CHAPTER XXV
THE LAKE OF FIRE
Drew was all animation in an instant at the new hope that sprang up within him with its offer of possible safety for his companion and himself.
"Why didn't I think of it before?" he repeated, his voice shaken with excitement.
"You didn't think of it before, because you were working like a slave. No man can work like that and think of anything but what he is doing. Oh, Allen, won't it be great if you are right?"
"I'm going to see if I am right," he replied.
"How can you tell?" she asked divining that he was fumbling at his pocket.
"In this way," he answered, drawing out the oilskin bag that contained his precious matches.
He struck a match and held it aloft.
At first the flame mounted straight up in the air. Then an instant later it was deflected and stood out at a distinct angle from the stick.
"See," cried Allen jubilantly. "There's a current of air in the cave. It's too slight for us to feel, but the flame feels it. If we were sealed up utterly in the cave, the air would be still. Somewhere the air is coming in from the outside world and it's up to us to find out where."
"Thank God!" murmured Ruth tremulously.
In the sudden transition from despair to hope, they took little account of the difficulties they might have to overcome before they reached that other entrance—or the exit, from their point of view—which they had reason to believe existed. But as their first jubilation subsided somewhat, a soberer view began to thrust itself upon them.
Admitting that there was an exit, what guarantee had they of reaching it? Suppose a fathomless gulf barred their way? Suppose the passage narrowed to a point too small for them to thrust themselves through? Suppose when the coveted exit should at last be found it should prove to be in the ceiling of the cave instead of the side, and hopelessly out of reach?
But they quickly dismissed these dismal forebodings. Those problems could wait for solution until they faced them. The present at least was illumined by hope.
"Come along, Ruth," cried Allen gaily. "Pack up your trunks and let's be moving."
"Only too gladly," the girl responded, falling into his mood. "I never did care much for this place anyway."
But suddenly a reflection came to her.
"How are we to find our way in this pitch darkness?" she asked. "I don't know how many matches you have with you, but at the most they can't last long. And the time may come when a match would be more precious than a diamond."
Drew took out his bag again, and, taking the greatest precautions not to drop one, counted the matches by the sense of touch.
"Just thirty-two," he announced when he had counted them twice.
"Only thirty-two!" echoed Ruth. "And we may need a hundred and thirty-two before we get to the other mouth of the cave."
For a moment Drew pondered.
"You're right, as always, Ruth," he agreed. "We can't depend on the matches alone. We'll have to get something that will serve as a torch. While I was digging, I remember I came across many branches of trees that had been carried down by the slide in its rush. We'll see if we can't make some torches out of them."
He set lustily to work and soon had as many as ten good-sized sticks that promised to supply his need. He was afraid that not being seasoned wood they would prove difficult to light. But there proved to be a resinous quality in the wood that atoned for its greenness, and before long he had a torch that burned steadily though rather murkily.
"Eureka!" he cried waving it aloft.
"Good for you, Allen," applauded Ruth. "Now give me the rest of those sticks to carry and you go ahead with the lighted torch."
"I'll carry them myself," he protested.
"No you won't," she said decidedly, at the same time gathering them up in her arms. "You'll have the torch in one hand and you need to have the other free for emergencies."
He recognized the common sense of this, but found it hard to let her do it.
"It's too much like the Indians," he said. "You know that with them the buck carries his dignity, while his squaw carries everything else."
"But I'm not your squaw," slipped saucily from Ruth's lips before she could realize the possible significance of her remark.
"Not yet," replied Allen daringly, wanting to bite his tongue out a moment later for having taken advantage of her slip.
"But let's hurry now, Ruth," he went on hastily to cover their mutual confusion. "Follow close in my steps and don't keep more than two or three feet behind me at any time."
They set off on the unknown path whose end meant to them either deliverance or death. The chances were against them, but their hearts were high and their courage steadfast.
They had need of all their fortitude, for they had not advanced forty paces before danger menaced them.
Drew holding his torch high so as to throw its light as far ahead as possible, stepped on what seemed to be a crooked stick in the path. Instantly the stick sprang to life, and a powerful, slimy coil wound itself around the man's leg as high as the knee.
His first impulse was to spring back. His next was to grind down with crushing force on the squirming thing beneath his heel. The second impulse conquered the first and he stood like a statue while a cold sweat broke out all over his body.
For he had realized by the feel that it was the reptile's head that was beneath his heel and must be kept there at all costs until the life was crushed out of it.
Gradually the writhings grew feebler, until at last the coils relaxed and fell in a heap about his foot.
"What is it Allen?" asked Ruth in alarm at his sudden stop and rigid pose. "Do you see anything?"
"There's no danger," he assured her, though his voice was not quite steady. "I must have stepped on a lizard or something like that, and it gave me a start."
He kicked the mangled reptile out of the path, but not before Ruth's horrified glance had seen that it was no lizard but something far more deadly.
Here was a new terror added to the others. For all they knew there might be a colony of the reptiles in the cave. And in that semi-tropical region, the chances were vastly in favor of their being poisonous. At all events it behooved them to advance with redoubled caution.
They kept a wary lookout for anything that looked like a crooked stick after that, and their progress, already slow, became still slower as they went on.
