Spanish Doubloons

  XIII

  I BRING TO LIGHT A CLUE

  My first and all but overpowering impulse was to possess myself ofa spade and dash for the wreck of the _Island Queen_. Sober secondthought restrained me. Merely to get there and back would consumemuch time, for the descent of the cliffs, and still more the climbup again, was a toilsome affair. Also, reflection showed me thatto dig through the damp close-packed sand of the cabin would be notrifling task, for I should be hampered by the need of throwing outthe excavated sand behind me through the narrow companionway. Icould achieve my end, no doubt, by patient burrowing, but it wouldrequire much more time than I had at my command before the noon-daysounding of Cookie's gong. I must not be seen departing orreturning with a spade, but make off with the implement in astealthy and burglarious manner. Above all, I must not riskbetraying my secret through impatience.

  But there was nothing to forbid an immediate pilgrimage to themuch-sought gravestone with its sinister symbol. The account inPeter's diary of his adventure with the pig placed the grave withsuch exactness that I had no doubt of finding it easily. Thatdone, I would know very nearly where to look for the cave--and inorder to bid defiance to a certain chill sense of reluctance whichbeset me at the thought of the cave I started out at once, skirtingthe clearing with much circumspection, for it seemed to me thateven the sight of my vanishing back must shout of mystery to Cookiedroning hymns among his pots and pans. Crusoe, of course, camewith me, happily unconscious of his own strange relation to ourquest.

  Following in the steps of Peter, who seemed in an airy anduncomfortable fashion to be bearing me company, I struck across thepoint, at the base of the rough slope which marks the first rise ofthe peak. As I neared the sea on the other side great crags beganto overhang the path, which was, of course, no path, but merely theline of least resistance through the woods. Soon the noise of thesea, of which one was never altogether free on the island, thoughit reaches the recesses of the forest only as a vast namelessmurmur, broke in heightened clamor on my ears. I heard the wavesroaring and dashing on rocks far below--and then I stood at thedizzy edge of the plateau looking out over the illimitable gleamingreaches of the sea.

  Somewhere in this angle between the ragged margin of the cliffs andthe abrupt rise of the craggy mountainside, according to Peter'sjournal, lay the grave. I began systematically to poke with astick I carried into every low-growing mass of vines or bushes.Because of the comparatively rocky, sterile soil the woods werethinner here, and the undergrowth was greater. Only the verydefinite localization of the grave by the accommodating diaristgave any hope of finding it.

  And then, quite suddenly, I found it. My proddings had displaced amatted mass of ground-creeper. Beneath, looking raw and nakedwithout its leafy covering, was the "curiously regular littlepatch of ground, outlined at intervals with small stones."Panic-stricken beetles scuttled for refuge. A great green slugundulated painfully across his suddenly denuded pasture, A wholesmall world found itself hurled back to chaos.

  At the head of the grave lay a large, smoothly-rounded stone.I knelt and brushed away some obstinate vine-tendrils, andthe letters "B. H." revealed themselves, cut deeply andirregularly into the sloping face of the stone. Below was thehalf-intelligible symbol of the crossed bones.

  There was something in the utter loneliness of the place thatcaught my breath sharply. At once I had the feeling of a marauder.Here slept the guardian of the treasure--and yet in defiance of himI meant to have it. So, too, had Peter--and I didn't know yet whathe had managed to do to Peter--but I guessed from his journal thatPeter had been a slightly morbid person. He had let the wildsolitude of the island frighten him. He had indulged foolishfancies about crucifixes. He had in fact let the defenses of hiswill be undermined ever so little--and then of course there was notelling what They could do to you.

  With an impatient shiver I got up quickly from my knees. Whatabominable nonsense I had been talking--was there a miasma aboutthat old grave that affected one? I whistled to Crusoe, who wastrotting busily about on mysterious intelligence conveyed to him byhis nose. He ran to me joyfully, and I stooped and patted his warmvigorous body.

  "Let Bill walk, Crusoe," I remarked, "let him! He needn't be a dogin the manger about the treasure, anyhow."

  Now came the moment which I had been trying not to think about. Ihad to find the entrance to the cave, and then go into it or partwith my own esteem forever. I went and peered over the cliff. Ihad an unacknowledged hope that the shelf of which Peter hadwritten had been rent off by some cataclysm and that I could notpossibly get down to the doorway in the rock. My hope was vain.The ledge was there--not an inviting ledge, nor one on which theunacrobatically inclined would have any impulse to saunter, but aperfectly good ledge, on which I had not the slightest excuse fordeclining to venture. Seventy feet below I saw a narrow strip ofsand, from which the tide was receding. It ran along under thegreat precipice which rose on my right, forming the face of themountain on the south side. On that strip of sand the oldhiding-place of the-pirates opened. I thought I saw theoverhanging eaves of rock of which the diary had spoken.

  There was truly nothing dangerous about the ledge. It was nearlythree feet wide, and had an easy downward trend. Yet you heard thehungry roar of the surf below, and try as you would not to, caughtglimpses of the white swirl of it. I moved cautiously, keepingclose to the face of the cliff. Crusoe, to my annoyance, sprangdown upon the ledge after me. I had a feeling that he mustcertainly trip me as I picked my way gingerly along.

  An angle in the rock--a low dark entrance-way--it was all as Peterhad described it. I peered in--nothing but impenetrable blackness.I took a hesitating step. The passage veered sharply, as the diaryhad recorded. Once around the corner, there would be nothing butdarkness anywhere. One would go stumbling on, feeling with feetand hands--hands cold with the dread of what they might be going totouch. For, suddenly portentous and overwhelming, there rosebefore me the unanswered question of what had become of Peter onthat last visit to the cave. Unanswered--and unanswerable exceptin one way: by going in to see.

  But if by any strange chance--where all chances were strange--hewere still there, I did not want to see. I did not like tocontemplate his possible neighborhood. Indeed, he grew enormouslymore real to me with every instant I stood there, and whereas I hadso far thought principally about the treasure, I now began to thinkwith intensity of Peter. What ironic stroke of fate had cut himdown in the very moment of his triumph? Had he ever reached thecave to bring away the last of the doubloons? Were theystill waiting there unclaimed? Had he fallen victim to someextraordinary mischance on the way back to the _Island Queen_? Hada storm come up on that last night, and the weakened cable parted,and the _Island Queen_ gone on the rocks, drowning Peter in thecabin with his gold? Then how had Crusoe got away, Crusoe, whofeared the waves so, and would bark at them and then turn tail andrun?

  Speaking of Crusoe, where was he? I realized that a moment ago hehad plunged into the passage. I heard the patter of his feet--apause. A queer, dismal little whine echoed along the passage. Iheard Crusoe returning--but before his nose appeared around theangle of the tunnel, his mistress had reached the top of the cliffat a bound and was vanishing at a brisk pace into the woods.

  With bitterness, as I pursued my way to camp, I realized that I wasnot a heroine. Here was a mystery--it was the business of aheroine to solve it. Now that I was safely away from the cave, Ibegan to feel the itch of a torturing curiosity. How, withoutgoing into the terrifying place alone, should I find out what wasthere? Should I pretend to have accidentally discovered the grave,lead the party to it, and then--again accidentally--discover thetunnel? This plan had its merits--but I discarded it, for fearthat something would be found in the cave to direct attention tothe _Island Queen_. Then I reflected that very likely theexplorers would work round the island far enough to find thesea-mouth of the cave. This would take matters entirely out of myhands. I should perhaps be enlightened as
to the fate of Peter andthe last remaining bags of doubloons, but might also have to sharethe secret of the derelict with the rest. And then all my dreamsof playing fairy godmother and showering down on certainheads--like coals of fire--torrents of beautiful golden doubloons,would be over.

  On the whole I could not tell whether I burned with impatience tohave the cave discovered, or was cold with the fear of it.

  And then, so vigorous is the instinct to see one's self in heroicpostures, I found I was trying to cheat myself with the pretensethat I meant presently to abstract Aunt Jane's electric torch andreturning to the tunnel-mouth plunge in dauntlessly.