The Isle of Seven Moons/Chapter 31
CHAPTER XXXI
THE RUBY
Of a truth Sally felt that the gold—if there was any after all, she firmly repeated to herself—had already been ensanguined sufficiently to justify Spanish Dick's prophecies. Still the gypsy insisted on reassuring her, thus pleasantly:
"It is only the leetle beginning, Señorita. When you speak so soft to El Capitain and put your pretty cheek up against his much whiskers—so—he always say 'yes.' You speek to heem now, and tell heem to sail away in the beeg ship, pronto, yes?"
In the early morning, when last night's memories hung like a fog over the dreary, drenched surface of her consciousness, she was tempted to follow his advice.
She thought of Ben and shuddered. Never had she seen him as he was on the night before. Had he, too, been bewitched by some unholy spell of the place? They had better sail away.
But, after all, she ought to be glad that it was the brute with the ugly face and the scar, who had fallen, and not the man she had loved. She gave a sob of thankfulness—then, in her distracted state, was horrified at herself. Had loved? What could she be thinking! She caught the phrase floating through her mind like an evil winged thing of the night and strangled it. But if she should see him like that again, in the awful rage, her love would surely die. Still—he was hurt. She must go to him, do something for him.
On the vitality of young manhood she hadn't reckoned; and, in the tumult of her thoughts, was almost sorry when she saw him swimming through the breakers. Perhaps, if she could have nursed him, if he had needed her, some of the pain in her heart might have assuaged. But he was greeting her cheerily now, as if there never had been any night before. Dismal and reproachful was the glance she gave him, though it softened a little when her eyes dwelt on the bruises, still discolouring his face in spite of his plunge in the cool waters.
"Ben, dear, promise me one thing."
"Sure, what is it?"
"That you won't fight again, except in self-defense."
"What would you have a man do? There are some things a man can't stand."
"Revenge doesn't pay—ever. It's better to stand some things than to turn into a—a—"
"A what, Sally?"
"A beast—there, now you know what I think."
"Was it as bad as all that?"
"Yes—it was."
She looked away; the lips quivered.
He took her in his arms.
"All right, Sal old girl, I'll promise."
There, in its proper resting-place, the morbid thoughts flew away from her head. And she didn't mind at all that his strong embrace wet her almost to the skin. Here in this paradise, no one cared for toilette, or fashions, or any such silly, shackling things, anyway. Nor did she notice that the black ostrich plume of the sleeping giant was larger even than on the night before.
The first cup of coffee was midway between the rock that served for a table, and her lips, when she jumped up suddenly, spilling the liquid in her haste.
"We forgot."
"What?"
"Five paces North!" she shouted joyously.
He whistled.
"Go to it, youngsters," interrupted the Captain. "But you'd better get breakfast first. We're going to, at any rate."
Swallowing a few hasty mouthfuls, they seized pick and shovel, and scampered over the beach. Somehow, Ben didn't move very swiftly this morning, and she beat him to the palm.
She started the measuring.
"Hold on, that won't do," he called. "Your legs are not as long as a pirate's, Sally."
So he paced off the distance that a normal man would cover in the measurement apparently specified by the chart, and soon his shovel was working away, a little more stiffly and painfully than on the day before, but right willingly nevertheless. Soon the others joined them, relieving Sally, who hovered over the designated spot in almost an ecstasy of excitement.
Deeper and wider grew the trench. Each time the implements rang on something harder than the sand and gravel, the girl almost shrieked, but no crumbling wood or rusted iron, and certainly no gleaming gold, rewarded their staring eyes.
An hour flew by, and Sally straightened to her full height to relieve her aching back.
Her clenched hand flew to her mouth. Last night's memories were still too fresh, so, hesitating to warn Ben, she crossed over to the Capitan.
"There they are again," she whispered.
Sure enough, those graceless vagabonds were sauntering along the beach, irregularly, as a pack of scavenging dogs prowling through city streets. They were five, as on the night before, only the Pink Swede had taken the place of the incapacitated Pete.
When they reached the neck of the cape, they threw themselves on the beach, regarding the workers, Sally even at that distance was sure, with malicious and threatening leers. She couldn't hear what they were saying, for they were out of earshot, though not of gunshot, as Captain Brent made certain, glancing at the rifle lying on the mound, now on a level with Benson's head.
For a resting spell, sorely needed, Ben threw down his pick and shovel, and, climbing out of the trench, sat on the mound. He saw them, too, and was for starting for them at once. But there was "that darn promise." He stopped short, and, sitting down again, surveyed the crew.
"Never mind, son," said Benson, "there ain't no law to prevent them cuckoos from a-settin' there sunnin' themselves, even if you are the Pshaw of this here island—that is so long as they don't lay any eggs in our nests. But come to take a squint at 'em, them birds look more like buzzards, don't they now?—a hatchin' out wicked little notions. And there's nothing I'd enjoy more than shootin' a mean-beaked undertaker of a buzzard, especially if he was waitin' to pick my bones."
These ruminations were an excellent excuse for a rest from the boresome work with the pick, and Benson, first twisting off a corner of a plug as dark as mellow New Orleans molasses, continued, shifting his figures a bit:—
"Buzzards—did I call 'em buzzards! No, son, that's hard on the birds—they're more like pussy-footed, slimy-hearted octypusses, with bilge-water instid o' red blood in their veins.
"Ever seen an octypuss? They got eight arms with a hundred suckers on each arm. I seen one oncet. It drownded a man in the Bay o' Biscay; sucked him right under. It wahn't no pleasant sight, either,—them big, snaky arms a-coilin' round his neck, a-stranglin' the poor cuss, and the wicked-lookin' eyes a grinnin' like the Devil himself had turned into a fish.
"But Lor', them devil-fish over there can't catch nothin' but crabs, though they'll try and start suthin' afore the sun sets, or I don't know a maintop from a cutwater.
"They got a female bird with them, with red and yaller feathers. That there petticoat sets in the breeze like a sail on a lugger. But look out for her, my boy. I seen a little picture card onct, in a store up Boston way, with tape around it. It had some chantey of Shakespeare's I guess it was, a-written on it, somethin' about the female o' the species bein' more deadly than the male. Now that man knowed lots. I've got a wife and
Meanwhile Sally was getting impatient and called out:
"Ben, are you intending to save up that gold—if there is any—for a Christmas present?"
Could they have heard, they would have been surprised at the gambler's occupation. He was softly whistling a sentimental ballad whose burden was the sorrow of a mother over her wandering son. It was a melodious whistle, like that of some gentle forest bird, and it issued from his bloodless lips with a great deal of feeling and expression.
"When d'ye want us to rush them s," asked Old Man Veldmann, his bleary eyes yearning for excitement, as long as there was prospect of his being a secure spectator. He felt barred out by age from actual conflict, and was content with his rôle of wicked, old Nestor to the party, though his advice consisted of little besides qualifying expletives.
"You ban a wise old bird," jeered the Pink Swede, the cunning twist of his usually expressionless mouth belying the vacuous look of his eyes, which had the chalky blue of watered milk. "The chief he ban no little baby. They do the dirty work. We cop the gold."
MacAllister, making no comment, whistled another stave of the pathetic ballad.
"Gee! but you get my nerve," screamed Carlotta. "You're too damned cool. Has Pink got it right?"
He carefully polished off the last trill to his satisfaction before he vouchsafed a reply.
"Sure, let them sweat for it."
"I always did say you was a man of intelligence, but, Mac, will you promise, when you're through we'll sail back where we can see some real human asphalt once more, where Longacre Square splits old Broadway and Seventh, and the pianos are banging out the latest song-hits on the Alley—say, won't you, Mac?"
"If you're a good little girl and don't make any fuss."
"And say, Mac, no more rough-stuff. I ask you like a pal. These guys are white folks, and I like that little ongenoo.
