STORY ONE, CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.
OVER THE TREASURE.
The hawser was secured and, as the jolly-boat lay alongside, a secondsmall anchor was lowered into her, and carried out and dropped on theother side, the rope hauled taut and made fast, and the schooner nowmoored in a position which the light current could not affect, though astorm would doubtless have made the anchors drag.
"That's my job 'bout done, capen and Mr Parkley, sire. I said as I'dput the schooner over the spot; and there she is."
"But do you really think, Oakum--" began Mr Parkley.
"I don't think nothing, sir. There's the place and that 'ere's the rockas 'Pollo dived off into the deep water. Ain't it, 'Pollo?"
"Dat's true, sah," cried the black, laughing boisterously.
"Then its 'bout time I browt up the helmets and things, eh?" said Rasp,who had been looking on with inquiring eye.
"Not yet, Rasp," exclaimed Dutch, who now hurried to the side, andpeered down into the brightly illumined depths, an example followed bythe captain and half the crew.
The result was disappointing, and Dutch and Mr Parkley descended intothe boat, waiting till it was perfectly motionless, and then making useof a large tube which they thrust some feet down into the water, andgazed intently at the rocks, sands, and wonders of the sea below.
This process they followed up as they slowly shifted the boat round fromplace to place; and each time that Dutch looked up to answer somequestion from the deck it was to encounter the sinister face of themulatto, with the scar plainly marked in the sunlight, gazing intentlydown. For the matter of that so was the face of 'Pollo, the otherblack, and the rest of the crew; but the countenance of the mulattoalone seemed to strike him, for the peculiarity of its looks, and theeagerness with which, in a partial way, its owner seemed to watch hisevery action.
"Well, gentlemen," said John Studwick, in a half-mocking way, "can yousee the El Dorado through that piece of brass pipe?"
"Not yet," said Dutch, quietly. And he went on with his research,seeing fish as brilliant as any he had before noticed, rocks coveredwith olive green and scarlet weed, that floated out and played in thewater, many yards in length; great stones covered with shells and acornbarnacles; sea anemones, whose petals were more delicately beautifulthan any flowers he had beheld; but no trace of old ship timber, in theshape of ribs, stern-post, keel, or stem. Nothing but sand, rock, andseaweed; and at last the two sat up in the boat and looked at oneanother.
"What's the good o' you humbugging?" said Rasp, on deck, toself-satisfied Oakum, who stood leaning his back against the bulwark,and staring at the landmarks by which he had found the spot.
"Who's humbugging?" said Oakum, roughly.
"Why, you. It's all sham. There ain't no wreck below there."
"Bah! How do you know?" growled Oakum. "I know there is, but don't sayas there ain't been no one near and cleaned it out."
Hester was standing close by, and heard all this. Her face flushed withanxiety, and her heart rose and fell, as she eagerly listened to theopinions expressed, and thought of the bitter disappointment Dutch wouldfeel if the search was without success.
Just then her husband said something hastily, which drew the attentionof all on board; and taking hold of a rope, she leaned forward to tryand catch a glimpse of what was going forward, when she started backwith a faint cry of alarm, for a pair of burning lips were placed uponher hand, and as she snatched it away, and faced round it was to meetthe glittering eyes of the mulatto fixed upon her, with so fiercelyintense a gaze that she shrank away trembling, but not before he hadwhispered to her--
"Silence, if you value your life!"
She felt sick with horror as the man glided away, for the tones of hisvoice seemed familiar, and her very first impulse was to call herhusband; but the mulatto's words had such an effect upon her, weakenedas she was with long illness, that she dared not speak even to Bessy, towhose side she crept as an eager buzz of conversation went on.
For, after sitting thoughtfully in the boat for a few minutes, Dutch hadleaned over the side once more, placing his face in the water, and gazeddown at the beautiful submarine grove, when he saw a long, grey bodypass slowly out from amongst the weeds, and woke to the fact that therewere sharks in those waters, this creature being fourteen or fifteenfeet long.
He shuddered at the sight, and thought of the helplessness of any diverif one of these monsters attacked him. He raised his face to breathe,and then looked down again, to see the monster part a bed of seaweed,and as it did so his past troubles were forgotten in the thrill ofdelight he felt: for Oakum was certainly right as to the wreck. As theshark glided slowly on, it parted the weeds more and more, leaving bare,plainly to be seen, what looked like a stump standing out of the sand,but which his experienced eye knew at once to be one of the ribs of aship, black with age where it was not grey with barnacles and othershells.
He rose from the water again, with his face dripping, inhaled a longbreath, and once more softly stooped and peered down into the clear,ambient depths, where the waving seaweed and multitudinous growthsseemed ever changing their colours as they waved gently in the current.
The weed parted by the shark had closed up together once more, and not avestige seemed left of the piece of wreck wood; in fact, it might havebeen a dream, only that close by where he had seen it before,half-hidden in the weed, lay the shark, its long, unequal-lobed tailwaving slightly to and fro a few moments, and then the monster wasperfectly still--so quiet that the sharpest eye would have passed itunnoticed, so exactly was its back in hue like the sand upon which itlay.
But Dutch knew, dreamer as he had been, that this was no piece ofimagination; and taking the tube once more, and recalling the peculiarbend of the piece of timber, he began again to examine the bottom,especially the portion that lay in the shadow cast by the schooner'shull. According to the bend of the timber, he knew that the wreck, ifwreck it belonged to, must be lying in the opposite direction to theschooner; and, tracing its imaginary shape, he concluded that there mustbe a succession of ribs embedded in the sand, though not visible in thelines he marked out with his eye.
