make off with it. But ifwe go up there at night, as Jeremy suggests, the risk we run will besmaller, and every time we make the trip we'll add a thousand guineas tothat pile there. Think of it, father."
The elder man frowned thoughtfully. "Well," he said at length, "if yougo with them, Tom, and you go carefully, at night, we'll chance it, onceat least. Not tonight, though. It's late now and you all need sleep.I'll take the first watch."
At about ten o'clock of the evening following, Jeremy, Bob and Tom stoleout and up the hill in the darkness. They were well-armed but carried nolantern, the boys being confident of their ability to find the cleft inthe ledge without a light. A half hour's walking brought them near thespot, and Jeremy, who had almost an Indian's memory for the "lay of theground," soon led the way to the edge of the chasm. Dim starlight shonethrough the gap in the trees above the ledge, but there was onlydarkness below in the pit. One by one they felt their way down and atlast all three stood on the damp earth at the bottom. "Here's thebarrel--just as we left it. They haven't been here yet!" Jeremywhispered.
Working as quickly and as quietly as he could, Bob reached into theopening in the keg and pulled out the gold, piece by piece, while theothers, taking the coins from his fingers, filled their pockets, and theleather pouches they had brought.
It was breathlessly exciting work, for all three were aware of thedanger that they ran. When finally they crawled forth, laden likesumpter-mules, the perspiration was thick on Jeremy's forehead. Knowingthe character of Pharaoh Daggs so well, he realized, better probablythan either of his companions, what fate they might expect if they werediscovered. So far, apparently, the pirates had not thought of setting anight guard on the ridge. If they continued to neglect this precautionand failed to find the treasure themselves, three more trips would----
His calculations were interrupted by the sudden snapping of a twig. Hestopped, instantly on the alert. Behind him Tom and Bob had also paused.Neither of them had caused the sound. It had seemed to come from thethick bush down hill to the right. For an endlessly long half-minute thethree held their breath, listening. Then once more something crackled,farther away this time, and in a more southwesterly direction.
Man or animal, whatever it was that made the sounds, was moving rapidlyaway from them.
Jeremy hunched the straps of his heavy pouch higher up on his shoulderand led on again, faster than before, and hurrying forward in Indianfile, they reached the cabin without further adventure.
All through the next day they stood watch and watch at the shack, readyfor the attack which they expected to develop sooner or later. But stillit appeared that the pirates preferred to keep out of sight. The boyshad told Amos Swan of the noises they had heard the previous night andhe had listened with a grave countenance. It could hardly have beenother than one of the pirates, he thought, for he was quite certain thatexcept for a few rabbits, there were no wild animals upon the island."Still," he said, "if you were moving quietly, there's small reason tobelieve the man knew you were near. If he did know and made such a noiseas that, he must have been a mighty poor woodsman!"
The boys, anxious that nothing should prevent another trip to thetreasure-keg, accepted this logic without demur.
The following night Amos Swan decided to go with the boys himself,leaving Tom on guard at the cabin. As before, they armed themselves withguns, pistols and hunting-knives and ascended the hillside in the inkydark. There were no stars in sight and a faint breeze that came and wentamong the trees foreboded rain. This prospect of impending bad weathermade itself felt in the spirits of the three treasure-hunters. Jeremy,accustomed as he was to the woods, drew a breath of apprehension andlooked scowlingly aloft as he heard the dismal wind in the hemlock tops.Ugh! He shook himself nervously and plunged forward along the hillcrest.A few moments later they were gathered about the barrel at the bottom ofthe cleft.
It was even darker than they had found it on their previous visit.Jeremy and his father had to grope in the pitchy blackness for the coinsthat Bob held out to them. Their pockets were about half-full when therecame a whispered exclamation from the Delaware boy.
"There's some sort of box in here, buried in the gold!" he said. "It'stoo big to pull out through the hole. Where's your dirk, Jeremy?"
The latter knelt astride the keg, and working in the dark, began toenlarge the opening with the blade of his hunting-knife. After a fewminutes he thrust his hand in and felt the box. It was apparently ofwood, covered with leather and studded over with scores of nails. Itstop was only seven or eight inches wide by less than a foot long,however, and in thickness it seemed scarcely a hand's breadth.
Big cold drops of rain were beginning to fall as Jeremy resumed hiscutting. He made the opening longer as well as wider, and at last wasable by hard tugging to get the box through. He thrust it into his pouchand they recommenced the filling of their pockets with goldpieces.
Before a dozen coins had been removed a sudden red glare on the walls ofthe chasm caused the three to leap to their feet. At the same instantthe rain increased to a downpour, and they looked up to see a pine-knottorch in the opening above them splutter and go out. The wet darknesscame down blacker than before.
But in that second of illumination they had seen framed in the torchlitcleft a pair of gleaming light eyes and a cruelly snarling mouth set ina face made horrible by the livid scar that ran from chin to eyebrowacross its broken nose.
Jeremy clutched at Bob and his father. "This way!" he gasped through thehissing rain, and plunged along the black chasm toward the southern end,where it debouched upon the hillside. They clambered over some bouldersand emerged in the undergrowth, a score of yards from the point wherethe barrel had been found.
"Come on," whispered Jeremy hoarsely, and started eastward along theslope. Burdened as they were, they ran through the woods at desperatespeed, the noise of their going drowned by the descending flood.
In the haste of flight it was impossible to keep together. When Jeremyhad put close to half a mile between himself and the chasm, he pausedpanting and listened for the others, but apparently they were not near.He decided to cut across the ridge, and started up the hill, when heheard a crash in the brush just above him. "Father?" he called under hisbreath. To his dismay he was answered by a startled oath, and the nextmoment he saw a tall figure coming at him swinging a cutlass. The piratewas a bare ten feet away. Jeremy aimed his pistol and pulled thetrigger, but only a dull click responded. The priming was wet.
A sudden red glare on the walls of the chasm.]
At that instant the cutlass passed his head with an ugly sound andJeremy, desperate, flung his pistol straight at the pirate's face. As itleft his hand he heard it strike. Then as the man went down with agroan, he doubled in his tracks like a hare, and ran back, heading upacross the hill.
It was not till he was over the ridge and well down the slope towardhome that he dropped to a walk. His breath was coming in gasps that hurthim like a knife between his ribs, and his legs were so weak he couldhardly depend on them. He had run nearly two miles, up hill and down, inheavy clothes drenched with rain, and carrying a dozen pounds of goldbesides the flintlock fowling-piece which he still clutched in his lefthand. Somewhere behind him he had dropped the box, found amid thetreasure, but he was far too tired to look for it. More dead than alivehe crawled, at last, up to the door of the cabin and staggered in whenTom opened to his kno
ck.
While he gasped out his story, the older brother looked more closely tothe barring of the window-shutters and put fresh powder in thepriming-pans of the guns.
Ten minutes after Jeremy, his father appeared, wet to the skin and witha grim look around his bearded jaws. He, too, was spent with running,but he would have gone out again at once when he heard that Bob wasstill missing if the boys had not dissuaded him. Jeremy was sure thatif Bob had escaped he would soon reach the cabin, for he had the lay ofthe island well in mind now.
And so, while Tom kept watch, they lay down with their clothes on beforethe fire.