“But if I give her the rope how shall we get down?”
“Oh, I’ll drop into the boat, Señor, and hold the harpoon for you.”
I preferred to make my way down with the help of the rope and to hold the harpoon for Potage after he had thrown the rope into the veiled lady’s room. “She is already praying for us,” said Potage, “and advising us to be most careful.”
CHAPTER XVIII
GOYA CASTLE
WE SEIZED THE oars and were getting ready to pull for Vigo with might and main, when we heard the throb of an engine not far away. Soon the black mass of a barge, like the one we had encountered in the course of our unlucky excursion, emerged from the obscurity and came gliding among the dimly seen islets. She was towed by a small tug, and escorted by half a dozen motor launches whose lights suddenly went out. Fortunately our own lights had already been extinguished, as I have said, and we were able to witness the complete manœuvre, as we lay enveloped in the darkness behind Ardan Crag.
We soon realised what the intention was; neither more nor less than for the entire flotilla to enter the little private harbour of the castle. As the lights were extinguished so the engines were stopped. I was, of course, too greatly perplexed by all that I had seen and heard that night in Vigo Bay, and too greatly tormented by the memory of words and events mysterious, threatening, indefinite, of which the bay was certainly the theatre, not to desire to avail myself of the opportunity, since it occurred, of further enlightenment.
Already the double grating which closed the entrance to the castle mole was opening with a duplicate action, slow and sure, like the opening of the gates of a weir. We were near enough to watch the scene in the moonlight. The little tug, with a few turns of her propeller, soon entered the harbour, guarded by its obsolete mediæval towers which we could not see. The rest of the procession followed; first the barge, and then the motor launches each manned by two sailors armed to the teeth.
At that moment the moon disappeared behind the clouds. We were hanging on to Ardan Crag, half a dozen cables, at most, behind the last boat. We quietly slipped up to her, and her crew must have thought that we formed part of the flotilla, for we, too, entered the private harbour of Goya Castle without difficulty. And the double grating at the entrance to the mole closed behind us.
What was I risking? Had not Fritz said that I was to report Captain Hyx’s reply to him at Goya Castle at the earliest moment? In obedience to his urgent command I had entered Goya harbour, with the other vessels, after my fruitless journey to the Cies Islands, solely with the object of informing him that the undertaking had failed. Confident of the strength of this argument, I could show some audacity. And I was not lacking in audacity. Moreover, I was conscious that Potage at my side was in high glee. And I was not sorry to show him, who so greatly loved adventures in which there was a thrill of fear, that I did not shrink from any adventure.
We formed up along the quay, or rather in the shadow of the quay, for, in truth, we were served by the obscurity in which we moved. I had never seen such solid, such impenetrable darkness; the walls and the night were merged in one. The harbour itself was a prison.
However, the castle round about was occupied. Why was there not a single light to be seen in its circular walls? Why? When we passed it for the first time, some hours before, there were lights at several windows, at the top, near the roofs, and now all was in darkness.
Suddenly the black hulk in front of us partly opened out, that is to say, an arch of light stood out in the sombre vessel on a level with the water. Doors had been thrown open or partitions slipped back which enabled us to perceive, in part, the inside of this peculiar vessel. We at first beheld only a number of enormous black boxes, heavily bound with bright ironwork, and the dark silhouettes of the crew who, a few minutes before, manned the launches.
They were now running round the boxes, while we again heard wails without being able to tell the cause of them. At most we could say that they came from the hulk. And the whole thing seemed to us ominous, diabolical, incomprehensible.
The boxes were pushed forward by the dark silhouettes and rolled along rails laid down on an iron chute which had been run up from the hulk to the upper stage of an invisible quay. The boxes were hitched on to chains and hauled away. A man who had the manner of a German naval officer was in command of the work. Where were the boxes being taken?
