For fully a minute Grenville was motionless, there in the gap, surveying the treasure crypt.
The more his eyes became accustomed to the yellowish light and inky shadows, the more extensive became his estimate of the wealth the cave contained.
The symbols and trinkets of solid metal and glistening stones were arranged not only on rudely-hewn shelves about the cavern's walls, but likewise in several stone receptacles, like sarcophagi in miniature, cut from the tufa of the island. It was partially because of this feature of the hidden niche that Grenville concluded the property here had once belonged to either Indian or African native chiefs and that this was a mortuary house of guarded treasure.
There was, however, further confirmation of his theory. This was a crude inscription on the wall above the shelves and caskets. It was simply that same cartouch he had found on the map or parchment—once part of a living being—with the figure of a mummy in the oval. On either side of this the beetle or scarab was repeated.
The utter inutility of gold and gleaming jewels was momentarily forgotten as Grenville stared in from the wall. The island, its perils—everything save an underlying current of thought that wove about Elaine—had ceased for the moment to impress his newly dazzled senses. He withdrew his arm to plant his torch in the stones already removed. Then lustily heaving out stone after stone, like some naked god of the underworld, half revealed in the smoky glare, he began to demolish the barrier so carefully erected in the cave.
He had torn down nearly half the bulk of this uncemented wall, filling the larger cavern weirdly full of the crashing and thudding noises, when one of the fragments, tossed unthinkingly behind him, bounded from another rock and struck down his torch and its light.
Utter darkness instantly descended. He tried to grope his way quickly forward, thinking the torch might be recovered and blown to a flame again. But he stumbled, fell down upon his knees, and was bruised on the stones about his feet. When he finally found the torch with his hand, a rock lay squarely upon it; the last of its fire was gone.
Thoroughly disgusted with his carelessness, he stood undecidedly above the unseen ruin he had wrought. To attempt further work of removing the wall by the faint diffusion of light that entered from the outside world, was out of the question. To enter the crypt before the aperture could be considerably enlarged was equally impossible. Moreover, the treasure was safe, as he presently admitted.
As a matter of fact, he began to realize at last how futile had been his labor. He remembered, abruptly, where he was, the details of his helpless situation. Except as something to show Elaine, or to load her with as presents, the stuff in the cave was as worthless as so much dross.
There was nothing to do but retreat as he had come. This he presently did, reluctantly turning from the half-uncovered cavern and wading into the pool.
Without his torch, and swimming towards the light, he was now enabled, to some extent, to discern the limits of the cave. He could see a portion of the ceiling and a bit of the wall on his left. Both were featureless, to all appearances. The water's surface presented a more extensive aspect with the light thus spread before him, but its farther limits could not be descried, where its inkiness blended with the gloom.
When he came at length to the ledge that formed a natural dam across the entrance, thereby impounding the water, he looked it over with greater care than when he had first trod upon it, to determine where would be the likeliest spot for a blast to break it down.
There could be no debate upon this subject. Over against the upright wall, on the left-hand side looking out, the ledge not only narrowed down, where a pot-hole pitted it deeply, but a tiny crevice extended so nearly through the remaining substance that a trickle of water already oozed downward towards the sea. The perpendicular wall here also was broken, a number of fragments of exceptional size appearing so loose as to threaten toppling over.
Grenville was leisurely in all this examination. He was either obliged to permit his body to dry in the air or dress while dripping wet. Yet at length he was once more clothed and ready to depart. He remained for a moment, taking a final survey of the place and planning the details of his blasting operations, then stooped and made his exit from the place.
The brilliant light of outer day bewildered him momentarily. He stared below, however, as if he felt he might be blind. The raft was not where he had left it.
Hastily scrambling down the incline of the ledge, he promptly arrived at its base. His view was limited, even then, to a segment of the open, purple sea. But the worst of his fears was confirmed. The raft had floated away. It was nowhere to be seen!
The tide had run out with amazing swiftness. Its level was such that the ceaseless swells ran under his ledge, instead of up about it. The creeper-cord, which he had utilized to moor his craft to the bowlders, hung uselessly over the edge. It had parted at once when the ponderous raft had been caught in the swirl of an eddy.
