What Happened at Quasi: The Story of a Carolina Cruise

by George Cary Eggleston

  XXXVI

  WHAT THE EARTH GAVE UP

  TOM’S account of the way in which the powderkeg was entangled in theroots of the catalpa tree was more than borne out by the fact as theboys found it. It seemed to them a wonder that Tom had discovered itat all, so completely was it wrapped up in the knotted mass of rootgrowths.

  After digging away the earth until the whole root entanglement wasexposed to view, the boys set Dick Wentworth at work cutting away theroots with his jackknife, a thing at which only one person could workat a time. When Dick’s hand grew tired, another of the boys relievedhim at the task and the work was hurried as much as possible, notso much because it was growing late as because the little company’scuriosity was intense.

  “Wonder how on earth anybody ever got the thing under the roots of atree that way?” ventured Tom, as he toiled with his knife.

  “Simple enough,” answered Cal. “He didn’t do it.”

  “How did it get there, then?”

  “Why, the tree grew there after the keg was buried, of course. Somebodystuck a catalpa bean in the ground directly over the keg. Probably theman who buried the thing did that; he wanted to provide a landmark bywhich to find the spot again, and probably he knew there wasn’t anothercatalpa tree on all Quasi plantation.”

  “But that tree has been standing here a long time—twenty ortwenty-five years I should say.”

  “That only means that the keg was buried here twenty or twenty-fiveyears ago at the least, and ’pon my word, it looks it.”

  “What I’m wondering about,” interposed Larry, “is what the kegcontains. It must be something important or nobody would have taken thepains to bury it and plant a tree over it.”

  “And yet,” argued Dick, “if it is anything important, why did anybodybury it away out here and never come back for it?”

  “It all depends,” answered Cal, “on just what you mean by ‘important.’Things are important sometimes and utterly unimportant at others;important to one person and of no consequence to anybody else. At thismoment I feel that my breakfast in the morning is becoming a thing ofvery great importance to me; but I don’t suppose poor Dunbar, whereverhe is, cares a fig about it.”

  “By the way, what can have become of the poor fellow? I wonder if hemanaged to fall out of the dory and get drowned?”

  It was Tom who asked the question. Cal, who had thought a great dealabout the matter, answered it promptly:

  “That isn’t likely,” he said. “Indeed, it is scarcely possible. Dunbarwas too good a boatman to fall overboard, and too good a swimmer todrown if he did. He would have climbed back into the dory with no worseconsequence than a ducking in warm sea water.”

  “What’s your theory then, Cal?”

  “Why, that he has had one of his peculiar ‘spells.’ You remember thatwhen he was missing from camp the last time he wrote us a letter, butwhen his lost knife was returned to him he seemed to remember nothingabout it. More than that, he seemed to think the day he returned wasthe same as the day he went away. In other words, his memory was ablank as to the time he was away. Then, too, you remember that when wefirst found him here he couldn’t remember whether he had come threeweeks or four weeks before. Still again, you remember how badly he wasmixed up about the date just before he went away this time, and thattoo in spite of the fact that he had important papers to post before agiven time.”

  “Then you think he’s crazy?”

  “I don’t know about that, because I’m not a doctor or an alienist, oranything else of the kind. But I think he has a way of losing himselfnow and then, though at ordinary times his head is a remarkably clearone.”

  “I have read of such cases,” said Dick. “They call it ‘doubleconsciousness,’ I believe. I don’t know whether it is regarded as akind of insanity or not. Then you think, Cal—”

  “I hardly know what I think. You see I don’t know the facts in thiscase. We know absolutely nothing of what Dunbar did or what happenedto him after he passed out of sight behind the marsh island overthere. So we haven’t enough facts to base any thinking at all upon.But it has occurred to me that after he left us one of his fits ofself-forgetfulness may have come on, and it may have lasted ever since.”

  At this point the discussion of Dunbar’s case was brought to an end byan unexpected happening. As Tom tugged hard at one of the larger rootsin an effort to loosen its hold, the keg suddenly fell to pieces. Theoaken staves and headings seemed still to be fairly sound, but theiron hoops that had held the keg together had been so eaten with rustthat they fell into fragments under the strain and the staves tumbledtogether in a loose pile.

  From among them Tom drew forth something, and all the boys held theirtorches close while examining it.

  “What is it, anyhow?” was the question on every lip.

  “It’s very heavy for its size,” said Tom, poising it in his hand.

  “Of course it is,” answered Cal. “Lead usually is heavy for its size.But that’s a box, made of lead. If it were solid it would be a gooddeal heavier. Open it, Tom.”

  “I can’t. It doesn’t seem to have any opening or any seams of any kind.Look at it for yourself, Cal.”

