CHAPTER XXI
IN THE GATES
When the topmasts of the Chilian schooner had disappeared below thehorizon line, with no reason to suppose that the schooner would put backagain, Captain Horn started for the caves. Had he obeyed his instincts,he would have begun to stroll along the beach as soon as the vessel hadweighed anchor. But even now, as he hurried on, he walked prudently,keeping close to the water, so that the surf might wash out his footstepsas fast as he made them. He climbed over the two ridges to the north ofRackbirds' Cove, and then made his way along the stretch of sand whichextended to the spot where the party had landed when he first reachedthis coast. He stopped and looked about him, and then, in fancy, he sawEdna standing upon the beach, her face pale, her eyes large andsupernaturally dark, and behind her Mrs. Cliff and the boy and the twonegroes. Not until this moment had he felt that he was alone. But nowthere came a great desire to speak and be spoken to, and yet that verymorning he had spoken and listened as much as had suited him.
As he walked up the rising ground toward the caves, that ground he hadtraversed so often when this place had been, to all intents and purposes,his home, where there had been voices and movement and life, the sense ofdesertion grew upon him--not only desertion of the place, but of himself.When he had opened his eyes, that morning, his overpowering desire hadbeen that not an hour of daylight should pass before he should be leftalone, and yet now his heart sank at the feeling that he was here and noone was with him.
When the captain had approached within a few yards of the great stoneface, his brows were slowly knitted.
"This is carelessness," he said to himself. "I did not expect it ofthem. I told them to leave the utensils, but I did not suppose thatthey would leave them outside. No matter how much they were hurried ingoing away, they should have put these things into the caves. A passingIndian might have been afraid to go into that dark hole, but to leavethose tin things there is the same as hanging out a sign to show thatpeople lived inside."
Instantly the captain gathered up the tin pan and tin plates, and lookedabout him to see if there was anything else which should be put out ofsight. He did find something else. It was a little, short, black, woodenpipe which was lying on a stone. He picked it up in surprise. NeitherMaka nor Cheditafa smoked, and it could not have belonged to the boy.
"Perhaps," thought the captain, "one of the sailors from the _MaryBartlett_ may have left it. Yes, that must have been the case. Butsailors do not often leave their pipes behind them, nor should theofficer in charge have allowed them to lounge about and smoke. But itmust have been one of those sailors who left it here. I am glad I am theone to find these things."
The captain now entered the opening to the caves. Passing along until hereached the room which he had once occupied, there he saw his roughpallet on the ground, drawn close to the door, however.
The captain knew that the rest of his party had gone away in a greathurry, but to his orderly mariner's mind it seemed strange that theyshould have left things in such disorder.
He could not stop to consider these trifles now, however, and going tothe end of the passage, he climbed over the low wall and entered the caveof the lake. When he lighted the lantern he had brought with him, he sawit as he had left it, dry, or even drier than before, for the few poolswhich had remained after the main body of water had run off haddisappeared, probably evaporated. He hurried on toward the mound in thedistant recess of the cave. On the way, his foot struck something whichrattled, and holding down his lantern to see what it was, he perceived anold tin cup.
"Confound it!" he exclaimed. "This is too careless! Did the boy intend tomake a regular trail from the outside entrance to the mound? I suppose hebrought that cup here to dip up water, and forgot it. I must take it withme when I go back."
He went on, throwing the light of the lantern on the ground before him,for he had now reached a part of the cave which was entirely dark.Suddenly something on the ground attracted his attention. It wasbright--it shone as if it were a little pale flame of a candle. Hesprang toward it, he picked it up. It was one of the bars of gold he hadseen in the mound.
"Could I have dropped this?" he ejaculated. He slipped the little barinto his pocket, and then, his heart beginning to beat rapidly, headvanced, with his lantern close to the rocky floor. Presently he saw twoother pieces of gold, and then, a little farther on, the end of a candle,so small that it could scarcely have been held by the fingers. He pickedup this and stared at it. It was a commonplace candle-end, but the sightof it sent a chill through him from head to foot. It must have beendropped by some one who could hold it no longer.
