CHAPTER XXIX
HOW THE ENEMY PERISH AND THE MONKEY DISCOVERS THE TREASURE
It was some minutes before Carlos could hold up his head, so badlyshaken was he. I went all over him, and had soon satisfied myself therewere no broken bones. He had been saved by the very mass of vines thathad before preserved me from death. His fall had been but forty feet,and mine had been many times that; a fall, after a manner of saying,for, as will be remembered, I slid down the rope halliard the greaterpart of the descent.
I ran through the wood to the creek, and brought Carlos a drink; and itwas then he got to his feet. We stood looking on the now quite inanimateform of Duran, for a little, neither of us speaking his thoughts. Icould not tell by Carlos' stoic features what there was in his mind; butin mine there was admixture, of some sorrow, that the presence of deathalways puts into one when excitement is gone, but more of a sense ofelation that Duran had come by his death in the manner he had. Forwhatever intent Carlos had entertained in his mind, he had not actuallyslain the man with his own hand. And there on the ground, too, lay aknife that Duran had tried to use on Carlos, who was without a weapon ofany sort, his own knife being in the camp.
It was time we were on the way to join our friends. I had been hearingoccasional shots, but when we turned away from Duran's body, all soundshad ceased. We crossed the ridge, and in a little had come to theclearing. There was no one in sight; so we went round within the edge ofthe wood back of the huts; and as we neared the cliffs my nostrils werefilled with the odor of sulphur. And we had no sooner got to the edge ofthe little open space in front of the cave, than Robert was upon us andpulled us to the ground. He had us to crawl after him to where Norrisand Marat lay, gun in hand, behind a fallen tree-trunk.
They had their eyes on the mouth of the cave, and looking over there, Isaw a curious thing. A fire burned at the very entrance of the cave; andon the one side, Andy Hawkins lingered beside a pile of dried brush-woodand dead palm leaves. This fuel he cast on the flames, from time totime. Ray and the black boy soon came to view, back of Hawkins, witharms filled with more fuel which they added to the pile.
I now saw how it was; the enemy had taken refuge in the cave, and nowour party were smoking them out. The smoke, I saw, was drawn into thecavern as into a chimney; and I remembered how, when I was in the cave,I had felt the draft of air going through. I looked up the cliff-side;and there, far to the left, I saw a wee column of smoke going up from acleft. And then--there was that odor of sulphur again. Smoking them out!Ay, but how smoking them out? My flesh crept with the horror of thething. This was the miserable Hawkins' doing. I remembered now that wordhe had let drop about his taking care of them if we should but drivethem into the cave--and his whispering in Norris' ear. I felt sick.
"Are we doing right?" I said to Norris, beside whom I crouched.
"Right!" he said, turning an angry look at me. "Didn't they plan to eatour hearts this night? And didn't they attack us, twenty guns againstfour--the murderous, child-eating cannibals? And isn't smoking as easy adeath as hanging? What do you want?"
I was effectively silenced. And then I thought, too, on the alternative.Suppose we retire and let the blacks out. Would they go their ways andlet us alone? I knew better. They would simply set a strong guard on theonly exit; and then collect many more of their voodoo comrades; and theywould have our hearts for a voodoo feast in the end. So I gave in tothis thing that was going on, distasteful as I found it.
I watched Andy Hawkins over there. That thin body of his squirmed withhis infirmity, and made him seem to be in the throes of a heathen dance,as he plied the fire with the fuel. The volumes of yellow-white smokecontinued to pour into the cave's mouth. It was burning sulphur, as Ilearned.
It may have been two hours that we lay behind that fallen tree, and thesun was mounted well on toward the zenith. Then Norris and Maratconferred, and decided that the enemy must be in a state beyond allpower of striking back. So we approached the fire and pulled it awayfrom the cave's mouth. But nearly another hour passed before we venturedin. Norris took the lead with a battery lamp, the rest of us following.
A little way within, we came upon a body that lay in a pool of blood. Hewas one that sought to rush out, and got a ball in his body. Then atvarious portions of the passage we saw three more blacks, all inanimate.And at the uttermost confines of the cave, just below that narrowopening out--the chimney, as it were--all the rest lay in variouspostures, where they fell, choked by the fumes.
"Well, they all got just what they earned," observed Norris. "The worldwould be better, if all of their kind were here with them."
"Yes," agreed Jean Marat, "but Duran, he ees not here. I am ver' sorryhe ees not here weeth hees voodoo frien's."
I had not told of Duran's accident at the foot of the ladder. Now I toldit.
"Ah! You don't say!" said Norris. "Are you sure he's dead?"
"Yes," I assured him. "His skull was fractured."
"We're in great luck," said Norris. "Now we've got the whole secret ofthis place among us. And Carlos, you had a narrow escape."
"Yes," said Carlos. "And my father, hees murderer, he dead."
We dug a long trench just without that cave; and it was well past noonwhen we had dragged out the blacks and buried them in it, with the fivethat had fallen at the clearing. We took a meal before we went down thevale, and placed Duran and that other black in another grave.
It was while we were dining (and it was a pair of Duran's chickens thatmade our feast) that Andy Hawkins told how he had come by the conceit ofthe sulphur fumes. It was one day that he had watched Duran, when hetook a chicken tied by the legs, into the cave. Duran had then set atin, holding the sulphur, at the entrance, and built a fire about it. Anhour or two later, he had brought out the chicken, quite dead.
"I thought to myself then," continued Hawkins, "An' w'y does the boss bedoin' of that thing? And then I got the idea. 'Ah, 'ee's a slick one,the boss is,' sez I to myself. ''Ee's after findin' a easy way, maybe,to get rid of anyone as is in 'is way 'ere. And that might be you, Handy'Awkins, and you'll better keep out of that cave!'"
We took possession of the palm-thatched huts; and made beds, of palmfans for mattresses, which was pretty much all the bedding that wasrequired, though Duran had blankets enough to cover us all in the eventof a chill night. Out between the structures was the kitchen; andthis was no more than a kind of shallow box, sand filled, andelevated on four posts, to make the fire on; with overhead aroof--palm-thatched--for shade, and protection against rain.
Our day had been pretty full, and when supper had been disposed of, allwere ready to stretch out at full length for a needed rest. It was notaltogether such a cheerful company as you might suppose. Even Ray wasmore dashed in spirit than I have seen him in many a day. You might saythat we had every reason to be in high feather, having so lately beendelivered of a great peril; not to say that we were in addition well ridof Duran, who alone was in a position--rightly or wrongly--to disputewith us the possession of this gold-paved vale.
But if you think we should have felt blithe that night, it will bebecause you have never been in the presence of so much death. I know thethought worked continually in my mind, of that score and more ofhumans--however villainous they may have been--that but a few hoursbefore had danced with life and vigour, and were now already beginningto rot in their graves. Only Norris and Hawkins refused to be downcast;Norris, because he had been accustomed to battle, and had learnedthrough discipline to rebate his natural qualms; with Hawkins, it washis dulled moral sense.
"Now tomorrow," said Norris, "we must find that place where Duran hasbeen storing the gold." (Duran's taking off had so far softened him atleast, that he refrained from referring to him as "the skunk.") Hecontinued, "I know blooming well he has taken out of this place only asmall part of what has been mined."
And Hawkins (and the black boy, too, when questioned) agreed withNorris.
"Thad Duran was ver' clever," said Jean Marat. "He find one ver' goodplace t
o hide thad gold."
And now, it would never be guessed how we came upon a clue to that spot.It came about this way. Although we turned in early, we were thatwearied that day came and caught us, every one, sound asleep. I was thefirst to wake; and it was with the feel of a wee hand upon my face. And
when I opened my eyes, there was the monkey. And he held out to me oneof Duran's sections of bamboo.
I sat up, startled, and took the thing he held out, and it was weighty,like those others laden with the gold.
The monkey observed me narrowly, as though to gauge the degree of myinterest in the object he had given me. Then he took my hand; andwithout stopping to slip on my shoes, I allowed the little animal tolead me forth.
My heart thumped in excitement of anticipation; I was filled with ahope, as we went into the wood back of the huts, making direct towardthe cliffs. He led me to where the vines, in a dense mass, went climbingup the rocky wall to a very considerable height. There he let go my handand leaped upon the vines, and began to climb, looking over hisshoulder, as if expecting me to follow monkey-fashion.
Then, seeing me hesitate, the monkey came down, and took me by the handagain. And, curious, I stepped forward, to find that where the vinessprang from the ground the wall ascended, for some six or eight feet, ina gentle slope that I could climb with ease.
When I got so far, and spread apart the vines, to my amazement Idiscovered that what I had thought was a part of the cliff wall, was noreal piece of the cliff at all, but just a ridge; and behind it, andconcealed by the mass of vines, was a bit of a dingle, perhaps fifteenfeet across. The monkey and I descended into the place; and as my eyesbecame accustomed to the comparative darkness, I made out the lowentrance to a cavern.
Stooping low, I followed the monkey in. Twenty steps, and I heard thesqueaking monkey-talk at my feet. Then I felt another bamboo cylinderpressed to my hand; and I stooped to feel a heap of the bamboo, ofunknown proportions. I took up several of the cylinders. All were heavy.
At last we had the thing we sought. And it took a monkey to find it forus! My battery lamp was out there in the hut; I did not tarry toinvestigate further, but hurried out; and, followed by the nimble monkeygot back to my friends, who were now astir.
The black boy was kindling a fire on the elevated hearth; Norris stoodlooking on. At my approach he turned.
"Hello!" he said. "And where----"
He cut off his speech at sight of the bamboo I carried in my hands.
"Say, now!" he began again, and he seized and hefted the things. "Wherehave you been picking up these?"
By this time all the party were crowded round, and the monkey scrambledto my shoulder. I told the story of the find.
"Aw," began Ray, "he's just trying to make monkeys of the whole crowd."
They all wanted to fondle the animal, who, scolding, wormed himself outof their hands and scurried up a post to the kitchen roof.
"Now you know I told you, Norris," said Ray, "It would be Wayne thatwould find it."
"It's all right, Ray," I told him. "I don't mind your giving my name tothe monk."
There would be no breakfast till they had seen the place.
"We've got to see how much there is there," declared Norris.
And off we went, the monkey again leading the way, over the littlerising, through the curtain of vines, and into the cave. The lightsillumined the place, and the sounds of amazement echoed. For there, onthe floor, heaped on a tarpaulin, showed bushels of yellow, glintinggold-dust and nuggets. And there were beside it two greater piles of thebamboo cylinders, the one heap already gold-laden, as we found; and theother awaiting the filling. On the ground stood a tin holding pitch, forsealing; and there were small bricks of cork, and pieces oflife-jackets, torn open to extract the cork. A ship's lantern stood on aprojection of rock.
"I never saw such a pile of the stuff!" spoke Grant Norris, plunging hisfist in the yellow mass.
Many hands went in to feel of the precious commodity, and nuggets ofvarying size were held to the light. Even the monkey must imitate theothers, and enjoy the feel of the yellow stuff; and he insisted onpressing nugget after nugget into my hand.
Andy Hawkins had soon borrowed Robert's light, and with many jerks andgrimaces he poked about in the nooks and crannies in search ofsomething. I easily guessed what the thing was that he put above thegold in his interest; for it had been plain that Duran doled out thedrug to Hawkins in a fashion that best served his (Duran's) interest.And, having an eye on Hawkins's doings, I observed him at last to pounceon and bring out a little parcel from a nook, his face lighting up witha gleam of victory. Later in the day, when I had told Norris of thecircumstances, he bullied Hawkins into giving up the supply of drug,telling him that he (Norris) would perhaps be a better judge of dosagethan the patient himself.
Before we left that cave, we explored the place, to find that it was buta small affair, going in not above a hundred feet. It was a joyousbreakfast we sat down to at the huts, for we had now attained the thingwe sought; and we had every reason to believe that no one living,outside of our little party, had any knowledge of this hidden vale withits gold mine, so long ago discovered by the father of Carlos. And allour talk now turned on how we should get all that mined gold out andaboard the _Pearl_, and not forgetting that unknown portion of thetreasure that yet remained to be discovered on the isle out in Crow Bay.
"We can find that without much trouble," declared Robert.
"Yes," agreed Captain Marat, "We know ver' close where thad place ees.We take the schooner in to the bay, an' then eet will nod be so ver'hard to ged all of thad gold on board."
I observed that we seemed to be forgetting that black that Robert andCarlos had seen on the isle, and the schooner, _Orion_.
"Yes, I've been thinking of that," said Norris. "We'll have to begetting over there, or that crew'll be stealing a march on us."
In an hour we were off. Andy Hawkins and Black Boy were left behind, tokeep house. We promised them they'd see us back the second day at thelatest; and then it would not be long till they should have a sight ofthe world--again for the one, and for the first time for the other.
In that open bit, below the ladder, we stopped a moment beside the twomounds covering Duran and the black sentinel.
Grant Norris was looking down on that of Duran.
"Drop a tear on him," said Ray to Norris. "Think of all the fun andexcitement he gave you."
"He was a queer composition," observed Norris. "I've met many queercusses, but he's the first white cannibal I ever saw."
We soon had down the rope ladder; and when all had mounted to thecliff-top, we pulled up the halliard, for we had no real assurance thatthat ex-pickpocket, Hawkins, might not take it into his head to climbout and wander off to our betrayal.
When we got to our boat, a pair of us sat ourselves in Duran's canoe,and soon we were out on Crow Bay. It was with some satisfaction that wenoted the absence of any sail upon that water. Those black sailors ofDuran's had apparently not seen fit to venture in as yet in quest of thetreasure in the isle.
We crossed the end of the bay, and in time had joined Julian Lamartineand Rufe, aboard the _Pearl_.