And so it seemed, for as he looked he could make out that the weeds layin thick clusters in the position they should occupy if they wereattached to the timbers of an old ship. Huge corals were there as well,forming quite a submarine forest, but evidently they took the form of aship where they were most dense; and, to Dutch's great surprise, thevessel must have been one of nearly double the size of the schooner.
"See anything?" said Mr Parkley, as the young man rose for a fewminutes and wiped his brow.
"Yes," said Dutch, bluntly. "Shark!"
"Ah, there are plenty, no doubt," said Mr Parkley.
But Dutch did not hear him, for he was once more eagerly trying to traceout in the weeds the shape of the old galleon.
Yes, there it was, undoubtedly; and, to make assurance doubly sure,another shark slowly glided out, about thirty feet to the left of whereDutch saw the first, setting the weeds in motion, and displaying, blackand grey with encrustations, three more of the nearly buried ribs of anold ship.
With this help to locality, he could now make out plainly where thegalleon lay, and see that she must have been nearly a hundred feet long,and that her stem had struck on the mass of rocks described as those offwhich 'Pollo had dived; while her stern lay off behind the boat in thedense forest of sea growth. And as Dutch looked on he became more andmore aware of the fact that there were watchers over the treasure--iftreasure there was--in the shape of sharks. He had already seen two,and now, dimly visible in their lairs, lay no less than five more, ofwhich he could just make out a fin of one, the snout of another, thetail of another, and so on, one gliding slowly out into the sunshine,turning right over so as to show its white belly and great teeth-armedjaws, before dashing after a shoal of bright-coloured fish which hadtempted him from his lair.
So powerful were the strokes of the monster's tail that the water wasall of
a quiver, and the long strands of the seaweed waved and undulatedto and fro, displaying here and there more blackened stumps, and showinghow possible it was for anyone to sail a boat over the wreck a hundredtimes without catching a glimpse or dreaming of its existence.
"Well," said Mr Parkley, "when you're tired of shark-gazing, we may aswell go on board."
There was only one man of the crew looking over the side now, and thatwas the mulatto, who, with half-closed eyes, lazily watched theiractions; the others, finding the business uninteresting, havingadjourned to the shade.
"I'm ready to go on board," said Dutch, quietly. "When shall we beginwork?"
"Oh, at once. Let's ask Studwick to weigh anchor, and try one of theother places. Ah, my lad, I'm afraid I let my anger get the better ofmy judgment. We shall do nothing without the cursed Cuban."
"Think not?" said Dutch, with a smile.
"I am sure of it," said Mr Parkley. "How can we hunt over the whole ofthis sea? It would be madness."
"I meant get to work with the apparatus," said Dutch, smiling.
"What are you laughing at?" said Mr Parkley, impatiently.
"At your despondency," replied Dutch. "Old Oakum was right. Theschooner's lying right athwart the galleon."
"What!" cried Mr Parkley, excitedly. "Nonsense!--you are half-mad."
"Over some things, perhaps," said Dutch, gloomily; "but sane enough overthis. Mind, I don't say that there is any treasure there, but the oldfellow has anchored us right across an old wreck."
"Give me that tube," cried Mr Parkley, and he thrust it down into thewater excitedly, looking in all directions.
"There's nothing there," he cried. "I examined that place before."
"But it did not occur to us that the weeds had grown up and hidden thetimbers. Now you watch that clump lying just under the schooner's keel.Do you see what I mean?"
"Yes, I see."
"Then keep your eye upon it," said Dutch, as he crept softly to the bowsof the jolly-boat, and, taking one of half-a-dozen great boulders thatwere used for ballast, he heaved it overboard with a good splash, andthen watched its effects.
As he expected, from half-a-dozen weed masses out darted as many sharks,to make a dash at the stone as it descended rapidly through the clearwater, and first one and then another turned over to show its whiteunder-parts before going away sulkily and in disgust.
"Well, what did you see?" said Dutch.
"Sharks! Ugh, the beasts!" exclaimed Mr Parkley, with a shudder.
"What else?"
"Rough stumps of timber amongst the weeds."
"Timbers of the old galleon, no doubt, preserved by the shellyconcretions that have formed upon them and held them together."
"But it's impossible, my dear boy. No man dare go down there; thesharks would rend him limb from limb. Who could go down?"
"I shall, for one," said Dutch, calmly. "So now let's get on board."
They climbed the side, and, as the news of their discovery spreadthrough the ship, the excitement became great. Rasp began to bring uphelmets and leaden weights, and ordered a couple of the men to come andassist with the air-pump, which had to be got up from below.
"But, my dear Dutch," exclaimed Mr Parkley, in despair, "it isimpossible--no one can go down."
"Not at present," said Dutch, smiling, as he looked round and saw thatnearly everybody was gazing over the side. "Perhaps, when I have setthe example, Rasp will not mind following it."
"But the sharks, my dear boy--they would tear you to pieces."
"Let them, if they can," said Dutch, grimly. "I'm not going to bedeterred from the search by a few sharks. And if, as you say, I wastorn to pieces," he added, bitterly, "what then?"
"I tell you I shall not let you risk your life," said Mr Parkley,firmly.
"And I tell you I shall go down. If anything happens--"
"That sweet little woman will be a widow," said Mr Parkley.
"And who would care?" said Dutch, bitterly. "My dear Mr Parkley, weare anchored over the treasure, and sharks or no sharks, torn to piecesor left alone, I go down--Hester!"
He started and turned sharply round, just in time to catch the faintingwoman as she was falling senseless on the deck.
Dutch the Diver; Or, A Man's Mistake Page 18