He pressed on, his light still sweeping the floor. He found no more goldnor pieces of candle, but here and there he perceived the ends of burntwooden matches. Going on, he found more matches, two or three with theheads broken off and unburnt. In a few moments the mound loomed up out ofthe darkness like a spectral dome, and, looking no more upon the ground,the captain ran toward it. By means of the stony projections he quicklymounted to the top, and there the sight he saw almost made him drop hislantern. The great lid of the mound had been moved and was now awry,leaving about one half of the opening exposed.
In one great gasp the captain's breath seemed to leave him, but he was aman of strong nerves, and quickly recovered himself; but even then he didnot lift his lantern so that he could look into the interior of themound. For a few moments he shut his eyes. He did not dare even to look.But then his courage came back, and holding his lantern over the opening,he gazed down into the mound, and it seemed to his rapid glance thatthere was as much gold in it as when he last saw it.
The discovery that the treasure was still there had almost as much effectupon the captain as if he had found the mound empty. He grew so faintthat he felt he could not maintain his hold upon the top of the mound,and quickly descended, half sliding, to the bottom. There he sat down,his lantern by his side. When his strength came back to him,--and hecould not have told any one how long it was before this happened,--thefirst thing he did was to feel for his box of matches, and finding themsafe in his waistcoat pocket, he extinguished the lantern. He must not bediscovered, if there should be any one to discover him.
Now the captain began to think as fiercely and rapidly as a man's mindcould be made to work. Some one had been there. Some one had taken awaygold from that mound--how much or how little, it did not matter. Some onebesides himself had had access to the treasure!
His suspicions fell upon Ralph, chiefly because his most earnest desireat that moment was that Ralph might be the offender. If he could havebelieved that he would have been happy. It must have been that the boywas not willing to go away and leave all that gold, feeling that perhapshe and his sister might never possess any of it, and that just beforeleaving he had made a hurried visit to the mound. But the more thecaptain thought of this, the less probable it became. He was almost surethat Ralph could not have lifted that great mass of stone which formedthe lid covering the opening of the mound, for it had required all hisown strength to do it; and then, if anything of this sort had reallyhappened, the letters he had received from Edna and the boy must havebeen most carefully written with the intention to deceive him.
Holding his lantern over the opening he gazed down intothe mound.]
The letter from Edna, which in tone and style was a close imitation ofhis own to her, had been a strictly business communication. It toldeverything which happened after the arrival of the Mary Bartlett, andgave him no reason to suppose that any one could have had a chance topillage the mound. Ralph's letter had been even more definite. It wasconstructed like an official report, and when the captain had read it, hehad thought that the boy had probably taken great pride in itspreparation. It was as guardian of the treasure mound that Ralph wrote,and his remarks were almost entirely confined to this important trust.
He briefly reported to the captain that, since his departure, no one hadbeen in the recess of the cave where the mound was situated, and hedescribed in detail
the plan by which he had established Edna behind thewall in the passage, so as to prevent any of the sailors from the shipfrom making explorations. He also stated that everything had been left inas high a condition of safety as it was possible to leave it, but that,if his sister had been willing, he would most certainly have remainedbehind, with the two negroes, until the captain's return.
Much as he wished to think otherwise, Captain Horn could not prevail uponhimself to believe that Ralph could have written such a letter after adishonorable and reckless visit to the mound.
It was possible that one or both of the negroes had discovered themound, but it was difficult to believe that they would have dared toventure into that awful cavern, even if the vigilance of Edna, Mrs.Cliff, and the boy had given them an opportunity, and Edna had writtenthat the two men had always slept outside the caves, and had had no callto enter them. Furthermore, if Cheditafa had found the treasure, whyshould he keep it a secret? He would most probably have considered it anoriginal discovery, and would have spoken of it to the others. Whyshould he be willing that they should all go away and leave so muchwealth behind them? The chief danger, in case Cheditafa had found thetreasure, was that he would talk about it in Mexico or the UnitedStates. But, in spite of the hazards to which such disclosures mightexpose his fortunes, the captain would have preferred that the black menshould have been pilferers than that other men should have beendiscoverers. But who else could have discovered it? Who could have beenthere? Who could have gone away?