Potage had clambered on to the quay without my noticing it, so greatly were our movements shrouded in the darkness; and he held on to me so that I might follow him. No one paid any attention to us since no one suspected our presence. I let myself be guided by Potage and left the boat. The quay was in the form of a circular flight of stairs and we groped our way up step by step.
I really believe that to avoid making any noise my cripple had divested himself of his little platform and was carrying it on his shoulders, fastened to his neck, as I have seen him carry it since. He crept along in front of me like a caterpillar and my feet were guided by this caterpillar. And thus together we went towards the heavy rumbling noise made by the big box-wagons on their invisible rails.
At last we heard quite close to us words of command and the darkness partly lifted again, on our right, in a sort of tunnel, the width of a low door, and lights flashed and fluttered and gleamed in the shadows like spangled darkness...
The big boxes which were still being pushed along by the black shadows yielded now to the slope down which they were drawn, and were swallowed up in the tunnel with a thunderous noise. And we made our way into the tunnel during the noise as though we, too, were shadowy workmen engaged in this subterranean task. We plunged into the very depths of the obscurity, taking care to avoid the spangled darkness, and waited. It was not for long.
The box-wagons had probably arrived at their destination, for we no longer heard any movement. And the dark silhouettes brushed past us on their way back obeying words of command that were shouted to them, at the entrance, by a shadowy figure with a lantern. Thus when they were all counted, the doors of the tunnel closed again and we remained behind in company with three shadows carrying three lanterns.
One of the lanterns lit up the face of the man who was in command in the hulk; the second showed me the puffed face, as round as a full moon, of Fritz von Harschfeld; the third lantern was swinging in the hands of Von Treischke himself.
Great Heavens! What was I about to see? What was I about to hear? Would it not have been better to keep to the letter of my instructions rather than literally to throw myself into a pit in which I was almost sure to encounter those fiends?
Come then, bold Herbert of Renich! Accost Fritz or Von Treischke now. Explain that you have something very urgent to tell them about Captain Hyx, and that you are delighted to meet them, by accident, in this little tunnel, which happened by accident to be on your way back from the Cies Islands... Madman, get out!
The man who was in command on board the barge went up to one of the boxes, and this box — the first that he handled — was tipped up, just as a truck is tipped up, on its cradle when its automatic dip has been released, and in front of us — was an avalanche of gold.
Oh the sound of it in the tunnel, and the colour of it under the reddish light of the three lanterns. And the danger of it!
Lord! ten feet nearer and we should have been buried alive under this avalanche of gold; under this weight of bullion and of a thousand objects in solid gold, which came falling to our feet tumultuously in magic splendour, rebounding sometimes a little way off and gilding the darkness....
And so this was the secret of those gleams of light in the tunnel and the swing of the lanterns in the hands of those three silent figures. Gold!... Gold!...
Goya Castle was sleeping over a strong-box which was being filled up. And we were imprisoned in this strong box which already contained — how many millions? Six boxes were opened and tipped up one after the other. From one came heaps of pieces of eight; another discharged a stream of silver ingots; a third disgorged jew
els and brilliants inlaid in the most curious objects, and these rolled over to the walls with the cheerful ring which comes from precious metals.
So the dark masses gliding over the inky waters of the bay in the mysterious night, were barges laden with gold on their way to swell the new Hun war chest accumulating in the cellars of Goya Castle, In other words Queen’s Castle, for Goya means queen in Quichua, that is to say, in the Indian language sacred to Peru, the tongue of the ancient Incas.... The Incas!... It was the gold of the Incas!... From the times of Pizarro gold came in great quantities to the land of conquerors. And was not the story of the galleons of Vigo one of the finest in history? The fleet heavily laden with gold from the West Indies and pursued into the bay by the English and Dutch fleets, preferred to sink their vessels rather than to surrender them, and thus to bury with them the precious treasure to the tune of tens of millions — tribute and booty brought from the New World.
