Putting these into the girls' hands, Rupert lifted the second tray to lay bare the bottom of the chest. Here again were several small bags. There was another cross, this time of jet inlaid with gold and attached to a short necklace of jet beads; a wide bracelet of coral and turquoise which was crudely made and might have been native work of some sort. Then there was a tiny jewel-set bottle, about which, Ricky declared, there still lingered some faint trace of the fragrance it had once held. And most interesting to Charity was a fan, the sticks carved of ivory so intricately that they resembled lacework stiffened into slender ribs. The covering between them was fashioned of layers of silk painted with a scene of the bayou country, with the moss-grown oaks and encroaching swamp all carefully depicted.
Charity declared that she had never seen its equal and that some great artist must have decorated the dainty trifle. She closed it carefully and slipped it back into its covering, and Rupert took out the last of the bags. From its depths rolled a ring.
It was plain enough, a simple band of gold so deep in shade as to be almost red. Nearly an inch in width, there was no ornamentation of any sort on its broad, smooth surface.
"Do you know what this is?" Rupert turned the circlet around in his fingers.
"No." Ricky was still dangling the earrings before her eyes.
"It is the wedding-ring of the Bride of the Luck."
"What!" Val leaned forward to look down at the plain circle of gold.
Even Ricky gave her brother her full attention now. Rupert turned to Charity.
"You probably know the story of our Luck?" he asked.
She nodded.
"When the Luck was brought from Palestine, it was decided that it must be given into the hands of a guardian who would be responsible for it with his or her life. Because the men of the house were always at war during those troublesome times, the guardianship went to the eldest daughter if she were a maiden. By high and solemn ceremony she was married to the Luck in the chapel of Lorne. And she was the Bride of the Luck until death or a unanimous consent from the family released her. Nor could she marry a mortal husband during the time she wore this." He touched the ring he held.
"This must be very old. It's the red gold which came into Ireland and England before the Romans conquered the land. Perhaps this was found in some old barrow on Lorne lands. But it no longer means anything without the Luck."
He held it out to Ricky. "By tradition this is yours."
She shook her head. "I don't think I want that, Rupert. It's too old—too strange. Now these," she held up the earrings, "you can understand. The girls who wore them were like me, and they wore them because they were pretty. But that—" she looked at the Bride's ring with distaste—"that must have been a burden to its wearer. Didn't you tell us once of the Lady Iseult, who killed herself when they would not release her from her vows to the Luck? I don't want to wear that, ever."
"Very well." He dropped it back into its bag. "We'll send it to LeFleur for safe-keeping. Any scruples about the rest of this stuff?"
"Of course not! And none of it is worth much. May I keep it?"
"If you wish. Now let's see what is in here." He drew the second box toward him and forced it open.
"Money!" Charity was staring at it with wide eyes.
Within, in neat bundles, lay packages of paper notes. Even Rupert was shaken from his calm as he reached for one. Outside of a bank none of them had ever seen such a display of wealth. But after he studied the top note, the master of Pirate's Haven laughed thinly.
"This may be worth ten cents to some collector if we're lucky—"
"Rupert! That's real money," began Ricky.
But Val, too, had seen the print. "Confederate money, child. As useless now as our pretty oil stock. I told you that things always turn out wrong in this house. If we do find treasure, it's worthless. How much is there, anyway?"
Rupert picked up a slip of paper tucked under the tape fastening the first bundle. "This says thirty-five thousand—profit from a blockade runner's trip."
"Thirty-five thousand! Well, I think that that is just too much," Ricky said defiantly. "Why didn't they get paid in real money?"
"Being loyal to the South, the Ralestones probably would not take what you call 'real money,'" replied Charity.
"It's nice to know how wealthy we once were," Val observed. "What are you going to do with that wall-paper, Rupert?"
"Oh, chuck it in my desk. I'll get someone to look it over; there might be a collector's item among these bills. Now let's have the joker out of this bundle." He plucked at the fastenings of the felt bag.
