CHAPTER XXIII
WHAT THE WATER HID
My thoughts flew. In a moment more I thrilled with an idea. Then Idashed into the water and got myself up to the little waterfall, made,as I have said, by a portion of the water coming round a rock andflowing over the edge of a flat shelf of rock.
I tried to look through that thin veil of liquid, failing which, Ibraved a shower and put my head through. In another moment I had mywhole body behind that little cascade. I crouched, sputtering, under therocky shelf. Then for eight or ten feet I crawled forward in thedarkness. Directly, the passage made a little turn to the right, and theground under my hands sloped upward. It may have been fifty feet, it mayhave been a hundred and fifty feet, that I had penetrated that cliff--myexcitement had taken no measure of the distance--when I found that Icould no longer feel the wall on either side. I was in a cavern ofunknown dimensions.
I could hear the rushing of water, below and to my left. A feeling ofexultation filled me almost to bursting; I had at last discoveredDuran's secret. I came to a stop, fearing to lose my exit. How I wishedfor my flashlight! I had come away leaving it aboard the _Pearl_.
I do not know how long I had tarried in that spot, when a beam of lightstruck down from above on my right. And then came sounds of some beingup there, and the light approached.
I retreated into the narrow passage by which I had come, ready toscramble out if there should be need. But soon the slant of the lightbeams showed me that the lamp had passed to the left, and I venturedforward again, and peeked around a projection of rock.
There was Duran's blackened face in the light of a lantern, which he wasin the act of hanging on some form of hook in the cavern wall. Thevault, I saw, was high, and at least fifty feet wide. It was down nearthe water that Duran was; and I saw him stoop and put his hand into thestream; and he fished out some sort of packet which he laid on thecavern floor. Time after time he reached down into the rushing water,and took out a packet each dive, till he had a pile on the floor thatwould measure a peck.
At last Duran sat himself on the cavern's floor, and he busied himselfwith untying knots and separating the objects he dealt with in twopiles. And next he rose to his feet and set to transporting one of hispiles to some niche that was out of the field of my eye.
Duran's next procedure was to gather the other pile into a sack. Andthis he took in hand and forthwith began to move back toward my part ofthe cavern.
I wormed my way down in my passage again, and when I had got a littleway from the cascade, I waited and listened. But he must have gone backthe way he had come. I ventured in again.
When I poked my head out of the passage into the cavern, there was nosign of Duran. But the lantern still hung where he had fixed it,throwing its light about that space.
I now ventured down to the scene of Duran's labors. There, completelyspanning the stream, and reaching down to its bed, was a network of somesort of tough fibre, reinforced with slender bamboo. Near at hand, in aniche, lay, in a pile near a foot high, short sections of bamboo asthick as my arm. I took up one in my hand. Even prepared as I was forthe discovery, its weight nevertheless startled me; it might have beensolid brass.
"At last this smells of the gold mine!" I thought to myself. He wouldhardly miss one of these. And after hefting in my hand a half-dozenmore, to satisfy myself that all were loaded, I retained that firstbamboo cylinder and hurried to my exit.
As I passed out on all fours through that little waterfall, I got afresh drenching. I waded on down the stream, and presently I heard avoice. It was Ray's; and he was over in our little camp.
It came into my mind to even up for some of the tricks Ray had playedme. So I trilled out a low whistle, and when I heard them coming, Iducked myself in the creek. I held my breath for as long a space as Icould manage, and then rose out of the water and made for the path,pretending not to see those petrified forms pedestaled on the creekbank. I went up the path and moved toward the camp, and when theyhurried forward--"Hello!" I said. "Are you folks back already?"
"Say, now!" began Ray. "What in Sam Hill! Are you playing alligator, ormermaid, or--"
"Playing!" I said. "I've had no time for play." With one hand I wasnursing the heavy cylinder that I now carried under my shirt.
"And what have you been doing?" demanded Norris, eyes big withperplexity.
And Carlos appeared no less mystified.
"I've been visiting the gold mine," I said simply.