The galleons of Vigo! The galleons of Vigo! The treasure from the galleons of Vigo was being transported before our eyes. Many attempts had been made to recover the treasure from the sea-bed, but in vain. Many millions had been sunk to no purpose in the effort to obtain those tens of millions so jealously guarded by the sea. But now, at last, the Huns had succeeded where others failed, and at what a time! What a tremendous support this unexpected flow of precious metal would be to them! What a battle they were winning under the sea in Vigo Bay.
What did I say?... Battle?... It was the Invisible Battle! They were not alone in knowing that the treasure lay there. Others were aware of it also, and perhaps coveted it... Heavens! the veil of the mystery was rent. I understood.... I understood. They were fighting for the galleons in the depths of Vigo Bay.
That was the meaning of the Invisible Battle.
CHAPTER XIX
IN WHICH MENTION IS MADE OF THE APOSTLES
WHEN THE BOXES were emptied and the golden music ceased Von Treischke broke the silence for the first time.
“Are we still on St. John the Evangelist?” he asked. “Yes,” replied the officer in command. “But it’s the finish, and our work will necessarily slow down now that we’ve lost St. Mark.”
“Good Lord,” growled Von Treischke. “It appears that he was the richest. He would have yielded untold quantities. It’s very bad news, and His Majesty will certainly be anything but pleased to hear it.”
“Forgive me, Admiral, but the last word has not been said in the matter. Though we lost St. Mark in the struggle the others have not yet won him. We have rendered any advance impossible and we have him under an infernal fire. Our latest compressed air square breechloaders work wonders. If we can hold the second line of trenches at Mark six metres eighty-five, for a couple of days, we shall be in a position, the night after to-morrow, to try a turning movement which will give us St. Mark.”
“I wish you may get him,” returned the Admiral. “I will postpone sending in my report until then. How much do you value...?”
At this point his voice was lost in the tunnel, for the three men had walked away and reached the entrance. Potage and I had slipped behind the box-wagons. Now that they were empty, we thought that they would be at once hauled away, because obviously they were special apparatus which would be required outside. My idea was that those boxes were lowered to the bottom of the sea and loaded by divers. Moreover, when I touched them I found that they were wet, and their iron sides slimy, indicating that they had been submerged for a considerable time. But doubtless they were not required at that moment; perhaps because St. Mark was captured by the enemy in the fighting. One thing was certain, the doors of the cellars of Goya Castle had opened for the three men and closed on us.
To describe our perplexity or, to be more exact, our consternation, would be superfluous, for it may easily be imagined. Those cellars were, of course, carefully guarded, and if the box-wagons were sent for during the course of the next day, we did not see how we could escape observation. Moreover, even if later, when the tunnel was again opened, a new opportunity occurred to slip behind their shadows, as we had done before, we were by no means certain of success, because the least reflection showed that we must expect new difficulties to arise as soon as our landing in Goya Castle was discovered.
The presence of the “Spuma” in these private waters was clearly not wanted, and by to-morrow morning at latest — putting the best complexion on things — these people would not fail to begin a thorough search for those who had had the temerity to bring her here. Moreover, standing out most clearly in the obscurity, golden though it was, was the fact that we had little chance of making our way out again very quickly. To mental anguish came, like an incredible and unforeseen force, two fresh torments: hunger and thirst. As for myself, I would have given a goodly number of the millions that were in the cellars for a crust of bread and a glass of water.
When I think of it now, it occurs to me that there may have been here some auto-suggestion, due to a situation which was doubtless exceptional in ordinary life, but by no means rare in fiction. How often have I read stories in which poor wretches lost like ourselves amid incalculable riches, were dying to satisfy the most elementary appetites without being able to avail themselves of a single sou?