Before long they came to a place where the cave seemed to divide into three separate passageways. Two of them had nothing to distinguish them from each other, but in the third they distinguished a faint light in the distance.
"The blessed light!" exclaimed Ruth fervently.
"I guess that's the path to take, all right," exulted Drew. "In all probability that light comes from the outlet of the cave. Hurrah for us, Ruth!"
Ruth echoed his enthusiasm, and they accelerated their pace. The hope that they had cherished seemed now about to become certainty.
But the way was rougher now, and at one place they had to make a long detour. But they made no complaint. As long as no impassable barrier of rock loomed up before them they could feel that they were getting nearer and nearer to freedom and life.
But before long both became conscious of a steadily-growing heat in the air of the cave. The perspiration flowed from them in streams. At first they were inclined to attribute this to their strenuous exertions and the mental strain under which they were laboring.
"Strange it should be so frightfully hot," remarked Drew, as he stopped for a moment to wipe his brow.
"It's no wonder," responded Ruth. "It's hot enough on this island even when you're in the outer air, and it would naturally be worse still in this confined place."
"But we didn't feel that way ten minutes ago," objected Drew.
"We've done a good deal of walking since then," said Ruth, though rather doubtfully. "But let's get along, Allen. I'm just crazy to get to the outlet."
They were about to resume their journey, when a great flame of fire leaped to the very roof of the cave about a hundred yards in front of them.
They stopped abruptly, and in the smoky light of the torch both of their faces were white as chalk, as they faced each other with a question in their eyes.
"Fire!" gasped the man.
"Yes," assented Ruth quietly but bitterly. "What we thought was daylight is nothing other than fire."
"Shall we keep on?" debated Allen.
"We're so close that we might as well," advised Ruth. "Perhaps we may be able to get around it somehow."
They went forward, though with excessive care, and a moment later stood on the brink of the most awe-inspiring spectacle they had ever witnessed.
In a deep pit perhaps six hundred feet in circumference was a lake of liquid fire! The molten lava twisted and writhed as though a thousand serpents were coiling and uncoiling. A vapor rose from the fiery mass that glowed with a hideous radiance in all the colors of the spectrum.
At intervals, huge geysers of living flame spurted up from the surface to a height of many feet and fell back in a glistening of molten gold and coruscating diamonds.
It was a scene that if it could have been viewed with safety would have drawn tourists in thousands from every corner of the globe.
But to the two spectators the thought that they were looking on one of the marvels of the world brought nothing but desolation and despair.
"This must be the source of the lava flow when the whale's hump is in eruption," said Drew in a toneless voice.
"I suppose so," said Ruth in a voice that for dreariness was a replica of his own. "Do you think it's possible for us to get around it in any way, Allen?"
"Not a chance in the world," answered Drew. "You can see that the passage we followed ends at the brink of the crater. From there on, there's just a wall of solid rock. The only thing left for us to do is to get back to the place where the cave split into three parts."
They retraced their steps with hearts that grew heavier at every step. The passage that had seemed most promising had yielded nothing but bitter disappointment. Only two other chances remained, and who could tell that they led anywhere but to death?
At the juncture of the passageways, they hesitated for a moment only. There was absolutely nothing to indicate that they should take one of the remaining two paths rather than the other. Impenetrable blackness covered both.
"Which shall it be, Ruth?" asked Drew.
"You do the choosing, Allen," Ruth responded.
At a venture he took the one leading to the left, but had not proceeded more than a hundred feet when he stopped abruptly on the very brink of a chasm that spanned the entire width of the passage-way. There was no ledge however narrow to furnish a foothold along its sides. Once more they were absolutely blocked.
Drew checked a groan and Ruth stifled something suspiciously like a sob. The tension under which they were was fast reaching the breaking point.
"Never mind," said Drew, stoutly recovering himself. "There's luck in odd numbers and the third time we win."
"First the worst, second the same, last the best of all the game," responded Ruth with an attempt at heartiness.
Again they went back and took the only way remaining. Upon the ending of that passage their life or death depended.
But as they advanced steadily and no barrier interfered, their spirits rose. Then suddenly they cried aloud in their joy, for on turning a sharp bend in the path a rush of air almost extinguished the torch that Drew was carrying.
A hundred feet ahead was an opening thickly covered with bushes, but large enough to admit of forcing a passage!
Ruth dropped her load of surplus torches. Drew, grasping her arm, hurried her along. He forced the bushes apart and pushed her through. Then he followed. They heard a wild shout and the next minute Ruth was sobbing in her father's arms, while Tyke—hardy grizzled old Tyke—had thrown his arms around Allen in a bear's hug and was blubbering like a baby.
CHAPTER XXVI
HOPE DEFERRED
There was a wild babble of questions and answers, and it was a long time before all had calmed down enough to talk coherently.
The captain and Tyke in their frantic search had come just abreast of the outlet at the moment when Ruth and Allen had burst out into daylight and safety.
Their hearts thrilled as they listened to the dreadful perils through which had passed the two who were dearest to them on earth and the narration was punctuated with expressions of consternation and sympathy.
"Well now," suggested Ruth after a half hour had passed, "let's get back to work."