  As he spoke he handed the thing to his comrade. It was an oblong mass,seemingly hollow, but showing no sign of an opening anywhere. It wasabout ten or eleven inches in length, a little more than four incheswide, and about two inches thick from top to bottom. The surface wasmuch corroded, but Larry thought he discovered a partly obliteratedinscription of some kind upon it.

  “We must stop handling the thing carelessly,” he said. “Corroded asthe surface is we might rub the inscription off, and in that way robourselves of the means of making out the meaning of the thing. We’llcarry it carefully to camp, quicken up the fire with plenty of lightwood, and then make a minute examination of the curious find. Tom, youmay have found a fortune for yourself this time, who knows?”

  “Or a misfortune,” suggested Dick, who in his childhood had been afirm believer in all the mysteries and wonder workings recorded inthe Arabian Night’s Entertainments, and still recalled them upon thesmallest suggestion. “Shut up as it is, with no sign of an opening, whoknows but that it bears Solomon’s seal on it? The inscription may beSolomon’s autograph, put there to hold captive some malicious genie. Weall know what happened to the fisherman who let the smoke out of thecopper vase.”

  “Oh, I’ll take my chances on that sort of thing,” laughingly answeredTom, who, as the discoverer, was recognized by his comrades as therightful owner of the box and the person entitled to say what should bedone with it.

  “Of course,” said Cal. “Genii don’t play tricks in our time andcountry. They’re afraid of the constable.”

  The boys had reached the camp now, and a few minutes later a pile ofblazing fat pine made the space around it as light as day. For an hour,perhaps, the boys minutely examined the queer casket. There was, orhad been, an inscription cut upon its upper surface with the point ofa penknife, but the corroding of the surface had so far obliterated itthat the boys succeeded only in doubtfully guessing at a half-effacedletter here and there and in making out the figures 865 at the end ofthe writing.

  “That’s the date,” said Larry—“1865, the figure one obliterated.Obviously the inscription tells us nothing. What next, Tom?”

  Tom was minutely examining the sides of the case, scraping off the rustwith his thumb nail. Presently, instead of answering Larry’s question,he cried out:

  “Eureka! See here, boys! This box was made in two pieces exactly alike,one top and the other bottom. The two have been fitted together andthen a hot iron has been drawn over the seam, completely obliteratingit. It’s the nicest job of sealing a thing up water tight and air tightthat I ever saw, but I’m going to spoil it.”

  With that he opened his jackknife and very carefully drew its pointalong the line where the upper and lower halves of the casket had beenjoined. After he had traced the line twice with the knife point the twohalves suddenly fell apart,
and some neatly folded and endorsed paperswere found within.

  Tom began reading the endorsements, but before he had run half throughthe first one he leaped up, waving the documents over his head andshouting “hurrah!” in a way that Cal said was “like the howling of ademon accidentally involved with the accentuations of a buzz saw.”

  After a moment the excited boy so far calmed his enthusiasm as to throwthe bundle of papers into Larry’s face, shouting:

  “I’ve found the Quasi deeds! I’ve saved Quasi to its rightful owners!Why don’t you all hurrah with me, you snails, you dormice or dormouses,whichever is the proper plural of dormouse? There are the papers and itwas Tom Garnett who found them! For once prying curiosity has served agood turn. Now, all together! Hip, hip, hip, hurrah!”

  The others joined heartily in the cheering that seemed necessary forthe relief of Tom’s excitement, and half-spoken, half-ejaculatedcongratulations occupied the next five minutes.

  After that the whole party sat down to hear the results of the morethorough examination of the papers, which Larry was delegated to make.

  “Yes, these are the deeds,” he reported, “uninjured by time or damp oranything else, thanks to our grandfather’s care in sealing that leadenbox. They were executed in May, 1861, and see, down in a corner of eachis written:

  “‘Recorded in the clerk’s office of Beaufort District, liber 211, pp.371, 372, 373. J. S., Clerk.’

  “And here’s a memorandum in our grandfather’s handwriting and signed byhim. It is on a separate sheet, dated in February, 1865, and—”

  “Read it!” suggested Cal.

  “I will,” and he read as follows:

  “‘The clerk’s office in which these deeds were recorded at the timeof their execution has been destroyed, together with all the books ofrecord. It is vitally necessary therefore that these original deedsshall be preserved. In these troublous times there is no place ofdeposit for them which can be deemed reasonably safe. I am sealing themin this leaden box, therefore, and will bury them upon the abandonedplantation of Quasi, to which they give title. I shall plant a catalpabean above them as a sure means of identifying the spot, there being noother catalpa on the plantation. I shall send my daughters a detailedstatement of what I have done, with instructions as to the way offinding the papers. I place this memorandum in the box with the deedsthemselves, so that if anyone finds it he may know to whom its contentsbelong. The address of my daughters will be found endorsed upon thedeeds themselves.’”