There was but one reasonable supposition, and that was that one or moreof the Rackbirds, who had been away from their camp at the time whentheir fellow-miscreants were swept away by the flood, had come back, andin searching for their comrades, or some traces of them, had made theirway to the caves. It was quite possible, and further it was quiteprobable, that the man or men who had found that mound might still behere or in the neighborhood. As soon as this idea came into the mind ofthe captain, he prepared for action. This was a question which must beresolved if he could do it, and without loss of time. Lighting hislantern,--for in that black darkness it was impossible for him to findhis way without it, although it might make him a mark for some concealedfoe,--the captain quickly made his way out of the lake cavern, and,leaving his lantern near the little wall, he proceeded, with a loadedpistol in his hand, to make an examination of the caves which he and hisparty had occupied.
He had already looked into the first compartment, but stopping at thepallet which lay almost at the passage of the doorway, he stood andregarded it. Then he stepped over it, and looked around the littleroom. The pallet of blankets and rugs which Ralph had used was notthere. Then the captain stepped into the next room, and, to hissurprise, he found this as bare of everything as if it had never beenused as a sleeping-apartment. He now hurried back to the first room,and examined the pallet, which, when he had first been looking at it,he had thought to be somewhat different from what it had been when hehad used it. He now found that it was composed of all the rugs andblankets which had previously made up the beds of all the party. Thecaptain ground his teeth.
"There can be no doubt of it," he said. "Some one has been here sincethey left, and has slept in these caves."
At this moment he remembered the innermost cave, the large compartmentwhich was roofless, and which, in his excitement, he had forgotten.Perhaps the man who slept on the pallet was in there at this minute. Howreckless he had been! To what danger he had exposed himself! With hispistol cocked, the captain advanced cautiously toward the innermostcompartment. Putting his head in at the doorway, he glanced up, down, andaround. He called out, "Who's here?" and then he entered, and lookedaround, and behind each of the massive pieces of rock with which thefloor was strewn. No one answered, and he saw no one. But he sawsomething which made him stare.
On the ground, at one side of the entrance to this compartment, were fiveor six pieces of rock about a foot high, placed in a small circle so thattheir tops came near enough together to support a tin kettle which wasresting upon them. Under the kettle, in the centre of the rocks, was apile of burnt leaves and sticks.
"Here he has cooked his meals," said the captain--for the pallet made upof all the others had convinced him that it had been one man who had beenhere after his party had left. "He stayed long enough to cook his mealsand sleep," thought the captain. "I'll look into this provisionbusiness." Passing through the other rooms, he went to a deep niche inthe wall of the entrance passage where his party had kept their stores,and where Edna had written him they had left provisions enough for theimmediate use of himself and the men who should return. Here he found tincans tumbled about at the bottom of the niche, and every one of themabsolutely empty. On a little ledge stood a tin box in which they hadkept the matches and candles. The box was open, but there was nothing init. On the floor near by was a tin biscuit-box, crushed nearly flat, asif some one had stamped upon it.
"He has eaten everything that was left," said the captain, "and he hasbeen starved out. Very likely, too, he got out of water, for, ofcourse, those pools would dry up, and it is not likely he found thestream outside."
Now the captain let down the hammer of his revolver, and put it in hisbelt. He felt sure that the man was not here. Being out of provisions, hehad to go away, but where he had gone to was useless to conjecture. Ofanother thing the captain was now convinced: the intruder had not been aRackbird, for, while waiting for the disappearance of the Chilianschooner, he had gone over to the concealed storehouse of the bandits,and had found it just as he had left it on his last visit, with aconsiderable quantity of stores remaining in it. If the man had known ofthe Rackbirds' camp and this storehouse, it would not have been necessaryfor him to consume every crumb and vestige of food which had been left inthese caves.
"No," said the captain, "it could not have been a Rackbird, but who hewas, and where he has gone, is beyond my comprehension."
The Adventures of Captain Horn Page 21