"No more work this afternoon," ejaculated the captain. "You're going straight back to the ship."
"Indeed I'm not, Daddy," rejoined Ruth. "I'm all right now and I'll be vastly happier sitting here and seeing you go on with the work than to feel I've made you lose a day. We've got some hours of daylight yet."
The captain protested, but Ruth coaxed and wheedled him till he consented and they all went back to the ditch they had started and went to work, Ruth alone of the party being forbidden to lift a finger.
They excavated to the volcanic ledge in half a dozen places. In none did they find a trace of treasure—not a sign that this soil had ever before been disturbed by the hand of man.
"Bad mackerel!" grumbled Captain Hamilton, finally climbing out of his last pit. "This looks as if we'd been handed a rotten deal from a cold deck."
Tyke looked up from his work, and began:
"Mebbe that—Now, if I was superstitious—Oh, well," he went on hastily, "you can't expect to find a fortune in a minute."
"But we got the bearings all right, according to the map, didn't we?" demanded the captain with some asperity.
"We certainly did," Drew put it.
"We can't dig over the whole island," complained Captain Hamilton. "It would be foolish. Hush! What's that?"
A rumble, a sound from the very bowels of the hill, smote upon their ears. Ruth ran to them.
"Oh, Daddy!" she cried, "is there going to be another earthquake?"
"Look there!" Drew said pointing upward.
Over the summit of the whale's hump hung a balloon of smoke, or of steam, its underside of a lurid hue.
"I say I've had enough for one day," declared the master of the Bertha Hamilton. "Let's get back to the schooner before anything else occurs. Maybe a night's sleep will put heart in us. But I tell you right now, I, for one, would sell my share in the pirate's treasure at a big discount."
The captain was the most outspoken of the treasure seekers; but they were all despondent. They hid their digging tools, and departed for the shore of the lagoon, the volcano rumbling at times behind them.
They emerged from the forest just as the sun was setting. As they came out on the beach they were surprised to see that it was bare. Neither the longboat nor the smaller one was in sight, nor could anything be seen of the crews.
The captain called some of the men by name. There was no response. Then he cupped his hands at his mouth, and his stentorian voice rang over the waters of the lagoon.
"Ship ahoy!"
In a moment there was an answering hail, and they soon saw that a boat was being manned. It came rapidly inshore, propelled by four members of the crew, and, as it drew nearer, they could see that Rogers was seated at the tiller.
As the boat reached the beach the second officer stepped out.
"What does this mean, Mr. Rogers?" asked the captain sternly.
"Mr. Ditty's orders, sir," replied the second officer. "The men got scared at the earthquake this morning, sir, and after that second quake they flatly refused to stay ashore. So Mr. Ditty let them go back to the ship."
"But why didn't he leave the other boat's crew waiting for me?" asked the captain. "If they were afraid to remain ashore they could have stayed in the boat, rigged an awning to shield them from the sun, and laid off and on within hail."
"That's what I thought, sir, and I said as much to Mr. Ditty. But he shut me up sharp, and said it would be time enough to send a boat when you should come in sight, sir."
The captain bit his lip, but said no more, and the party stepped into the boat. They soon reached the Bertha Hamilton, and all climbed aboard. The first officer was standing near the rail.
"Come aft and report to me after supper, Mr. Ditty," ordered the captain brusquely.
"Aye, aye, sir," replied the mate.
As soon as supper was over and Ruth had gone to her stateroom the captain started to go on deck, but Tyke put his hand on his arm.
"Going to give Ditty a dressing down, I suppose," he remarked.
"He's got it coming to him," snapped Captain Hamilton.
"He surely has," agreed Tyke. "But have you thought that perhaps that's jest what he wants you to do?"
The captain sat down heavily.
"Get it off your chest, Tyke," he said. "Tell me what you mean."
"I mean jest this," said Tyke. "Often there's trouble in the wind that never comes to anything because the feller that's brewing it don't git a chance to start it. He fiddles 'round waiting for an opening; but if he don't find it the trouble jest dies a natural death.
"Now, this Ditty, I think, is looking for an opening. As far as his letting his own boat's crew come on board when you had told him to keep them on shore for the day is concerned, that can be overlooked. You can't blame the men for being scared, an' any mate might be excused for using his own judgment under those conditions.
"But his not keeping your boat's crew waiting for you, even if they stayed a little away from the shore, was rank disrespect. He knew you would take it so. He knew it would weaken your authority with the crew. An' he expects you'll call him down for it. Isn't that so?"
"Of course it is," agreed Captain Hamilton.
"Well then," pursued Tyke, "if he did that deliberately, expecting you'd rake him fore and aft for it, it shows that he wants you to start something, don't it? An' my principle in a fight is to find out what the other feller wants and then not do it. He wants to provoke you. Don't let yourself be provoked or you'll play right into his hands."
"I might as well make him captain of the ship and be done with it," cried Captain Hamilton bitterly. "I've never let a man get away with anything like that yet."
"An' we won't let this feller git away with it for long," answered Tyke. "We'll give him a trimming he'll never forgit. But we'll choose our own time for it, an' that time ain't now. Wait till we've found the treasure an' got it safe on board. Then, my mighty! if he starts anything, put him an' his gang ashore an' sail without 'em."