As a matter of fact I may say at once that we were soon relieved from this obsession by a series of happy circumstances which enabled us to leave the tunnel almost as easily as we entered it. Fortune is a capricious dame as may be seen from watching a game of roulette; sometimes appearing with constant intermittances and sometimes with runs favourable and unfavourable. We were, it would seem, having a favourable run. Barely a quarter of an hour had elapsed since we began to drag ourselves, in the gloom, over the gold, the sound of which under our tottering feet made us start every moment, fearing lest the metallic music might give our enemies the alarm. Thus we crept forward with extreme caution, wandering from box to box, clambering over the mounds of gold and silver plate which suddenly gave way and scattered beneath us with a fresh clatter, compelling us to stop and hold our breath, when Potage gave utterance to a whispered exclamation.
“There now,” he said. “There!”
I caught up to him and I, in my turn, had a glimpse of a small square of light which gleamed at the end of a narrow tunnel at right angles to that in which we stood. A few moments later we were close to the little square. It was a stone step illuminated by the moon, and we found ourselves on a flight of stairs, wet and slimy, which was possibly unknown to the masters of the house, because, in general, the sea would cover it. It may have been that those steps could only be seen when there were spring tides, and that we were reaping the advantage of one of those tides. Be that as it may, this stone flight of steps which in days of old must have witnessed many a dark deed, took us to a ventilator on a level with the water in the inner harbour at Goya. We had escaped from the strong box.
I will leave the reader to divine the inward joy with which we thanked Heaven for our release. We emerged at no great distance from the gates which closed the harbour, and since there was an exceptionally low tide it was sufficiently above the sea-level to enable us to slip through without having to make a dive for it. Indeed, from that moment I felt confident that with a little effort and skill on our part, it would be possible to slip the “Spuma” underneath the grating also if the boat were at hand.
It is to be noticed that since we had escaped from the tunnel and no longer feared to be accused of breaking into its tremendous secret, I fully recovered my spirits. I again held, in fact, that if I were caught in Goya harbour, my offence would be considered a minor one. Such at least was my opinion, and the reader knows the arguments that I had at my command.
I very clearly realised the position and allowed Potage to reconnoitre for the “Spuma.” A quarter of an hour later he brought the boat alongside, taking advantage of two great clouds which passed across the face of the moon and entered into league with us in the nick of time!... What more need I say about the “Spuma”? We took her back to Vigo,
half an hour later, without further incident, and we left her to her fate no longer desiring to be troubled with her. I imagine that the Barcilleur himself, once he found his boat, would not boast about the mysterious incident that had deprived him of her for some hours, because he, too, must have felt that he was to some extent responsible.
CHAPTER XX
IN WHICH FURTHER MENTION IS MADE OF THE APOSTLES
IT WAS NOT later than one o’clock in the morning when we found ourselves once more on the quays at Vigo, I imagined that our adventures were over; at least for the night. They were in fact only beginning; or rather, they were about to take a new turn when I least expected it.
Potage and I were silently walking towards our hotel. Now that immediate danger was over, we found ourselves under the influence of what we had seen, and our eyes, assuredly, were not fixed on things around us but were haunted by innumerable grains of gold in the depths of a profound darkness. Millions! Tens of millions! An unknown war treasure. We had seen it. Potage and I had seen it. And we had seen, too, a veiled lady at a barred window, and had sworn to rescue her from her gaolers.
And when we had completed our task, which was one of justice, I should hold the upper hand, and be able to accomplish many other acts of justice which would save us and others from terrible dangers. What might not Herbert of Renich do as the possessor of such a secret and such a hostage? I was delighted. I had, in truth, every reason to be delighted with my night’s work.
Need I say that our hunger and thirst, thanks to a peculiarity diametrically opposed to that which had excited them, had entirely disappeared now that we were in a position to satisfy them at pleasure? Consequently I shall be believed when I declare that we did not cast an envious eye on the taverns, which were still open, as we passed on our way. Suddenly, however, after leaving the quays and crossing a thoroughfare from which a number of mean streets opened out, one of which led to the Place de Santa Maria — a few steps only from our hotel — I stood still, and Potage who was following me became entangled in my legs for, I really believe, he was half asleep on his little platform.
Collected Works of Gaston Leroux Page 371