This eddy was running intermittently, as Grenville soon discovered. Disgust with himself for his carelessness, and a vague disquiet concerning his helpless situation, addressed his comprehension together. He was bounded by huge overhanging walls and a water abounding in sharks. If only by boat could the cavern be reached, then only by boat——
He thought of his ladder, dangling in air where he had left it, and believed for a second he could hook it in with his pole, still lying on the rocks. But no sooner had he climbed a little up the ledge, to a point from which the ladder could be seen, than he realized the folly of his hope. It was twenty feet off at the least, and fully eight above the water.
The fact that the tide was continuing to fall, that the raft had doubtless departed the island forever, and that night might find him here, a helpless prisoner, was no great motive for alarm. But Grenville was not slow to realize that escape from his predicament would be no more readily accomplished on the morrow than it could to-day—that high tide and low tide were alike of no avail to return him to the terrace and Elaine.
The thought of Elaine and the fears she must certainly experience, did he fail to return that night, aroused a new impatience in his blood. He could almost have made up his mind to slip overboard at once and take his chances of swimming about the base of the wall, despite its treacherous currents, had he not remembered the sharks.
"It's the ladder—or night," he murmured, paraphrasing Wellington's utterance at Waterloo, somewhat grimly, and again he went down to the edge of the shelf of rock left dripping by the tide.
"Elaine!" he called, with a lusty breath, yet without an accent of distress. "Elaine! ... Elaine! ... Are you there?"
There was no response, save the swashing of the waves, which he knew were constantly retreating, leaving the ladder yet more high above the heaving surface.
Once more he shouted as before, perhaps a trifle louder. And again he heard no reply. He began to fear the shelf of rock that projected out above him might send the sound waves too far outwards, towards the sea, for Elaine on the terrace to hear.
He had no alternative but to shout repeatedly. This he did, at regular intervals, all the time striving to eliminate the slightest accent that would rouse her sense of fear. It seemed, however, as if no sort of cry could bring a response from the top. He moved to another position at last and tried with a longer, shriller tone.
"Yes! Yes!" came a bright, clear call, at last. "Can you hear me now any better?"
She had answered before, as he instantly knew, but her voice had been snatched afar from the cliff by a circular current of wind.
"All right!" shouted Grenville, enormously relieved. "I'm down here below and I'd rather return by the ladder. Can you hear me quite distinctly?"
"Oh, yes!" cried Elaine, whose fears were vast, though she would not betray them in her voice. "Do you want me to change it—or something?"
"A trifle, yes—as I'll direct you." He paused for a moment to make his directions as clear and concise as possible. Then he shouted:
"First move a few of the rocks to a point as near the edge as possible and about ten feet to the left of the present position.... Is that clear?"
"Yes—very clear—quite clear—— And then?"
"Then lift off the others and remove the ladder—carefully. Mind it's just a bit heavy."
He paused, and she cried: "Yes! I hear you!"
"Take the ladder at once to the rocks already placed and roll them on its end, to hold it down."
"Then heap all the others upon it?" Her question came ringing down the cliff.
"Yes—and as promptly—— But don't overtax your strength."
There was no reply to this final instruction. That the quickest of action was highly essential, she had felt in the very air. She was hotly, valiantly tugging at the rocks before his last words had died upon the breeze.
He presently saw the ladder-end jerk about spasmodically and ascend for perhaps a foot. Elaine had the weight of it in her hands—and her strength was equal to the task!
He watched it, his heart wildly thrilling at the thought of her ready wit and courage—her certain, sturdy helpfulness in every trying crisis.
With more wild gyrations about the ledge, the ladder-end now disappeared. It was gone for a moment only, to return at a point more directly above his head. Here it halted, moved about uncertainly, then lowered jerkily downward, to dangle at last with its last rung all but on the water, some eight or ten feet away. He knew that its upper end was lightly anchored and would soon be firmly held in place.
He caught up his pole, with the hook at its end, to fish the ladder inward. But, fearing that any untimely tug might fetch it all doubling down the cliff, he instantly halted the maneuver and compelled himself to wait.
Five minutes went by—five ages for slowness of movement. He was certain by then Elaine had made the end too secure to be readily dislodged. He stepped to the outermost edge of the shelf, with the pole horizontally extended.
It was short by perhaps six inches. Strain as he would, he could not reach either one of the rungs or supports. A light puff of wind then bent it slightly inward, and he fished out wildly, in the hope the discrepancy thus amended might be wholly overcome.
But his hook still prodded the empty air, while the zephyrs that played with the dangling thing seemed solely bent on his torture. The sweat oozed out on his temples, for the straining made him warm. A sense of disappointment amounting almost to despair attacked him for a moment.
"I shall leap out and swim!" he told himself, at last. "I'll not remain here for the night!"
He returned to the point from which Elaine had finally been heard.
She did not immediately answer when he called as he had before. When her voice came down, he was certain her breath was broken.
"I've—carried the last rock—over—and one or two—extra, besides."
"Right ho!" responded Grenville, cheerfully. "You might stand away while I test it."
He knew that a sudden throwing of his weight upon the ladder might suffice to fetch it down. He could not be sure that, with all her ready helpfulness and promptness, Elaine had so heaped the rocks above as to make the thing secure.
"I can always get back here for the night," he murmured to himself, as he scanned the swirl below. "And when it calms down from that bally twist——"
The whirlpool was even then subsiding, in its intermittent way. He quickly ascended the sloping ledge, the better to run and leap far outward. His pole he dropped upon the rocks as he hung there poised for his plunge. His eyes were keenly fixed on the tide.
The waters became quiescent. Swiftly Grenville darted down the ledge, leaping well out, towards the end of the ladder. He was fairly in midair when his gaze was directed to a dark form loafing in the depths.
Before he struck, by some quick flirt the huge form rose, coming inward, and a black fin cut through the waves.
What it was that happened when he felt the waters swiftly rising all about him Grenville could never have told. He was almost certain his foot had come in contact with a heavy, pulpy surface, like a wet thing made of rubber, as he did his utmost to strike his assailant with his heel.
He could only be certain that he seemed to plunge downward interminably, and that afterwards a horrible rush of waters, lashed to violence, was sounding wildly in his ears and confusing his staring eyes.
Then he came to the top with a sickening conviction, that one of his legs would be gone almost before he could feel the incisions of the teeth where the shark was closing upon it. He lurched tremendously forward in the water, to close the short but vital gap between himself and the ladder.
It seemed to him then a nightmare must be binding his limbs to inaction—that incredible time was elapsing while he still remained in the tide. As a matter of fact, he had moved with prodigious energy, his strokes and velocity through the water phenomenally swift. And, when he caught at the lowermost rung, he shot from the depths like some weirdly living projectile, doubled up in a knot by its speed.
For his knees were drawn sharply upward, and hand over hand he scaled up his swaying support. But his ears heard the hiss where that terrible fin was cutting the waves beneath him. One quick glance he sped to the place comprehended the turning monster's belly, the open mouth, and even the hideous nose that shot beneath his very foot like the point of a speeding torpedo.
To the round above he scrambled no less galvanically—only to feel a sudden giving of the ladder. A wild conviction of the structure's insecurity above—its giving way beneath the incautious strain he had unavoidably put upon it—scorched its way into his brain, while he still looked down upon the shark.
But that one slip ended as abruptly as it had come. It was all in the rung he had clutched in desperate violence, and not in the ladder itself. Elaine's rock anchorage was firm!
A swift and weakening reaction now ensued in all his being, as he clung there, dripping but safe. He leaned on the ladder-rung heavily, to regain his breath and strength. He was panting and all but exhausted for the moment. When at length he resumed the upward climb, the shark was no longer to be seen.
He paused a bit longer on the shelving ledge above to gather his wits in proper order.
"Sidney!" he heard. "Are you coming? Are you there?"
"Well, rather!" he called out, cheerily. "Stopped like a kid to—examine the geological formation." He started upward promptly, whistling as he went.
It was not, however, without a tremendous effort that he finally pulled himself over the brink, in all the weight of his soaking garments, and struggled to his feet.
"Why—you're wet!" said Elaine, concealing her hands, which were cut and bruised from the heavy stones she had carried. "Did you have to swim to get the ladder?"
He knew her hands were hurt, but maintained his usual manner.
"I did. But the water is warm—in fact, it was very warm, indeed."
"But couldn't you use the raft?"
"I couldn't," he answered, candidly. "The raft got away while I was pothering about, and, unless it faithfully floats ashore, we may never see its honest face again."
Elaine's expression brightened.
"I'm perfectly delighted to hear it! Now you never can go there again!"
Grenville was amused at the turn of her reflections.
"But what about the treasure in the crypt?"
"I don't believe there's any treasure in the crypt. There never is, except in wonderful stories. And, if there was, what good could it be to us?"
Grenville met her magnetic gaze, now brightened by her challenge. It was not a time to excite new alarms in her heart by divulging the facts he had discovered. For she would be alarmed were she once informed of the wealth concealed beneath their feet. She would instantly understand the dangers to them both from the men who had hidden the treasure.
"Well," he said, with an air of lightness he was very far from feeling, "I confess I'd rather have a good pot of steaming black coffee at this particular juncture than all the gold and jewels of the land."
"Oh, please don't mention it!" said Elaine. "Haven't I tried every leaf I could find, to make you something to drink?" And a wistful pucker came to her brow that made her more than ever enchanting. "You've no idea," she added, "what horrid messes this island foliage can make."
"Wouldn't wonder," said Grenville, calmly. But, having come to the shaded cave, he was grateful for a drink of cool, sweet water and glad to sit down for a rest.
The subject of the cave was dropped, but his thoughts could not fade in Grenville's mind. They lay in substrata, beneath more homely plans for resuming his interrupted labors. But, beyond going down to dig some yams to roast with a pheasant killed the previous day, he returned to no toils that afternoon. He paused to examine the shell of his boat, which fire, plus his chisel, was finally evolving from the log, and, finding unusual quantities of blackly charred stuff to be gouged away in the morning, determined to be early at the task.
This plan was one of the sort that "gang aglee." He fished, with Elaine, till nine o'clock the following day, to provide a needful change of their diet; then placed some fresh signals on their flagpole. At eleven, however, he was once more at his boat, with his fires freshly blazing. He was working gayly, aroused to a new enthusiasm over final results to be achieved by the excellent progress his former fires had made upon the log. A few more days of work like that—and he would have to be thinking of the launching.
This was not a thought he had neglected. In a vague sort of way the problem of moving his boat to the water's edge had bothered him from the first. It would have to be run on rollers, he admitted. Doubtless a way would have to be cleared through some of the undergrowth.
Reflecting that this was a task to be performed while the fires were doing their daily stint, he made a preliminary survey of the jungle to select the most practical route. The way across the grassy clearing was not only long, but in places inclined to be rough. Fortunately, in either direction the way was all down-grade.
He had never yet forced a way to the shore through the jungle beyond his tree-trunk smelter. Thither he wended his way to note what this route might offer.
Breaking the branches from before his path, and rather inclined to believe a trail might once have been forced through the thicket, he was penetrating deeper and deeper into the moist and thickly shaded region when he presently halted, almost certain he had heard someone calling his name.
"Sidney! Sidney!" came the cry again, from Elaine up above him on the cliff. "Sidney! Where are you? A boat! I've seen a sail! There's someone coming at last!"
He had smashed his way out while she was calling.
"A sail!" she repeated, excitedly, the moment he appeared. "Oh, come!—please come at once!"
She disappeared swiftly from the edge, running back, lest the sight be lost forever.
Actively, Grenville went bounding across the clearing and up their narrow trail. He was panting and eager when Elaine ran forward to meet him, and clutched him by the arm.
"I knew it would come!—I knew it!" she cried, as she hastened hotly forward at his side. "We must wave things as hard as we can!"
She had guided him swiftly to the great lone tree that stood like the island's landmark, to be seen for many a mile. She pointed in triumph afar across the sea—and Grenville beheld a tiny sail, like the merest white notch in the sky.
"Can they see us yet? Shall we wave?" said Elaine. "They couldn't go by and miss us now?"
She was still clinging fast to Grenville's arm, and tears had sprung to her eyes. What long, long hours of torture, anxiety, and hope she had expended, uttering no complaint as the days went by, the man abruptly knew. Then something indescribably poignant shot boltlike through his heart.
Elaine felt him harden, grow rigid, as his gaze narrowed down on the distant thing she had found in their purple sea. The note that broke from his lips at last made a shiver go down her spine.
He suddenly turned, and his arm was wrenched from her clasp. He sped like a madman back to their mast and heaved all his weight against it. He threw back the rocks that held it in place in the crevice to which it had been fitted.
Before she could follow, to question what he did, Elaine saw him drop the pole over.
"Sidney!" she said, but the face that he turned wore a look that was new to her ken.
"Pull up the ladder from the rocks!" he called. "Then go to the shelter and stay!"
He himself ran to the cavern, to take up their largest jug of water. With this in his arms, he hastened down the trail to quench the flames beneath his boat.
And when, with more water, hurried from the spring, he had drowned the last blue wisp of smoke, he brought the full jug to the cave again and tore down the improvised awning.
"We had better hail death than that craft!" he said, "unless I am very much mistaken!"
Elaine was dumbly appalled for a moment by the words that Grenville had uttered. She finally found her voice.
"But—why? I don't believe I understand. It isn't someone—some horrible men who hunt human heads for trophies?"
Grenville was glad she knew what a head-hunter means. He loathed the necessity of making revolting explanations. He vainly wished he might spare her now—that his judgment might be in error. But the rakish angle of that sail, though so far away on the water, had left him no room to doubt that natives were manning the craft.
"They may be friendly visitors, after all," he answered. "And then again they may not. It may be as wise for us to see them first, and determine our conduct later."
"You do fear them, then? But how can we hide—if they land and come up on the hill?"
"They shall never come up—if I can help it! If I only had a few more bombs!" He had gone to his cave and was dragging forth his little cannon. "I haven't even a hatful of slugs with which to charge this plaything!"
Elaine had remained obediently at her shelter, in the door of which she stood.
"Won't they see you?" she said, her voice already lowered, as if in fear its accents might be overheard where the distant boat was approaching. "Have you more old pieces of brass?"
"Some," said Grenville, reluctant to use his remaining metal in such an extravagant manner. "I have nothing else that will answer, hang the luck! ... They can't see us yet, but we'll move about with caution.... I wish I had made more powder! I have only a few feet of fuse. I must get some additional creepers at once and let them dry out in the sun."
He went down to the jungle immediately for a fresh supply of this highly essential growth, leaving Elaine at the shelter, a prey to dread that had utterly obliterated her bitter disappointment. She stooped, to steal forward on the rocks and look for the sail again. It was still so far on the sun-lit surface of the ocean that it seemed no nearer than before. She returned once more to the cave.
Grenville came up, fairly laden with freshly severed creepers.
"I've thought of a means for making bombs!" he told her, triumphantly. "Perhaps you can split these creepers and take out the cores while I go to fetch some bamboo poles."
"Couldn't I fill them with powder?" Elaine inquired, anxiously. "I watched you before. I am sure I would make no great mistakes."
He knew she was nervous, eager to be employed.
"Sure shot you could," he answered, briskly, and, going to the cave employed as his "powder magazine," he brought her a jar of explosive. "Don't be afraid to put in all that the creeper tube will carry," he instructed. "And tie it with fibers here and there, to keep the edges together."
With his heaviest tools he descended at once to the bamboo growth, where he was presently toiling hard. Elaine, no less industriously, was hotly assailing the creepers, held firmly down with heavy rocks, to make their manipulation easy.
She had filled and bound a considerable length of this simply manufactured fuse when Grenville returned to the terrace. For his part, he bore across his shoulder three great long steins of green bamboo that were three inches through at the base.
"I can cut this stuff at its divisions," he explained, "fill the smaller sections with powder, and fit the larger ones over them, like a shell within a shell. A natural growth plugs each one up at the end, and I'll also cap each end with a rock, and wrap the whole contraption about with creepers. Of course, the fuse will go in first. I wish the stuff were dry!"
The spirit of battle was no less aroused in Elaine, whose mood was the equal of his own.
"Couldn't we use the cannon first—keep them off with that while the fuses and things are drying?"
"It's our only chance, if they raid us by the trail. They can scarcely arrive for two or three hours more. The tide will be against them—— If we keep out of sight, they may not detect our presence."
"Anyway," added Elaine, sagely, "they needn't know how few we are in numbers."
"Right ho!" he answered, cheerily. "The trail is steep and narrow. We can train the gun to rake its entire width. For the second shot, and any succeeding charges, we can load the piece with stones—— I'm in hopes our visitors may not land, but we'll keep our fire smoldering, making no smoke; and I'll fetch all the fruit and water we may need for a couple of days."
Elaine looked up at him quickly.
"A couple of days? We may have to fight two days?"
Grenville smiled, suggestively.
"Not if they come within range of the cannon or linger about a bomb. In time of peace prepare for the worst—and then a little extra."
He moved out cautiously, as Elaine had done, to scan the distant sail. He could see that it was steadily approaching. With eager impatience he hastened below to lay in needful provisions.
Luncheon was forgotten. When a large supply of fruits and water, with fuel sufficient for perhaps a week of flameless fire, had been stored in the coolness and protection of the caves, Grenville immediately set to work constructing the shells to fill with powder.
This was a task involving much difficult cutting. For this employment his tools were not encouragingly suited. Of fuse, Elaine had finally produced as much as all his bombs would require, with lengths for the cannon as well.
The gun was finally charged and primed, after Grenville had rebound it to its "carriage." It was lodged in the rocks, where it covered the trail, and stones were piled abundantly about it. A fuse was laid to the vent.
From time to time both the exiles had crept towards the one lone tree on the wall, to observe the on-coming boat. By three o'clock of the afternoon the wind had practically failed, but the craft drifted slowly forward. It was plainly in sight by then—a fair-sized affair with a singular out-rigger and a queer, unmistakable sail. So far as Grenville could determine at the distance, there were three or four natives aboard.
"If none of them ever go back to tell the tale," he announced, a bit grimly to Elaine, "we may be all right for quite a time."
She understood at once.
"You think, if they leave, they may return here later—with a larger force—if they find we are ready for a fight?"
"If they do, we'll not be at home—provided the boat can be finished."
Elaine was evidently thinking much—of the battle that might presently ensue, with all its unknown results.
"They'd kill us if they could, I suppose, if only to cut—— They are not human beings, really—the kind we ought not to shoot?"
Grenville could hardly repress a smile.
"If they try to steal the gun, I think we'd be justified in firing. At any rate, I shall fire first and debate the question later."
Elaine was growing nervous, now that all they could do was practically accomplished.
"Oh, I wish it was over!" she declared. "Do you think they'll attack us soon after landing?"
"They may not land this evening."
Grenville was thinking of the tidal sounds that haunted the island's wall. These were still of considerable volume every day, and, according to his theory, frightened the ignorant natives away. He added, presently: "You see, they may be aware the tiger was living here before we disturbed his possession. In that event they might be cautious of landing after dark. They rarely take chances, I believe, by attacking in the night."
"But suppose they arrive an hour or two before sunset?"
"They might, if the breeze should freshen.... We can only wait and see."
But this waiting was an irritating business, so slowly did the craft appear to move against the tide and so fraught with possibilities was its visit to the place.
Sitting or stooping behind the rocks, Elaine and Grenville kept a constant watchfulness on the boat, now less than half a mile away. It was apparently becalmed. The day grew old and still it came no nearer.
The sun at length departed from the scene, with the riddle still unsolved. It appeared to Grenville the day-end breath would have wafted the stranger to the shore. He thought perhaps it did approach considerably closer, but of this he was not at all certain.
The brief, soft twilight soon began to wane. At Sidney's suggestion, their simple repast of island fruits was eaten. The fish they had captured in the morning was not cooked, in the absence of the customary fire. The calm that settled on the "Isle of Shalimar" was far from being reassuring. It seemed fraught with silent agencies of fate, moving noiselessly about the shadowed jungle.
When the darkness came down, the mysterious craft was no longer to be seen. