CHAPTER XXVI
THE CAPTAIN'S LETTER
On a sofa in her well-furnished parlor reclined Edna, and on a table nearby lay several sheets of closely written letter-paper. She had beenreading, and now she was thinking--thinking very intently, which in thesedays was an unusual occupation with her. During her residence in SanFrancisco she had lived quietly but cheerfully. She had supplied herselfabundantly with books, she had visited theatres and concerts, she haddriven around the city, she had taken water excursions, she had visitedinteresting places in the neighborhood, and she had wandered among theshops, purchasing, in moderation, things that pleased her. For companyshe had relied chiefly on her own little party, although there had beencalls from persons who knew Captain Horn. Some of these people wereinteresting, and some were not, but they all went away thinking that thecaptain was a wonderfully fortunate man.
One thing which used to be a pleasure to Edna she refrained fromaltogether, and that was the making of plans. She had put her past lifeentirely behind her. She was beginning a new existence--what sort of anexistence she could not tell, but she was now living with thedeterminate purpose of getting the greatest good out of her life,whatever it might be.
Already she had had much, but in every respect her good fortunes were butpreliminary to something else. Her marriage was but the raising of thecurtain--the play had not yet begun. The money she was spending was butan earnest of something more expected. Her newly developed physicalbeauty, which she could not fail to appreciate, would fade away again,did it not continue to be nourished by that which gave it birth. But whatshe had, she had, and that she would enjoy. When Captain Horn shouldreturn, she would know what would happen next. This could not be arepetition of the life she was leading at the Palmetto Hotel, butwhatever the new life might be, she would get from it all that it mightcontain for her. She did not in the least doubt the captain's return, forshe believed in him so thoroughly that she felt--she knew--he would comeback and tell her of his failure or his success, and what she was to donext. But now she was thinking. She could not help it, for her tranquilmind had been ruffled.
Her cogitations were interrupted by the entrance of Ralph.
"I say, Edna," said he, throwing himself into an easy-chair, and placinghis hat upon another near by, "was that a returned manuscript thatCheditafa brought you this morning? You haven't been writing for themagazines, have you?"
"That was a letter from Captain Horn," she said.
"Whew!" he exclaimed. "It must be a whopper! What does he say? When is hecoming here? Give me some of the points of it. But, by the way, Edna,before you begin, I will say that I think it is about time he shouldwrite. Since the letter in which he told about the guano-bags and sentyou that lot of money--let me see, how long ago was that?"
"It was ten days ago," said his sister.
"Is that so? I thought it was longer than that. But no matter. Since thatletter came, I have been completely upset. I want to know what I am todo, and, whatever I am to do, I want to get at it. From what the captainwrote, and from what I remember of the size and weight of those goldbars, he must have got away with more than a million dollars--perhaps amillion and a half. Now, what part of that is mine? What am I to do withit? When am I to begin to prepare myself for the life I am to lead when Iget it? All this I want to know, and, more than that, I want to know whatyou are going to do. Now, if I had got to Acapulco, or any othercivilized spot, with a million dollars in solid gold, it would not havebeen ten days before I should have written to my family,--for I supposethat is what we are,--and should have told them what I was going to do,and how much they might count on. But I hope now that letter does tell?"
"The best thing to do," said Edna, taking up the letter from the table,"is to read it to you. But before I begin I want to say something, andthat is that it is very wrong of you to get into these habits ofcalculating about what may come to you. What is to come will come, andyou might as well wait for it without upsetting your mind by all sorts ofwild anticipations; and, besides this, you must remember that you arenot of age, and that I am your guardian, and whatever fortune may nowcome to you will be under my charge until you are twenty-one."
"Oh, I don't care about that," said Ralph. "We will have no troubleabout agreeing what is the best thing for me to do. But now go aheadwith the letter."
"'I am going to tell you'" (at the beginning of the second paragraph)"'of a very strange thing which happened to me since I last wrote. I willfirst state that after my guano-bags had all been safely stored in thewarerooms I have hired, I had a heavy piece of work getting the packagesof gold out of the bags, and in packing the bars in small, stout boxes Ifound in the City of Mexico and had sent down here. In looking around forboxes which would suit my purpose, I discovered these, which had beenused for stereotype plates. They were stamped on the outside, and justwhat I wanted, being about as heavy after I packed them with gold as theywere when they were filled with type-metal. This packing I had to doprincipally at night, when I was supposed to be working in a littleoffice attached to the rooms. As soon as this was done, I sent all theboxes to a safe-deposit bank in Mexico, and there the greater part ofthem are yet. Some I have shipped to the mint in San Francisco, some havegone North, and I am getting rid of the rest as fast as I can.
"'The gold bars, cast in a form novel to all dealers, have excited a gooddeal of surprise and questioning, but for this I care very little. Mymain object is to get the gold separated as many miles as possible fromthe guano, for if the two should be connected in the mind of any one whoknew where the guano was last shipped from, I might have cause foranxiety. But as the bars bear no sort of mark to indicate that they werecast by ancient Peruvians, and, so far as I can remember,--and I havevisited several museums in South America,--these castings are not likeany others that have come down to us from the times of the Incas, thegold must have been cast in this simple form merely for convenience intransportation and packing. Some people may think it is California gold,some may think it comes from South America, but, whatever they think,they know it is pure gold, and they have no right to doubt that itbelongs to me. Of course, if I were a stranger it might be different, butwherever I have dealt I am known, or I send a good reference. And now Iwill come to the point of this letter.
"'Three days ago I was in my office, waiting to see a man to whom I hopedto sell my stock of guano, when a man came in,--but not the one Iexpected to see,--and if a ghost had appeared before me, I could not havebeen more surprised. I do not know whether or not you remember the twoAmerican sailors who were the first to go out prospecting, after Mr.Rynders and his men left us, and who did not return. This man was one ofthem--Edward Shirley by name.'"
"I remember him perfectly!" cried Ralph. "And the other fellow was GeorgeBurke. On board the _Castor_ I used to talk to them more than to any ofthe other sailors."
"'But astonished as I was,'" Edna went on to read, "'Shirley did not seemat all surprised, but came forward and shook hands most heartily. He saidhe had read in a newspaper that I had been rescued, and was doingbusiness in Acapulco, and he had come down on purpose to find me. I toldhim how we had given up him and his mate for lost, and then, as he hadread a very slim account of our adventures, I told him the whole story,taking great care, as you may guess, not to say anything about thetreasure mound. He did not ask any questions as to why I did not comeback with the rest of you, but was greatly troubled when he heard of themurders of every man of our crew except himself and Burke and Maka.
"'When I had finished, he told me his story, which I will condense asmuch as possible. When he and Burke started out, they first began tomake their way along the slope of the rocky ridge which ended in ourcaves, but they found this very hard work, so they soon went down to thesandy country to the north. Here they shot some little beast or other,and while they were hunting another one, up hill and down dale, theyfound night was coming on, and they were afraid to retrace their stepsfor fear they might come to trouble in the darkness. So they ate whatthey had wi
th them, and camped, and the next morning the mountains to theeast seemed to be so near them that they thought it much easier to pushon instead of coming back to us. They thought that when they got to thefertile country they would find a settlement, and then they might be ableto do something for the rest of the party, and it would be much wiser togo ahead than to turn back. But they found themselves greatly mistaken.Mountains in the distance, seen over a plain, appear very much nearerthan they are, and these two poor fellows walked and walked, until theywere pretty nearly dead. The story is a long one as Shirley told it tome, but just as they were about giving up entirely, they were found by alittle party of natives, who had seen them from a long distance and hadcome to them.
"'After a great deal of trouble,--I believe they had to carry Burke agood part of the way,--the natives got them to their huts at the foot ofthe mountains, and took care of them. These people told Shirley--he knowsa little Spanish--that it was a piece of rare good luck that they foundthem, for it was very seldom they went so far out into the desert.
"'In a day or two the two men went on to a little village in themountains, and there they tried to get up an expedition to come to ourassistance. They knew that we had food enough to last for a week or two,but after that we must be starved out. But nobody would do anything, andthen they went on to another town to see what they could do there.'"
"Good fellows!" exclaimed Ralph.
"Indeed, they were," said Edna. "But wait until you hear what they didnext.
"'Nobody in this small town,'" she read on, "'was willing to join Burkeand Shirley in their proposed expedition, and no wonder; for crossingthose deserts is a dangerous thing, and most people said it would beuseless anyway, as it would be easier for us to get away by sea than byland. At this time Burke was taken sick, and for a week or two Shirleythought he was going to die. Of course, they had to stay where they were,and it was a long time before Burke was able to move about. Then theymight have gone into the interior until they came to a railroad, and sohave got away, for they had money with them, but Shirley told me theycould not bear to do that without knowing what had become of us. They didnot believe there was any hope for us, unless the mate had come back withassistance, and they had not much faith in that, for if a storm had comeup, such as had wrecked the Castor, it would be all over with Mr.Rynders's boat.
"'But even if we had perished on that desolate coast, they wanted toknow it and carry the news to our friends, and so they both determined,if the thing could be done, to get back to the coast and find out whathad become of us. They went again to the little village where they hadbeen taken by the natives who found them, and there, by promises of bigpay,--at least, large for those poor Peruvians,--they induced six ofthem to join in an expedition to the caves. They did not think they hadany reason to suppose they would find any one alive, but still, besidesthe provisions necessary for the party there and back, they carriedsomething extra.
"'Well, they journeyed for two days, and then there came up awind-storm, hot and dry, filling the air with sand and dust, so thatthey could not see where they were going, and the natives said theyought all to go back, for it was dangerous to try to keep on in such astorm. But our two men would not give up so soon, and they made a campin a sheltered place, and determined to press on in the morning, whenthey might expect the storm to be over. But in the morning they foundthat every native had deserted them. The wind had gone down, and thefellows must have started back before it was light. Then Shirley andBurke did not know what to do. They believed that they were nearer thecoast than the mountains, and as they had plenty of provisions,--for thenatives had left them nearly everything,--they thought they would try topush on, for a while at least.
"'There was a bit of rising ground to the east, and they thought if theycould get on the top of that they might get a sight of the ocean, andthen discover how far away it was. They reached the top of the risingground, and they did not see the ocean, but a little ahead of them, in asmooth stretch of sand, was something which amazed them a good deal morethan if it had been the sea. It was a pair of shoes sticking up out ofthe sand. They were an old pair, and appeared to have legs to them. Theywent to the spot, and found that these shoes belonged to a man who wasentirely covered by sand, with the exception of his feet, and dead, ofcourse. They got the sand off of him, and found he was a white man, insailor's clothes. First they had thought he might be one of our party,but they soon perceived that this was a mistake, for they had never seenthe man before. He was dried up until he was nothing but a skeleton withskin over it, but they could have recognized him if they had known himbefore. From what they had heard of the rainless climate of the Peruviancoast, and the way it had of drying up dead animals of all sorts, theyimagined that this man might have been there for years. He was lying onhis back, with his arms folded around a bundle, and when they tried tomove this bundle, they found it was very heavy. It was something wrappedup in a blanket and tied with a cord, and when they opened the bundle,they were pretty nearly struck dumb; for they saw it held, as Shirleyexpressed it, about a peck of little hunks of gold.
"'They were utterly astounded by this discovery, and utterly unable tomake head or tail of it. What that man, apparently an English sailor, hadbeen doing out in the middle of this desert with a bundle of gold, andwhere he got it, and who he was, and where he was going to, and how longhe had been dead, were things beyond their guessing. They dragged thebody out of its burrow in the sand, and examined the pockets, but therewas nothing in the trousers but an old knife. In the pocket of the shirt,however, were about a dozen matches, wrapped up in an old envelope. Thiswas addressed, in a very bad hand, to A. McLeish, Callao, Peru, but theycould not make out the date of the postmark. These things were all therewas about the man that could possibly identify him, for his few clotheswere such as any sailor would wear, and were very old and dirty.
"'But the gold was there. They examined it and scraped it, and they weresure it was pure gold. There was no doubt in their minds as to what theywould do about this. They would certainly carry it away with them. Butbefore they did so, Burke wanted to hunt around and see if they could notfind more of it, for the mass of metal was so heavy he did not believethe sailor could have carried it very far. But after examining thecountry as far as the eye could reach, Shirley would not agree to this.They could see nothing but wide-stretching sands, and no place where itseemed worth while to risk their lives hunting for treasure. Their bestplan was to get away with what they had found, and now the point waswhether or not they should press on to the coast or go back; but as theycould see no signs of the sea, they soon came to the conclusion that thebest thing to do if they wanted to save their lives and their treasurewas to get back to the mountains.
"'I forgot to say that as soon as Shirley began to talk about the deadman and his gold, I left the warehouse in charge of Maka, and took him tomy hotel, where he told me the rest of his story in a room with the doorlocked. I must try to take as many reefs in what followed as I can. Idon't believe that the finding of the gold made any difference in theirplans, for, of course, it would have been foolish for them to try to getto us by themselves. They cut the blanket in half and made up the goldinto two packages, and then they started back for the mountains, takingwith them all the provisions they could carry in addition to the gold,and leaving their guns behind them. Shirley said their loads got heavierand heavier as they ploughed through the sand, and it took them threedays to cover the ground they had gone over before in two. When they gotto the village, they found scarcely a man in the place, for the fellowswho had deserted them were frightened, and kept out of sight. They stayedthere all night, and then they went on with their bundles to the nextvillage, where they succeeded in getting a couple of travelling-bags,into which they put their gold, so that they might appear to be carryingtheir clothes.
"'After a good deal of travel they reached Callao, and there they madeinquiries for A. McLeish, but nobody knew of him. Of course, he was asailor who had had a letter sent there. They went u
p to Lima and sold afew pieces of the gold, but, before they did it, they got a heavy hammerand pounded them up, so that no one would know what their original shapewas. Shirley said he could not say exactly why they did this, but thatthey thought, on the whole, it would be safer. Then they went to SanFrancisco on the first vessel that sailed. They must have had a good dealof talk on the voyage in regard to the gold, and it was in consequence oftheir discussions that Shirley wanted so much to find me. They hadcalculated, judging by the pieces they had sold, that the gold they hadwith them was worth about twelve thousand dollars, and they both thoughtthey ought to do the right thing about it. In the first place, they triedin San Francisco to find out something about McLeish, but no one knew ofsuch a man. They then began to consider some persons they did know about.They had heard in Lima that some of the people of the _Castor_ had beenrescued, and if any of them were hard up, as most likely they were,Shirley and Burke thought that by rights they ought to have some of thetreasure that they had found. Shirley said at first they had gone on theidea that each of them would have six thousand dollars and could go intobusiness for himself, but after a while they thought this would be a meanthing to do. They had all been shipwrecked together, and two of them hadhad a rare piece of good luck, and they thought it no more than honorableto share this good luck with the others, so they concluded the best thingto do was to see me about it. Burke left this business to Shirley,because he wanted to go to see his sister who lives in St. Louis.
"'They had not formed any fixed plan of division, but they believed that,as they had had the trouble, and, in fact, the danger, of getting thegold, they should have the main share, but they considered that they hadenough to help out any of the original party who might be hard up formoney." Of course, we must always remember," said Shirley, in finishingup his story, "that if we can find the heirs of McLeish, the moneybelongs to them. But, even in that case, Burke and I think we ought tokeep a good share of it to pay us for getting it away from that beastlydesert." Here I interrupted him. "Don't you trouble yourself any moreabout McLeish," I said. "That money did not belong to him. He stole it.""How do you know that, and who did he steal it from?" cried Shirley."He stole it from me," said I.
"'At this point Shirley gave such a big jump backward that his chairbroke beneath him, and he went crashing to the floor. He had made a starta good deal like that when I told him how the Rackbirds had been sweptout of existence when I had opened the flood-gate that let out the watersof the lake, and I had heard the chair crack then. Now, while he had beentelling me about his finding that man in the sand, with his load of gold,I had been listening, but I had also been thinking, and almost any mancan think faster than another one can talk, and so by this time I hadmade up my mind what I was going to say to Shirley. I would tell him allabout my finding the gold in the mound. It touched me to think that thesepoor fellows, who did all that they could to help us escape, and then,when they got safely home, started immediately to find us in order thatthey might give us some of that paltry twelve thousand dollars--give tous, who are actually millionaires, and who may be richer yet! It wouldnot do to let any of the crew get ahead of their captain in fair dealing,and that was one reason why I determined to tell him. Then, there wasanother point. Ever since I have been here, selling and storing the goldI brought away, I have had a heavy load on my mind, and that was thethought of leaving all the rest of the gold in that mound for the nextperson who might come along and find it.
"'I devised plan after plan of getting more of it, but none of them wouldwork. Two things were certain: One was that I could not get any more awayby myself. I had already done the best I could and all I could in thatline. And the second thing was that if I should try for any more of thetreasure, I must have people to help me. The plan that suited me best wasto buy a small vessel, man it, go down there, load up with the gold, andsail away. There would be no reasonable chance that any one would bethere to hinder me, and I would take in the cargo just as if it wereguano, or anything else. Then I would go boldly to Europe. I have lookedinto the matter, and I have found that the best thing I can do, if Ishould get that gold, would be to transport it to Paris, where I coulddistribute it better than I could from any other point. But the troublewas, where could I get the crew to help me? I have four black men, and Ithink I could trust them, as far as honesty goes, but they would not beenough to work the ship, and I could not think of any white men with whomI would trust my life and that gold in the same vessel. But now theyseemed to pop up right in front of me.
"'I knew Shirley and Burke pretty well when they were on the _Castor_,and after what Shirley told me I knew them better, and I believed theywere my men. To be sure, they might fail me, for they are only human, butI had to have somebody to help me, and I did not believe there were anyother two men who would be less likely to fail me. So by the time Shirleyhad finished his yarn I was ready to tell him the whole thing, andpropose to him and Burke to join me in going down after the rest of thetreasure and taking it to France.'"
At this point Ralph sprang to his feet, his eyes flashing. "Edna!" hecried, "I say that your Captain Horn is treating me shamefully. In thefirst place, he let me come up here to dawdle about, doing nothing, whenI ought to have been down there helping him get more of that treasure. Ifancy he might have trusted me, and if I had been with him, we shouldhave brought away nearly twice as much gold, and at this minute weshould be twice as well off as we are. But this last is a thousand timesworse. Here he is, going off on one of the most glorious adventures ofthis century, and he leaves me out. What does he take me for? Does hethink I am a girl? When he was thinking of somebody to go with him, whydidn't he think of me, and why doesn't he think of me now? He has noright to leave me out!"
"I look at the matter in a different light," said his sister. "CaptainHorn has no right to take you off on such a dangerous adventure, and,more than that, he has no right to take you from me, and leave me alonein the world. He once made you the guardian of all that treasure, and nowhe considers you as my guardian. You did not desert the first trust, andI am sorry to think you want to desert the other."
"That's all very fine," said Ralph. "You blow hot and you blow cold atthe same time. When you want me to keep quiet and do what I am told, youtell me I am not of age, and that you are my guardian; and when you wantme to stay here and make myself useful, you tell me I am wonderfullytrusty, and that I must be your guardian."
Edna smiled. "That is pretty good reasoning," she said, "but there isn'tany reasoning needed in this case. No matter what Captain Horn may say ordo, I would not let you go away from me."
Ralph sat down again. "There is some sense in what you say," he said. "Ifthe captain should come to grief, and I were with him, we would both begone. Then you would have nobody left to you. But that does not entirelyclear him. Even if he thought I ought not to go with him, he ought tohave said something about it, and put in a word or so about his beingsorry. Is there any more of the letter?"
"Yes," said Edna, "there is more of it," and she began to read again:
"'I intended to stop here and give you the rest of the matter in anotherletter, but now, as I have a good chance to write, I think it is betterto keep on, although this letter is already as long as the pay-roll ofthe navy. When I told Shirley about the gold, he made a bounce prettynearly as big as the others, but this time I had him in a stoutarm-chair, and he did no damage. He had in his pocket one of the goldbars he spoke of, and I had one of mine in my trunk, and when we put themtogether they were as like as two peas. What I told him dazed him atfirst, and he did not seem properly to understand what it all meant, but,after a little, a fair view of it came to him, and for hours we talkedover the matter. Who the man was who had gone there after we left did notmatter, for he could never come hack again.
"'We decided that what we should do was to go and get that gold as soonas possible, and Shirley agreed to go with me. He believed we could trustBurke to join us, and, with my four black men,--who have really becomegood sailors,--we would h
ave a crew of seven men altogether, with whichwe could work a fair-sized brig to Havre or some other French port.Before he went away our business was settled. He agreed to go with me asfirst mate, to do his best to help me get that gold to France, toconsider the whole treasure as mine, because I had discovered it,--Iexplained the reason to him, as I did to you,--and to accept as regularpay one hundred dollars a day, from then until we should land the cargoin a European port, and then to leave it to me how much more I would givehim. I told him there were a lot of people to be considered, and I wasgoing to try to make the division as fair as possible, and he said he waswilling to trust it to me.
"'If we did not get the gold, he was to have eighteen dollars a monthfor the time he sailed with me, and if we got safely back, I would givehim his share of what I had already secured. He was quite sure that Burkewould make the same agreement, and we telegraphed him to comeimmediately. I am going to be very careful about Burke, however, andsound him well before I tell him anything.
"'Yesterday we found our vessel. She arrived in port a few days ago, andis now unloading. She is a small brig, and I think she will do; in fact,she has got to do. By the time Burke gets here I think we shall be readyto sail. Up to that time we shall be as busy as men can be, and it willbe impossible for me to go to San Francisco. I must attend to theshipping of the treasure I have stored in the City of Mexico. I shallsend some to one place and some to another, but want it all turned intocoin or bonds before I start. Besides, I must be on hand to see Burke themoment he arrives. I am not yet quite sure about him, and if Shirleyshould let anything slip while I was away our looked-for fortune might belost to us.'
"And that," said Edna, "is all of the letter that I need read, exceptthat he tells me he expects to write again before he starts, and thathis address after he sails will be Wraxton, Fuguet & Co., Americanbankers in Paris."