Even Ray could not resist a look over to that spot in the stream where Ihad appeared to them out of the water.
"I thought I heard you whistle," he said.
"Dreaming some more," I suggested.
Norris got a long stick and began poking in the bottom of of the creek.
"Oh, not that way," I told him. "You have to say 'Open Sesame.'"
"Now look here, open up!" pressed Norris, dropping his pole.
"All right," I returned. And I produced the cylinder of bamboo.
"Well I'll--!" began Norris, hefting the thing. "Say, there's suresomething heavy in that thing. Where'd you--?" And again his eyes turnedquizzically toward the water.
"You know what I told you this morning," broke in Ray, taking thesection of bamboo in his turn of scrutiny.
"Yes," assented Norris, "you said Wayne would have it all figuredout--what became of Duran--by the time we came back. And that's onereason why I was ready to come back as soon as I found those two littlecolors."
And Norris showed me two little flakes of gold he'd washed out of theblack sand in the creek-bed.
"But open up now, Wayne," he continued. "Tell us."
"Well you see," I began, "you, Norris, would have it that Duran had gonethrough the woods by the lianas; and you, Ray, insisted on it that hewent through the air. Now none of us had thought of his going throughthe water--"
Instinctively we all looked into the creek, and there I discovered thatthe water had gone muddy again.
"Look there, see that!" I pointed. "You know how clear that water hasalways been. And now see how riled it is."
They looked intently as if expecting to see Duran appear out of thestream as I had seemed to do.
"Aw, say now, what are you giving us?" said Ray.
Norris and Carlos were already moving up toward the spot where the waterpoured out of the cliff. But before they were half the way, the streamcleared again.
And then I went on to tell them how I had discovered the hole behind thelittle cascade. And they were open-mouthed till I had completed mynarration of Duran's activities in that cavern in the cliff.
"Well now, and to think--" began Norris. "Anyway that proves that thegold mine is on a continuation of the creek where I found the colors.That creek goes into the rocks up there and comes out into some kind ofa basin, and then goes into the cliffs again and comes out here, like atrain going through two tunnels."
"Brava!" cried Ray. "Now you ought to have told us that yesterday, andsaved all that trouble."
Norris had to penetrate the little cascade and see the beginning of thepassage into the cliff. When he came out, it was decided to wait fornight and the coming of Captain Marat and Robert, with the lantern,before going into the cavern. For, since Duran was working by day hewould doubtless sleep at night.
"Well," said Ray, when we got to the camp. "I want to see what makesthat thing so heavy."
The cylinder of bamboo was plugged at the one end with a section ofwood, the edges being sealed with raw pitch. We heated the thing at thefire, and then pried out the plug of wood.
"Hooray!" cried Norris and Ray together, as I poured the contents into atin.
There was fine dust of gold mixed with many small nuggets.
"How many of those things did you say you saw in there?" asked Ray.
"I didn't count them," I returned. But I showed with my hands thedimensions of that space that was filled with them.
"And that's only the beginning," said Norris. "Say, Carlos, we've foundyour gold mine," he continued, seiz
ing that black by the shoulder.
"Yes, we find him now," grinned Carlos. "Maybe I find where my fatherburied." And his face went serious again with the sadness I saw there,something that was doubtless hatred of Duran, his father's murderer,showed too. And I wondered--and conjectured--what was in Carlos' mind,and shuddered.
Marat and Robert came at last, in the dark, and they marvelled at thetale of success we had to tell them.
"But, Bob," said Ray, in the midst of the tale, "to think that Waynewould play a trick like that on me!--who nursed him through measles,mumps, chicken pox, cholera morbus, and a stubbed toe, and even fed himup, dozens of times, on all-day suckers!--to pop out of the water likethat, and bow, and tell me he had been playing Jonah, and that the whalehad just stopped behind to wipe his feet on the mat and would be indirectly."
Everything, Captain Marat told us, was going well on the _Pearl_; andJulian, good lad, was content to wait indefinitely, while we searchedfor the mine.