"You think, then, he wants me to knock the chip off his shoulder?" mused the captain.
"Exactly," replied Tyke. "An' if you don't, he may be so flabbergasted that before he cooks up anything new we'll have the whip hand of him."
"Well, I'll do as you say, though it sure does go against the grain."
Tyke's recipe worked; for when Ditty sauntered to the poop a little later to receive the rebuke which he expected and which he was prepared to resent, the wind was taken out of his sails by the captain's good nature and pleasant smile.
"Quite a little scare the men got, I suppose, when they felt the quake this morning?" Captain Hamilton inquired genially.
"Yes, sir," replied the mate. "There was nothin' to do but to get back to the ship. Some of 'em was so scared that they would 've swum the lagoon, and I didn't want 'em to do that for fear of sharks."
"Quite right, Mr. Ditty," returned the captain approvingly. "That is all."
Still Ditty lingered.
"I ordered the men in your boat to come back too," he said, eyeing the skipper aslant.
"That was all right too," replied the captain absently, as though the matter was of no importance. "The ship was so near that it wasn't worth while keeping the men out there in the sun all day."
Ditty stared. This was not the strict disciplinarian that Captain Hamilton had always been. He hesitated, opened his mouth to say something, found nothing to say, and at last, with his ideas disordered, went sullenly away. If he had planned to bring things to a crisis he had signally failed.
Captain Hamilton watched the retreating back of his mate with a somber glow in his eyes that contrasted strongly with the forced smile of a moment before, and then retired to the cabin to go again into conference with Grimshaw.
CHAPTER XXVII
THE GIANT AWAKES
Allen Drew had not been a party to the conference between Captain Hamilton and Grimshaw after supper. After the strenuous exertions of the day he had felt the need of a bath and a change of linen.
Once more clothed and feeling refreshed, Drew paced the afterdeck with his cigar, hearing the voices of Captain Hamilton and Tyke in the former's cabin, but having no desire just then to join them.
Although his body was rejuvenated, his mind was far from peaceful. He had not lost hope of their finding what they had come so far to search for; he still believed the pirate hoard to be buried on the side of the whale's hump. "Hope deferred maketh the heart sick;" but hope had not been long enough deferred in this case to sicken any of the party of treasure seekers. Yet there was a great sickness at the heart of Allen Drew.
That particular incident of the afternoon that had brought the remembrance of Parmalee so keenly to his mind, had thrown a pall over his thoughts not easily lifted.
It had shown, too, that Parmalee's strange and awful death had strongly affected Ruth. That mystery was likely to erect a barrier between the girl and himself. Indeed, it had done so already. Drew felt it—he knew it!
There was in her father's attitude something intangible, yet certain enough, which spelled the captain's doubt of him. As long as Parmalee's disappearance remained unexplained, as long as Ditty's story could not be disproved, Drew felt that Captain Hamilton would nurse in his mind a doubt of his innocence.
And that doubt, if it remained, whether Drew was ever tried for the crime of Parmalee's murder or not, just as surely put Ruth out of his grasp as though his hands actually dripped of the dead man's blood.
Captain Hamilton would never see his daughter marry a man under such a cloud. Drew appreciated the character of the schooner's commander too thoroughly to base any illusions upon the fact that Hamilton treated him kindly. They were partners in this treasure hunt. The doubloons once secured, the Bertha Hamilton once in port, Drew well knew that Ruth's father would do what he felt to be his duty. He would be Drew's accuser at the bar of public justice. That, undoubtedly, was a foregone conclusion.
Plunged in the depth of these despairing thoughts, Drew was startled by the light fall of a soft hand upon his arm, and he descried the slight figure of Ruth beside him.
"Walking the deck alone, Allen?" she said softly. "I wondered where you were."
"Just doing my usual forty laps after supper," he responded, trying to speak lightly.
"I should think your work to-day in the digging, to say nothing of our experience in the cave, would have been as much exercise as you really needed," she said, laughing. "And all for nothing!"
"We could scarcely expect success so soon," he replied.
"No? Perhaps success is not to be our portion, Allen. What then?"
"Well," and he tried to say it cheerfully, "we've had a run for our money."
"A run for the pirate's money, you mean. Let's see," she added slyly, "that confession did not state just how many doubloons were buried, did it?"
"The amount specified I failed to make out," he told her. "Time had erased it."
"Then we are after an unknown amount—an unknown quantity of doubloons. And perhaps we are fated never to know the amount of the pirate's hoard," and she laughed again. Then, suddenly, she clutched his arm more tightly as they paced the deck together, crying under her breath: "Oh! look yonder Allen."
A strangely flickering light dispelled the pall that hung above the hilltop. The cloud of smoke or steam, rising from the crater and which they had first seen that afternoon, was now illuminated and shot through with rays of light evidently reflected from the bowels of the hill.
"The volcano is surely alive!" cried the young man.
The crew, loafing on the forecastle, saw the phenomenon, and their chattering voices rose in a chorus of excitement. Tyke came up from below and joined Drew and the captain's daughter. The glare of the volcano illuminated the night, and they could see each other's features distinctly.