"Honest-to-Gawd," she finished in a wail of homesickness and foreboding, "I wish you'd beat it now. That gold won't do no one no good."
"No more of that, Carlotta, or I'll lock iron bracelets on you, and throw you in the percolater of that volcano up there."
She looked up in fright, not so much at the threat as at what she saw.
"Look there, Mac, it's smoking now."
"Sure! You'd better be good."
"But it's smoking, I tell you. We've gotta get away."
"Oh, it does that all the time."
"It wasn't when we landed."
But the sun was shining brightly, and the mountain was as blue, the woods as green, as ever they had been, so the trousered four fell to playing cards, while she of the petticoat like a red-lugger sail leaned on the younger man's shoulder, indicating from time to time the proper play, to his growing irritation.
And all the while, up and down, up and down, ceaselessly went the picks; down and up, down and up, went the shovels, tossing the shining clouds of sand.
The heads of the delvers were below sea level now, and water was seeping around their boots.
"It's a fake lead, Ben," said the bosun, "we've gone eight feet now."
Ben vaulted to the level again. The captain was coming towards them, a bit restless after the holiday, and eager to see the wind belly the sails of his ship once more.
"No luck, Ben?" he asked, his middle finger tamping the olive shavings, mixed with black speckles of perique in the bowl of his pipe.
"It's nothing but a fool yarn after all. We were crazy to even half believe it," replied the boy. He surveyed the area around them, which, with its dozens of trenches, looked as if it had been sown all over with little sticks of dynamite and impatiently discharged by some seeker for the gold.
"That handsome friend of yours, Sally, was joshin' you."
"Not at all, Mr. Benjamin Boltwood, I believe him."
"You'd better not," the Captain interrupted. "Anyway, our spree is over."
"You promised three days. Wait till tonight," she pleaded. "You men make me tired, if you want to know the truth. Ben give me that pick."
Into the ditch she leaped, not caring at all that the water soaked the black ties, and struggled with the pick, while Ben laughed at the height she raised the heavy implement in the air.
"Laugh away—but I'm going to find something, I know I am."
Nine times she drove the point. At the last, she called in excitement:
"Hear that?"
"What?"
"Listen!"
But just as she spoke, she struggled with the pick. The point had caught in something. It was wrested free; fell again.
A dull ring!
"Don't you hear it?"
Another metallic sound, a little sharper this time, as the pick, driven with renewed force, fell again.
"The shovel, Ben!"
The boy and the bosun leaped down by her side.
Two shovelfuls Ben scooped and threw over the parapet, almost blinding Sally in his eagerness.
Another—the implement grated along a smooth, hard surface whose substance was like its own.
Sparks snapped from the impact.
Iron!
Yes—it was. He brushed off the remaining particles of sand with his cap
The rusted metal cover of a great chest was revealed.
Forgetting the watchers, the girl shouted.
"Look out, there's no use letting them know," warned Ben.
The group on the shore had paused midway in the deal and were gazing intently in their direction.
"I've a hunch that there's a nice fat jackpot over there," said MacAllister, "and we're going to rake it in ourselves. We don't need to draw to our hands either. Just stand pat, boys, just stand pat."
"Shovel a little away from the ends, Ben," Sally was ordering.
Then they sought for the handles.
"Here, where my pick caught," she said.
"My! but it's heavy," Benson exclaimed. "Lor'! it must be's full of gold beauties as a kiyoodle of fleas."
"Fetch a crowbar," called the boy, and Jack Beam ran for the required article, while the others,—Linda, the Captain, old Joe Bowling, and Spanish Dick, crowded round.
The long object was swept clean, and lay there before their eyes,—a massive chest, as long as a coffin, with crude figures upon it, and encrusted with a coat left by the centuries, a hard composition, terra-cotta coloured, of rust, and sand, and the dust of coral and burned-out lava. The padlock and clasps had been huge and strong when clamped by the horny hands of the hiders; they had been made triply tight by the cunning fingers of Father Time.
"Lid won't budge," growled Benson. "It sticks like it had been soldered by the Devil himself."
Followed an hour of suspense for the watchers around the ditch, and of obscene speculation from the wicked crew on the beach.
The chest was not empty. That much was certain. But did it contain the treasure? For all they knew, it might be laden with tools or firearms stowed away by filibusters who had never returned to finish their nefarious expedition. Or—it might even be full of rocks left by some Gargantuan practical joker, some whimsical bygone lord of the island, some mischievous genie of the place.
An hour—an age, it seemed,—of suspense—of struggling shoulders, prying and twisting and forcing; of grunts, masculine exclamations, and feminine sighs.
But in the end something snapped—gave way. At last it had yielded to the persuasion of muscle and iron.
Slowly, grudgingly, with creaks of protests—while it seemed as if the four watchers above had turned into illustrations of suspended animation at some surgeon's clinic—the lid rose.
From under the dark shutter, as if a dark cloak had been suddenly lifted from a field of dandelions, or a thundercloud removed from the sun, leaped a shining, a dancing of many lights such as they had never seen before, such as only Pizzaro and his rugged warriors had gazed upon when they stood transfixed and speechless in the shrines of the palaces of Peru.
So at last that part of the fairy tale came true.
"It is, it is, the gold!" breathed Sally in an awed whisper, her eyes expanding with both terror and delight, as they stared at the shining things. There they lay, rivalling the fabulous fortunes of the Old Incas she used to read about in the histories, and yet as carelessly strewn as the cheap bone buttons in Aunt Abigail's work box.
An old slang phrase, used half-jestingly before, but in very truth now, sprang unconsciously to her lips:
"I didn't know there was so much money in all the world."
For they shamed the very sun, those gleaming coins, some inscribed with queer old queens' heads, others with crowns or the profiles of old, forgotten Kings, some newly-minted, and others worn with centuries of travel up and down the highway of ancient empires and in great galleons on the seas.
They had jingled in the pockets of gay caballeros in sunny Madrid; accompanied the muleteers bells on the heights of the Pyrenees; rung on the counters of shops in Londontown when women wore headdresses like cornucopias, girdles and sweeping trains. They had been fought for by musketeers when Richelieu was more than King, and in garrets in the shadow of Notre Dame, caressed by shrivelled misers' hands. To turbaned Turks they had been carried in ransom, and stolen by bandits in doublets of green from rubicund monks on ambling palfreys.
Coveted, caressed, cursed, lied for, fought for, bled for—the shining cause of all the sins of the decalogue, at last they were wrested by buccaneers with dripping swords yet shouting hoarse Te Deums—from the holds of shattered ships—when the New World was really new.
And now that it was old, to lie at the feet of a modern young maiden who had never had even a gold eagle to spend on pretty things!
The sun, now high over head, shot down his flaming arrows, transforming into living rainbows the clusters of gems between the crevices of the golden piles—emeralds as green as the deep sea when it takes that hue; sapphires as blue as the sea when it changes again; diamonds like miniature Northern Lights; topaz-rings, warm as honey distilled by the busiest of the queen-bees; amethysts rivalling the lavender tinted hepaticas of the woods; and rubies!
Their crimson beauty fascinated the girl, and she thrust her hand between the yellow discs, and picked up the largest gem. Holding it in her fingers, she turned it slowly until the sun, not in jealousy this time but in warning perhaps, shot another arrow through it, spilling little crimson reflections on the pieces in the chest.
"See, see!" shrieked the gypsy. "It is the blood! The yellow is stain' with red."
The girl looked down.
The crimson splashes were very vivid.
The ruby dropped from her limp fingers into the chest again.
Ben bent over, and, perhaps, to soothe her fears as much as to seal their troth, picked up a ring—it was a plain gold band—and tenderly took her hand.
"You haven't had a ring yet, you know, Dear."
"No—not that. Not from that chest. See! It is a wedding ring, perhaps cut off with the hand of some girl bride. No, there's blood on it," she gasped. "Wait till we get up North."
She hadn't noticed the latest comer who had joined the group, he whose face told of many things, as he listened to that last speech. As he glanced at the treasure in the chest, then at the awestruck mariners, the sadness of his eyes was lost in that half-quizzical expression, so mixed with shadow and sunshine that it had won Sally's heart—in a way.
That sense of the proportion of things, which we call humour, grows acute after one has wandered up and down the world, as that tiny bubble spins round its sun through unfathomed space. And if one has lost at almost every turn, and has a nature both sound and sweet, shadows become high-lights in an amusing picture, ever shifting and changing and—well, he can smile then at many things.
He was addressing her in that voice which was so full of haunting music, and courtesy, and gentleness, especially with her.
"Do not be afraid, Mademoiselle. The treasure is a fact now—the superstition which the good Richard repeats, nothing but a—superstition."
"But I'm afraid of superstitions. They seem so real here."
"Besides," the Frenchman answered, "there is a romantic codicil to the will, which the old pirates left, so ironically, in that chart on the stone in the cavern, and on the old yellow chart, and the one on the back of the ghost picture."
"I see it all now," the girl exclaimed. "The canvas which that man had, that tall man who always makes me shiver—he's staring at us now, there, over on the beach—was taken from the frame that hangs in the house in the mountain."
"You saw it, then," he replied. "Yes, it was stolen, years ago, by a wandering painter who came here and sought the gold, but could not find it. Later, he wandered back to your own land, Mademoiselle, trying to fit out an expedition to search for the treasure. But he never came back, so the tale runs," he added grimly. "The curse must have followed him—even up there."
"The curse!" The girl shivered as she had when she looked at the tall man.
"Yes, but it will not, cannot, follow you, for the romantic codicil was written on the back of the original yellow chart—it was stolen from someone I knew by a man with a scar"
"A scar—was it like a streak of forked lightning across the cheek, with another funny one over it—like—like the button of an electric bell?"
"If he was also very ugly, yes, but how did you know that?"
She touched his elbow with her fingers.
It was the lightest of gestures, and no one saw the expression of wistfulness that softened his eyes, for one fleeting second, then vanished.
"Do you see those masts?" Her hand pointed to the south east. "Well, the gentleman's on that yacht—resting. Ben had an argument with him last night," she added, with an expression of mingled disgust and satisfaction.
"Do not worry about him. He was looking for the gold—the curse will follow him, if it has not already." He looked at her sailor sweetheart and smiled.
"And us?" It was a mournful, almost frightened way she asked this question.
"Oh, not for you, not for you." The sudden vehemence, the subdued passion of the words, gave them the effect of a heart-wrung petition, so much so that Ben looked at the stranger, for he really was that to them still, with a puzzled, inquiring glance that was not entirely free from suspicion.
Noticing this, the man who called himself Larone shot back a smile—winning enough to have disarmed any but a youth bristling with lover's doubts and alarms.
"You see," the former assured her, "the romantic codicil provides an escape. Perhaps it was not written by the pirates themselves, for the rogues wallowed in blood, not sentiment; perhaps it was added long ago by some owner of the place, or some spirit who rules over it. But it holds nevertheless.
"It says that no harm shall come of the gold to seeking lovers if they have plighted their troth, and so long as they remain faithful and true.
"You have complied with all those conditions, have you not, Mademoiselle?"
Her dark eyes were luminous now—and yet they were moist at a poignant note in the question.
Did she guess? I wonder! She never later mentioned such suspicions, if she had any, even in strictest confidence to her closest friend. No, we forget. There was one time
But she was speaking rapidly and hysterically to Ben; for some queer reason she could not trust herself just then to address the stranger.
"How blind we are! Don't you see? This treasure's not ours. It's his. Oh I forgot"—she turned nervously. It was a funny interruption. "Monsieur Larone, Mr. Boltwood, Captain Brent." So on down the line she introduced them. She seemed to be talking against time, to regain her wits which had stampeded suddenly. "I tell you, Ben, that treasure's his—oh, why don't you say something?"
Of course she hadn't given him time, and his masculine mind refused to follow this swift feminine leap at conclusions. She didn't wait for him, but ran on far ahead.
"You lived in that house!" she cried to the stranger. "You knew the charts. You told me 'five paces north.' Why did you do that?"
He shook his head.
"You are wrong. As I told you yesterday, I am just a rover—who happened here. As for the legends, they are known to all who have sailed these seas. The gold would have been found before, perhaps, by someone with the chart, for it was floating around the world for many, many years. That is, they would have found it, if they had had the wit to read the chart as you had, and if they had not feared the place. It is dreaded by every man, white and black, in the Caribbees. Even the owners fled long ago. Shipwreck and fever, murder and earthquake, and visits from the unseen powers—a long chain of disasters—have linked this island-paradise to the Devil himself.
"And yet it is so lovely." He sighed as his glance ranged from the serene blue mountain down over the exquisite shadings of the green terraces, to the coral strip bordered by the white wreaths of foam, now receding as if in fear, and again rushing on as if they could not resist the allure of its beauty.
"If I had come first," the musical voice went on, dreamily now, as if he himself had fallen for a moment under the spell, "I might have found the gold. But you came first. It is rightfully yours, your wedding-gift from Heaven, Mademoiselle, even though planted by wicked old pirates. And it is not half rich enough for so sweet and lovely a bride."
Afterwards, Sally learned the whole story, but not knowing it then, all she could say was:
"Take half of the treasure. You at least gave me the clue."
"You would have guessed it anyway. You were not far from the spot—and remember the conditions and the warning. To me it would have perhaps brought evil."
So for some Quixotic reason which had ruled and, the practical world would say, had ruined his life, some outworn code of Noblesse Oblige, perhaps the heritage of his race, he resolutely refused. In the end he did compromise, but not for himself. It was when he glanced at Linda, standing with downcast eyes and gazing mournfully out at sea, that he consented that twice the share which fell to the sailors should go to her, and a few gold pieces each to the helpless mute and the boatman Pierre.
At this concession Sally wondered, for it showed how little he believed the old tradition. In fact, in the brightened mood of the moment, she snapped her own fingers at the old mummery.
The division was arranged to take place in the morning, so they parted, with Larone's last warning, given in an undertone to the Captain.
"Pardon my advice, but I would plan to sail now, Captain Brent. Pierre will start with Linda in the morning. The Sleeping Giant up there is beginning to wake. He does every fifty years."
"How about yourself, my friend?" the Captain answered. He was a good judge of men, almost always.
But the stranger smiled and shook his head.
The card-players on the beach had vanished now, and it was growing dark. The coast was clear and they sought their camp.
In spite of the golden fortune, Sally's sleep that night was as troubled as on the night after the visit to the cavern in the mountain. The same buzzard, mast-high, with fiery evil eyes that grew to the size of cartwheels, tore at her heart. The same gibbering shapes pursued her and the mountain spat fire, only its sparks changed into yellow ingots and coins, that rolled in a golden flood down the slopes and buried her, suffocated her.
From the dream, as before, she woke—it must have been almost three in the morning—to see, as she thought, five shadowy figures creeping over the sands towards the place where old Joe Bowling, on his watch, the last of the night, was standing guard over the chest.
She tried to scream, but could not. Her throat seemed paralyzed; a film swam before her eyes, pierced by sharp, whirring lightnings centred by the moon. A moment ago there had been seven.
But she heard one agonized cry—then all was still.
For some time she must have sat in this stupor, then the mists cleared.
Out on the cape all seemed peaceful and quiet in the lovely moonlight. And the rigid figure of the sentry still sat on the chest, motionless, his rifle resting on his arm.
Out in the open the sailors slept the heavy sleep of wearied toilers.