Fortunately, Robert and Marat had brought the lantern, and Robert hadthought to bring along the electric flashlights; and most of us weresupplied with matches, protected from the damp in tightly corked vials.We were soon at the little cascade, and crawling, one after the other,pushed through the curtain of water.
"I say," began Ray, sputtering, "I feel fit to enter the holy templenow."
The lantern was set alight, and I led the way up into the interior ofthe cliff. My comrades feasted their eyes on the accumulation ofgold-laden bamboo cylinders; and then they must investigate that net inthe stream.
"Now I'll say that's a clever stunt that skunk played here," declaredNorris. "Instead of toting that gold around some difficult path, hemakes the creek carry it straight down here near the outlet. And he tiespieces of some buoyant stuff to each of the cylinders to make it float."
"Here's what he used," said Robert, who had picked up a small block ofcork that he thrust into the lantern light.
"Sure, that's it," said Norris, taking it into his fingers. "He got hiscork out of a life-belt, and he makes his little cork bricks do dutytime after time. There's no telling how much gold they've floated downhere."
"And what do you suppose he does with it when he takes it out of here?"asked Ray.
"He take eet to thad little islan' down in Crow Bay," offered CaptainMarat.
"He's planning to take over there all that he's got mined," addedRobert, looking to me for confirmation of his surmise.
"Yes," I assented. "And then he'll likely clear out, and keep away fromthis region till we've all had time to forget him, and the coast isclear again."
"That's it," agreed Norris. "But now we're on his trail again, let's seethe place it leads to." And he turned up that incline, within thecavern, down which I had seen Duran come during the day.
The climb was rather arduous, as the ascent was somewhat sudden, thoughit was smooth going under foot. We went single file, all followingNorris, who was in the van, carrying the lantern.
When we had climbed to a height of perhaps a hundred feet, we came to anexit of the cavern. We could hear the rustling of the leaves of trees inthe night breeze, and stars showed above. The path continued on up,apparently on a ledge; and we must finally have attained a height ofthree hundred feet, when something like a plateau presented to the left.We took the path of least resistance, picking our way carefully amongrocks and scattered growth of trees. There was but the one waysufficiently free of obstacles, and on this road we moved without hitchor hindrance, till we finally brought up sharp at the edge of aprecipice. Further progress appeared impossible, wanting wings, or somemechanical means of descent. It was a black abyss of unknown dimensionsthat lay at our feet.
"It's down yonder somewhere we'll find our gold mine," said GrantNorris. "And how to get down, that's----"
"It's no trick to get down," interrupted Ray, "but I'm thinking you'llbe all out of the notion for the gold mine when you land there."
My mind full of the notion to discover a stone stairway, or some othermedium for descent used by Duran, I moved to the right, where a clump ofcedars showed, outlined against the starry sky. It was here my spirit ofenterprise nearly cost me my life, and did deprive me of the use of mylimb and the companionship of my comrades for the span of a day. I gotin among the cedars, and threw a gleam from my flashlight about theground, an impulse prompting me to risk the chance that it might be seenby Duran somewhere below.
In that flash of light my eyes got on a small rope, hanging from thelimbs above me, the other end gone somewhere down the cliff below. I gotmy hand on the rope and gave a gentle pull. It was fast above. I made abolder pull. It gave several feet; and that unexpected and suddenrelease lost me my balance, and I toppled off the brow of the precipice,clutching the rope for dear life. Wildly I sought to wind a leg aboutthe rope, for it burned and tore my fingers beyond endurance. I musthave fallen forty or fifty feet, when I struck a bit of a ledge; but myfall was broken by brush and vines, and it was these vines saved mylife, for they held me in some of their tangle till I finally brought upwith a thump at the bottom.
I was a good deal shocked, but strange though it seems, throughout thatfall I had not experienced a moment's fear for my life. There was asharp ache in my right ankle. I wiggled my toes, and satisfied myselfthat there were no bones broken, but a step or two convinced me I was tobe a lame brother for a greater or less period.