"Looks like we'd stirred things up over there," chuckled the old man. "There are more'n ghosts of dead and gone pirates guarding that treasure."
"It—it is rather terrifying, isn't it?" Ruth suggested.
"It is to them ignorant swabs for'ard," growled Tyke. "Good thing, though. They'll be too scared to want to roam over the island. We want it to ourselves till we find the loot. Don't we, Allen?"
"That's true. The disturbance over there may not be an unmitigated evil," was the young man's rejoinder.
Captain Hamilton called Ruth through the open window of his cabin, and she bade Grimshaw and Allen Drew good night and went below. Tyke remained only long enough to finish his cigar, then he departed.
The light over the volcano faded, the rumblings ceased. Drew, in his rubber-soled shoes, paced the deck alone; but he could not be seen ten feet away, for he wore dark clothes.
He knew that Mr. Rogers had long since gone to his room. Most of the crew had either sought their bunks or were stretched out on the forecastle hatch. Yet he heard a low murmur of voices from amidships. When he paced to that end of his walk, the voices reached him quite clearly and he recognized that of the one-eyed mate. The other man he knew to be Bingo, the only English sailor aboard—a shrewd and rat-faced little Cockney.
"Blime me, Bug-eye! but wot Hi sye Hi means. The devil 'imself's near where there's so much brimstone. If that hull bloomin' 'ill blows hup, where'll we be, Hi axes ye?"
"Jest here or hereabouts," growled Ditty.
Drew stepped nearer and frankly listened to the conversation.
"Hi'm as 'ungry for blunt as the next bloke, an' ye sye there's plenty hin it——"
"Slathers of it, Bingo," said the mate earnestly. "Why, man! some of these islands down here are rotten with buried pirate gold. Millions and millions was stole and buried by them old boys."
"Yah! Hi've 'eard hall that before, Hi 'ave. Who hain't?" said Bingo, with considerable shrewdness. "Honly hit halways struck me that if them old buccaneers, as they calls 'em, was proper sailormen, they'd 'ave spent the hull blunt hinstead o' buryin' hof hit."
"Holy heavers, Bingo, they couldn't spend it all!" exclaimed Ditty. "There was too much of it. Millions, mind you!"
"Millions! My heye!" croaked the Cockney. "A million of yer Hamerican dollars or a million sterling?"
"You can lay to it," said Ditty firmly, "that there's more'n one million in English pounds buried in these here islands. And there's a bunch of it somewheres on this island."
"Then, Bug-eye, wye don't we git that map hand dig it hup hourselves on the bloomin' jump? Wye wite? We kin easy 'andle the hafter-guard."
"The boys are balkin', that's why," growled Ditty. "They're like you—afraid of that rotten old volcano."
"Blime me! Hand wye wouldn't they be scare't hof hit?" snarled the Cockney.
"That bein' the general feelin'," Ditty said calmly, "why we'll stick to my plan. Let the old man dig it up hisself and bring it aboard.
"It'll save us the trouble, won't it? And mebbe we can git rid of some of the swabs, one at a time——"
"Huh!" chuckled Bingo. "One's gone halready. Hi see yer bloomin' scheme, Bug-eye."
"Well, then," said the mate, rising from his seat, "keep it to yourself and take your orders from me, like the rest does."
"Hall right, matey, hall right," said Bingo, and likewise stood up.
Drew dared remain no longer. He stole away to the stern and stood for a while, looking over the rail into the black water—no blacker than the rage that filled his heart.
He felt half tempted to attack the treacherous Ditty with his bare hands and strangle the rascal. But he knew that this was no time for a reckless move. There were only himself, the captain, and Tyke to face this promised mutiny. Probably they could trust Rogers, and some few of the men forward might be faithful to the after-guard. The uncertainty of this, however, was appalling.
After a time he went below and rapped lightly on the captain's door. The commander of the Bertha Hamilton opened to him instantly. He was partly undressed.
"Eh? That you, Mr. Drew?"
"Sh! Put out your light, Captain. I'll bring Mr. Grimshaw. I have something to tell you both," whispered the young man.
"All right," said the captain, quick to understand.
His light was out before Drew reached Tyke's door. This was unlocked, but the old man was in his berth. Long years at sea had made Tyke a light sleeper. He often said he slept with one eye open.
"That you, Allen?"
"Yes. Hush! We want you in the captain's room—he and I. Come just as you are."
"Aye, aye!" grunted the old man, instantly out of his berth.
The light was turned low in the saloon. Drew did not know whether Ditty had come down or not; but unmistakable nasal sounds from Mr. Roger's room assured him that the second officer was safe.
Tyke, light-footed as a cat, followed him to Captain Hamilton's door. It was ajar, and they went in. The commander of the schooner sat on the edge of his berth. They could see each other dimly in the faint light that entered through the transom over the door. Captain Hamilton had drawn the blind at the window.
"Well, what's up?" he murmured.
Drew wasted no time, but in whispers repeated the conversation he had overheard between Bingo and the mate. When he had finished, Tyke observed coolly:
"I'd 've bet dollars to doughnuts that that was the way she headed. Now we know. Eh, Cap'n Rufe?"
"Yes," grunted the captain.
"What shall we do?" asked Drew.
"Do? Keep on," Captain Hamilton said firmly. "What d' you say, Tyke?"
"Yes," agreed Grimshaw. "Ditty is playing a waiting game. So will we. An' we have the advantage."
"I don't see that," Drew muttered.
"Why, we know his plans. He don't know ours," explained the old man. "We haven't got to worry about them swabs till we've found the doubloons, anyway."
"If we find 'em," murmured the captain.
"By George! we're bound to find 'em," Tyke said, with confidence. "That's what we come down here for."
His enthusiasm seemed unquenched. Drew could not lose heart when the old man was so hopefully determined.
"But Miss Ruth?" Allen suggested timidly, looking at Captain Hamilton.
"Don't bother about her," answered the captain shortly. "She'll not be out of my sight a minute. She must go ashore with us every day. I'll not trust her aboard alone with these scoundrels."
They talked little more that night; but it was agreed to take all the firearms and much of the ammunition, disguised in wrappings of some kind, ashore with them in the morning and conceal all with the digging tools.
"Jest as well to take them all along," Tyke had advised. "I hope we won't have to use 'em. But if we're going to take Rogers with us to-morrow and leave Ditty in charge here, the rascal might go nosing around an' find them guns."
"I hate to leave Ditty in possession of the schooner," returned the captain, with a worried look.
"So do I," admitted Tyke. "But after all, it isn't only the schooner he wants. She's no good to him until we git the treasure aboard. The only men it will be wise to take with us to-morrow are Rogers an' a boat's crew that you know you can trust."
Immediately after breakfast the next morning the captain summoned the second officer.
"I want you to take me ashore this morning, Mr. Rogers," he said; "and as I have a lot of heavy dunnage that the men will have to carry, I'll want a husky crew. Take six men; and I want you to take special pains in picking out the best men we have. Men whom we can trust and who haven't been mixed up with the whispering and the queer business that you mentioned."
The second officer's eye flashed, and he nodded understandingly.
"Aye, aye, sir," he replied. "As for the men, sir," he went on reflectively, "there's a dozen I could stake my life on who wouldn't be in any crooked game. Suppose," he counted off on his fingers, "we take Olsen and Binney and Barker and Dodd and Thompson and Willis. They're all true blue, and I don't think they're in such a funk over the volcano as some of the others."
"They'll do," assented the captain. "They're the very men I had in mind. Call some of them down now and have them get this stuff up on deck. And tell the cook to send dinner grub along, for we may be gone all day."
"Aye, aye, sir," answered Rogers, as he left the cabin.
A little later the party gathered at the rail, and the captain spoke to the mate.
"Mr. Rogers is going to take us ashore, Mr. Ditty," he said pleasantly. "There are no special orders. You can let some of the men have shore leave if they want it, although after yesterday I don't suppose they will."
"I suppose not," replied Ditty surlily. "They'll all be glad when we turn our backs on this cursed island."
The captain pretended not to hear. The goods were stowed in the boat, the party and crew took their places, and the craft was pulled smartly to the beach.
"Now, my lads," said the captain briskly, as he stepped ashore, "there's quite a trip ahead of you and you've got a man's job in carrying this stuff, but I'll see that you don't lose anything by it. Step up smartly now."
The men shouldered their burdens and started off on the trail that had now grown familiar to the treasure seekers. The men were able to maintain a fairly rapid pace, and before long the party arrived at the edge of the clearing within which the treasure was supposed to be buried.
The captain took Rogers aside.
"Take your men back to the beach now, Mr. Rogers," he directed. "Remember, I want none of them poking about here. We'll rejoin you in good season for supper, if not before."
"Aye, aye, sir!" was the cheerful reply.
Rogers turned with his men, and the captain watched their backs far down the forest path, until they were lost to sight in the greenery of the jungle.
"Well now," he remarked, as he turned again to the others, "lively's the word. Let's get busy and——. Great Scott! Look at that!" he exclaimed, staring at the top of the whale's hump.
A column of black smoke was rising from the crater.
"Looks like the whale was going to blow again," Tyke said, with a feeble attempt at levity to disguise his apprehension.
The next moment the ears of the party were deafened by a terrific explosion.
CHAPTER XXVIII
BY FAVOR OF THE EARTHQUAKE
No thunder that had ever been heard could be compared with the sound of the explosion. It was like the bellowing of a thousand cannon. It was as though the island were being ripped apart.
The earth shook and staggered drunkenly beneath the feet of the treasure seekers. Great trees in the adjacent forest fell with tremendous uproar. The slope of the whale's hump was ridged until it looked like a giant accordion. Crevasses opened, extending from the summit of the hill downward. Rocks came tumbling down by the score, and a column of smoke and flame rose from the crater to a height of two hundred feet or more.
None of the party had been able to keep on a footing. All had been thrown to the ground by the first shock, and there they lay, sick from that awful seismic vibration.
A cloud of almost impalpable dust spread broadly and shrouded the sun. There was not a breath of air astir. Not a living thing was to be seen in the open—even the lizards had disappeared.
The spot where they had delved the day before, was now in plain view to the treasure seekers. They saw the hillside yawn there in an awful paroxysm, till the aperture was several yards wide. Then, from beneath, there shot into the open, smoking rocks, debris of many kinds, and—something else! Drew, seeing this final object, shrieked aloud. His voice could not be heard above the uproar, but the others saw his mouth agape, and struggled to see that at which he was pointing so wildly.
The crevasse closed with a crash and jar that rocked the whole island. It was the final throe of the volcano's travail. The lurid light above the crater subsided. The dust began to fall thick upon the treasure seekers as they lay upon the ground. They sat up, dazed and horror-stricken. It was some time before their palsied tongues could speak, and when they did, the words came almost in whispers.
Drew found that his arm was around Ruth. She had been near him when the first shock came, and he had seized her instinctively. Now he turned to her and asked:
"You're not hurt, are you, Ruth?"
"N—no," she gasped, "but dreadfully frightened! Oh, let's get away from here!"
She realized that he was holding her and drew away with a faint blush. He released her and staggered to his feet.
Tyke and the captain followed suit, and the three men looked at each other.
"Now, if I was superstitious——" began Tyke in a quavering voice.
"Never mind any 'ifs' just now," interrupted the captain. "We've got to get away from here just as fast as the good Lord will let us. I don't believe in tempting Providence."
"And leave the doubloons?" queried Tyke, in dismay.
"Yes, and leave the doubloons," replied the captain stubbornly. "If Ruth weren't here, we men might take a chance, but my daughter is worth more to me than all the pirate gold buried in the Caribbean."
Drew, if inaudibly, agreed with him. "Let's get Ruth down to the shore, anyway," he said. "Then, if you'll come back—— I saw something just at that last crash."
"By the great jib-boom!" roared Tyke, "so did I. What did you see, Allen? Something shot up out o' one o' them pits we dug yesterday. I saw it. An' it wasn't a lava boulder, neither!"
"You're right, there," Drew agreed. "It was a box or something. Too square-shaped to be a rock."
"We can't fool with it now," Captain Hamilton said, with determination, though his eyes sparkled. "Come, Ruth. I must get you down to the boat."
But here the girl exercised a power of veto. "I don't go unless the rest of you do—and to remain, too," she declared. "I am not a child. Of course, I'm afraid of that volcano. But so are you men. And it's all over now. If Allen really saw something that looked like a box or a chest thrown out of that opening, I'm going to——"
She left the rest unspoken, but started boldly for the barren patch where they had dug the day before. It looked now like a piece of plowed ground over which were scattered blocks of lava of all sizes and shapes.
Captain Hamilton hesitated, but Drew ran ahead, reaching the spot first. Anxious and frightened as he had been at the moment of the phenomenon, the young man had noted exactly the spot where the strange object had fallen. Half buried in a heap of earth was a discolored, splintered chest. Its ancient appearance led Drew to utter a shout of satisfaction.
"I guess we've got it," he remarked in a tone that he tried to keep calm, but which trembled in spite of himself.
A cry of delight rose from all. The men joined Drew, and helped him clear away the earth. The chest soon stood revealed. Then by using their spades as levers, they pried it loose and by their united efforts dragged it over to the shade at the jungle's edge. They sat beside it there, panting, almost too exhausted from the excitement and their tremendous efforts to move or speak.
Ruth fluttered about like a humming bird, excited and eager. She looked somewhat less disheveled and begrimed than the men. But if they looked like trench diggers, they felt like plutocrats, and their hearts were swelling with jubilation.
The map had not lied! The paper had not lied! That old pirate, Ramon Alvarez, who had probably told a thousand lies, had told the truth at last in his ardent desire for the shriving of Holy Church. The treasure lay before them!
And how wonderfully the chest had been revealed to them! Not by their own exertions had the pirate hoard been uncovered!
A moment more and they were on their feet, Tyke panting:
"Now, if I was superstitious——"
They would have plenty of time for resting later on. Now a fierce impatience consumed them. They must see the contents of the box!
The chest was about five feet long, two feet wide and three feet deep. It was made of thick oak, and was bound by heavy bands of iron. A huge padlock held it closed.
The box had originally been of enormous strength, but time and nature and the earthquake had done their work. The wood was swollen and warped, the iron bands were eaten with rust. But the lock resisted their efforts when they sought to lift the cover.
"Stand clear!" cried Captain Hamilton, raising his spade.
He struck the padlock a smashing blow. Then he stooped and lifted the cover, which yielded groaningly.
A cry burst simultaneously from the treasure seekers.
"Gold!"
"Doubloons!"
"Jewels!"
"Riches!"
Priceless treasures heaped in careless profusion, glinting, glowing, coruscating, scintillating threw back in splendor the rays of the tropic sun.
None of them could remember afterward quite how they acted in those first few minutes of unchained emotion. But they laughed and sang, cheered and shouted, and it was a long time before the rioting of their blood ceased and they regained a measure of self-control.
There was no attempt made to measure the value of the treasure trove. There would be time for that later on. What they did know beyond the shadow of a doubt was that wealth enough lay before them to make them all rich for the rest of their lives.
Gold there was, both coined and melted into bars; Spanish doubloons, Indian rupees, French louis, English guineas; cups and candelabra; chains and watches; jewels too, in whose depths flashed rainbow hues, amethysts, rubies, diamonds, emeralds, strings upon strings of shimmering pearls.
The discoverers bathed their hands in the golden store, running the coins in sparkling streams through their fingers, all the time feeling that they were moving in a dream from which at any moment they must be rudely awakened.
At last the captain's voice, a bit husky from emotion, brought them back to practical realities.
"Well, the first log of our voyage is written up," he said. "But now let's get down to the question of what we're to do next. How are we to get this stuff aboard?"
All sobered a little as they faced the problem.
"We can take the chest just as it is," said Tyke. "A four-man load, though."
"What will the crew think?" Drew asked somewhat anxiously.
"Let 'em think and be hanged to 'em!" replied Captain Hamilton. "Yet," he added a moment later, "with things in the shaky condition they are and that rascal, Ditty, planning mischief, we don't want to take too many chances."
"Couldn't we make a number of trips back and forth and take some of the treasure with us each time until we got it all on board?" suggested Ruth. "We could carry a lot in our clothes and we could wrap some up to look like the bundles we brought ashore."
"Take too long," objected her father.
"How would this do?" was Drew's contribution. "As has already been said, the men would be surprised to see us bring a box aboard if they hadn't first seen us take it ashore. Now, suppose we take one of the ship's chests, load it with some worthless junk that would make it as heavy as this box, and bring it ashore. We could bring it up here, throw away the contents, put the treasure in it, and then call on the men to take it back to the ship. They'd recognize it as the same one they'd brought over, and their thinking would stop right there."
"By Jove, I believe you've hit it, Allen!" exclaimed the captain.
"That sounds sensible," conceded Tyke. "I guess it's the only way."
"Well, now that that's settled," went on the captain, "what are we going to do with the treasure in the meanwhile? It's getting late now. We can't get it aboard to-day. We'll want eight men besides Rogers. Then, there's all this hardware," and he indicated the firearms.
"Couldn't we leave it just where it is until we come back to-morrow?" ventured Ruth. "There isn't a soul on the island, and we'll be here the first thing in the morning."
"A little too risky, I'm afraid," said Tyke. "It's dollars to doughnuts that there's no one on the island but ourselves and the boat's crew; yet we'd go 'round kicking ourselves for the rest of our lives if we found to-morrow that some one had been here an' helped himself."
"Let's pile some of these loose lava blocks on top of the chest," said Drew. "Make a regular mound. It will look as though the earthquake had done it."
That plan seemed the best, and they acted on it. They closed the cover after one more lingering, delighted look at the chest's gleaming contents, then they built the cairn.
"One sure thing," observed Tyke. "There isn't anybody going to come up here for jest a little pleasure jog—not much! That volcano's likely to spit again 'most any time."
The party started for the lagoon with their hearts bounding with exultation. But as they entered the forest path they were startled by the sight of Rogers and his men hastening toward them.
The captain was about to utter a rebuke, but when he saw the pale and frightened faces of the men he checked his tongue.
"Well, Mr. Rogers, what is it?" he asked. "Got a pretty good scare, I suppose, like the rest of us. I guess the quake's all over now."
"I hope so, sir," replied the second officer. "I thought sure it was all over with the lot of us. But it isn't that, sir, that I came back for. The boat's gone."
"Gone!" exclaimed the captain, staring.
"Yes, sir. It must have pushed away from the shore when the earth shook so. Just down here below a bit is a place where you can see the lagoon, and I caught sight of the boat about half-way between the shore and the ship."
"Oh well, if that's all, there isn't any great harm done. Mr. Ditty will send out and pick up the boat."
"But there's something else, sir," went on the seaman hoarsely. "As I looked out, it seemed to me, sir, as if the reef had closed up behind the schooner."
"What?" roared the captain.
"It's gospel truth sir," persisted the second officer. "I thought at first I must be dreaming. But I looked carefully, sir, and you can call me a swab if it isn't so! I couldn't see any sign at all of the passage where we came in, sir."
The captain's bronzed face paled, as the full significance of the news burst upon him.
"Come along and show me the place where you can see the schooner," he commanded, and started to run, followed by the whole party.
They had not far to go. At a place where the earthquake had rooted out a monster tree, a clear view could be had of the entire lagoon.
There lay the Bertha Hamilton, straining at her cable in the commotion of the waters that had been stirred up by the earthquake. And there was the small boat tossing about like a chip. But the captain wasted not a second glance at these. He had seized his binoculars and his gaze was fixed upon the reef. As he looked, his visage became ashen.
The passage through which the ship had come into the lagoon was entirely closed!
A barrier had been thrown up from the ocean floor, and this completely landlocked the lagoon in which the schooner rode at anchor. The lagoon had welcomed the ship as though with extended arms. Now those arms were closed and the hands were interlocked.
The captain groaned at the magnitude of the disaster.
"Oh, Daddy, dear!" cried Ruth, darting to his side. "Don't take it so hard! There'll be some way out!"
"Never!" cried the captain. "The Bertha Hamilton is done for. There's no way to get her out. She'll lie there now until she rots."
"And we're prisoners on this island," gasped Drew.
They looked at each other, appalled. This last statement seemed to be irrefutable. They were captives on the island, which seemed itself to be in the throes of dissolution.