When he had pulled off its wrappings, a silver tray with coffee- and chocolate-pot, cream pitcher and sugar bowl stood, tarnished and dingy, on the floor.
"That's more like it." Ricky picked up the chocolate-pot. "Do you suppose it will ever be possible to get these clean again?"
"With a lot of will power and some good hard rubbing it can be done," Val assured her.
"Well, I'll supply the will power and you may do the rubbing," she announced pleasantly.
Rupert had opened the remaining packages to display a set of twelve silver goblets, one with a dented edge, and a queerly shaped vessel not unlike an old-fashioned gravy-boat. Charity picked this up and examined it gravely.
"I'm afraid that this is pirate loot." She tapped the lip of the piece she held. The metal gave off a clear ringing sound. "If I'm not mistaken, this was stolen from a church. Yes, I'm right; see this cross under the leaves?" She pointed out the bit of engraving.
"Black Dick's work," agreed Ricky complacently. "But after almost three hundred years I'm afraid we can't return it. Especially since we don't know where it came from in the first place."
Val looked about at what they had uncovered. "If you are going to take all of this in to LeFleur, you'll have to get a truck. D'you know, I think this place might turn out to be a gold-mine if one knew just where to dig."
"We haven't found the Luck yet," reminded Ricky.
Val got clumsily to his feet and then gave Charity a hand up, beating Rupert to it by about three seconds. "As we don't even know whether it is still in existence, there's no use in hunting for it," Val retorted.
Ricky smiled, that set little smile which usually meant that she neither agreed with nor approved of the speaker. She got up from the floor and shook out her skirt purposefully.
"I'll remind you of that some day," she promised.
"I suppose," Rupert glanced at the silver, "this ought to be taken to town as soon as possible. This house is too isolated to harbor both us and the silverware at the same time. What do you think?" Ignoring both Ricky and Val, he turned to Charity.
"You are right. But it seems a pity to send it all away before we have a chance to rub it up and see what it really looks like!"
"By all means, take it at once!" Val urged promptly. "We can always clean it later."
Rupert grinned. "Now that might be a protest against the suggestion Ricky made a few minutes ago. But I'll save you some honest labor this time, Val; I'll take it to town this afternoon."
Ricky laughed softly.
"And why the merriment?" her younger brother inquired suspiciously.
"I was just thinking what a surprise the visitor who dropped his handkerchief here is going to get when he finds the cupboard bare," she explained.
Rupert rubbed his palm across his chin. "Of course. I had almost forgotten that."
"Well, I haven't! And I wonder if we have found what he—or they—were hunting," Val mused as he helped Rupert wrap up the spoil again.
CHAPTER VIII
GREAT-UNCLE RICK WALKS THE HALL
Sam had produced a horse complete with saddle and a reputed skittishness. That horse was the pride of Sam's big heart. It had once won a small purse at some country fair or something of the sort, and since then it had been kept only to wear the saddle at rare intervals. Not that Sam ever rode. He drove a spring-board behind a thin, sorrowful mule called "Suggah." Bu
t the saddle horse was rented at times to white folk of whom Sam approved.
Soon after the arrival of the Ralestones at Pirate's Haven, Sam had brought this four-footed prodigy to their attention. But claiming that the family were his "folks," he indignantly refused to accept hire and was hurt if one of them did not ride at least once a day. Ricky had developed an interest in the garden and had accepted the loan of Sam's eldest son, an earth-brown child about as tall as the spade, to help her mess about. Rupert spent the largest part of his days shut up in Bluebeard's chamber. Which of course left the horse to Val.
And Val was becoming slightly bored with Louisiana, at least with that portion of it which immediately surrounded them. Charity was hard at work on her picture of the swamp hunter, for Jeems had come back without warning from his mysterious concerns in the swamp. There was no one to talk to and nowhere to go.
LeFleur had notified them that he believed he was on the track of some discreditable incident in the past of their rival which would banish him from their path. And no more handkerchiefs had been found, ownerless, in their hall. It was a serene morning.
But, Val thought long afterwards, he should have been warned by that very serenity and remembered the old saying, that it was always calmest before a storm. On the contrary, he was riding Sam's horse along the edge of that swamp, wondering what lay hidden back in that dark jungle. Some day, he determined, he would do a little exploring in that direction.
A heron arose from the bayou and streaked across the metallic blue of the sky. Another was wading along, intent upon its fishing. Sam's yellow dog, which had followed horse and rider, set up a barking, annoyed at the haughty carriage of the bird. He scrambled down the steep bank, drove it into flight after its fellow.
Val pulled his shirt away from his sticky skin and wondered if he would ever feel really cool again. There was something about this damp heat which seemed to remove all ambition. He marveled how Ricky could even think of trimming roses that morning.
Sam's dog began to bark deafeningly again, and Val looked around for the heron which must have aroused his displeasure. There was none. But across the swamp crawled an ungainly monster.
Four great rubber-tired wheels, ten feet high, as he later learned, supported a metal framework upon which squatted two men and the driver of the monstrosity. With the ponderous solemnity of a tank it came on to the bayou.
Val's mount snorted and his ears pricked back. He began to have very definite ideas about what he saw. The thing slipped down the marshy bank and took to the water with ease, turning its square nose downstream and sending waves shoreward.
"Ride 'em, cowboy!" yelled one of the men derisively as Sam's horse decided to stand on his hind legs and wave at the strange apparition as it went by. Val brought him down upon four feet again, and he stood sweating, his ears still back.
"What do you call that?" the boy shouted back.
"Prospecting engine for swamp use," answered the driver. "Don't you swampers ever get the news?"
The car, or whatever it was, moved on downstream and so out of sight.
"Now I wonder what that was," Val said aloud as his mount sidled toward the center of the road. The hound-dog came up and sat down to kick a patch of flea-invaded territory which lay behind his left ear. Again the morning was quiet.
But not for long. A mud-spattered car came around the bend in the road and headed at Val, going a good pace for the dirt surfacing. Before it quite reached him it stopped and the driver stuck his head out of the window.
"Hey, you, move over! Whatya tryin' to do—break somebody's neck?"
Val surveyed him with interest. The man was, perhaps, Rupert's age, a small, thin fellow with thick black hair and the white seam of an old scar beneath his left eye.
"This is," the boy replied, "a private road."
"Yeah," he snarled, "I know. And I'm the owner. So get your hobby-horse going and beat it, kid."
Val shifted in the saddle and stared down at him.
"And what might your name be?" he asked softly.
"What d'yuh think it is? Hitler? I'm Ralestone, the owner of this place. On your way, kid, on your way."
"So? Well, good morning, cousin." Val tightened rein.
The invader eyed him cautiously. "What d'yuh mean—cousin?"
"I happen to be a Ralestone also," the boy answered grimly.
"Huh? You the guy who thinks he owns this?" he asked aggressively.
"My brother is the present master of Pirate's Haven—"
"That's what he thinks," replied the rival with a relish. "Well, he isn't. That is, not until he pays me for my half. And if he wants to get tough, I'll take it all," he ended, and withdrew into the car like a lizard into its rock den.
Val sat by the side of the road and watched the car slide along toward the plantation. As it passed him he caught a glimpse of a second passenger in the back seat. It was the red-faced man he had seen with LeFleur's clerk on the street in New Orleans. Resolutely Val turned back and started for the house in the wake of the rival.
By making use of a short-cut, he reached the front of the house almost as soon as the car. Ricky had been working with the morning-glory vines about the terrace steps, young Sam standing attendance with a rusty trowel and one of the kitchen forks.
At the sound of the car she stood up and tried to brush a smear of sticky earth from the front of her checked-gingham dress. When the rival got out she smiled at him.
"Hello, sister," he smirked.
She stood still for a moment and her smile faded. When she answered, her voice was chill. "You wished to see Mr. Ralestone?" she asked distantly.
"Sure. But not just yet, sister. You better be pleasant, you know. I'm the new owner here—"
Val rode out of the bushes and swung out of the saddle, coming up behind him. Although the boy was one of the smaller "Black" Ralestones, he topped the invader by a good two inches, and he noted this with delight as he came up to him.
"Ricky," he said briefly, "go in. And send Sam for Rupert."
She nodded and was gone. The man turned to face Val. "You again, huh?" he demanded.
"Yes. And Ralestone or no Ralestone, I would advise you to keep a civil tongue in your head," he began hotly, when Rupert appeared at the door.
"Well, Val," he asked, a frown creasing his forehead, "what is it?"
The rival advanced a short step and looked up. "So this is the guy who's trying to do me out of my rights?"
Rupert reached behind him and closed the screen before coming to the head of the terrace steps. "I presume that you are Mr. Ralestone?" he asked quietly.
"'Course I'm Ralestone," asserted the other. "And I'm part owner of this place."
"That has not yet been decided," answered Rupert calmly. "But suppose you tell me to what we owe the honor of this visit?"
Now, however, the passenger took a hand in the game. He crawled out of the car, taking off his soiled panama to wipe his bald head with a gaudy silk handkerchief.
"Here, here, Mr. Ralestone," he addressed his companion, "let us have no unpleasantness. We have merely come here today, sir," he explained to Rupert, "to see if matters could not be settled amicably without having to take recourse to a court of law. Your Mr. LeFleur will give us very little satisfaction, you see. I am a plain and honest man, sir, and I believe an affair of this kind may be best agreed upon between principals. My client, Mr. Ralestone, is a reasonable man; he will be moderate in his demands. It will be to your advantage to listen to our proposal. After all, you cannot contest his rights—"
"But that is just what I am going to do." Rupert smiled down at them, if a slight twist of the lips may be called a smile. "Have you ever heard that old saying that 'possession is nine points of the law'? I am the Ralestone in residence, and I shall continue to be the Ralestone in residence until after this case is heard. Now, as I am a busy man and this is the middle of the morning, I shall have to say good-bye—"
"So that's the way you're going to take it?" The visit
ing Ralestone glared at Rupert. "All right. Play it that way and you won't be here a month from now. Nor," he turned on Val, "this kid brother of yours, either. You can't pull this lord-of-the-land stuff on me and get away with it. I'll—" But he did not finish his threat. Instead, his jaws clamped shut on mid-word. In silence he turned and got into the car to which his counselor had already withdrawn.
The car leaped forward into a rose bush. With a savage twist of the wheel the driver brought it back to the drive, leaving deep prints in the front lawn. Then it was gone, down the drive, as they stood staring after it.
"So that's that," Val commented. "Well, all I've got to say is that Rick's branch of the family has sadly gone to seed—"
"Being a southern gentleman has made you slightly snobbish." Ricky came out from her lurking place behind the door.
"Snobbish!" her brother choked at the injustice. "I suppose that that is your idea of a perfect gentleman, a diamond in the rough—"
He pointed down the drive.
Ricky laughed. "It's so easy to tease you, Val. Of course he is a—a wart of the first class. But Rupert will fix him—won't you?"
Her older brother grinned. "After that example of your trust in me, I'll have to. I agree, he is not the sort you would care to introduce to your more particular friends. But this visit seems to suggest something—"
"That he has the wind up?" Val asked.
"There are indications of that, I think. Something LeFleur has done has stirred our friends into direct action. We shall probably have more of it within the immediate future. So I want you, Ricky, to go to town. Madame LeFleur has very kindly offered to put you up—"
Each tiny curl on Ricky's head seemed to bristle with indignation. "Oh, no you don't, Rupert Ralestone! You don't get me away from here when there are exciting things going on. I hardly think that our friend with the slimy manner will use machine-guns to blast us out. And if he does—well, it wouldn't be the first time that this house was used as a fortress. I'm not going one step out of here unless you two come with me."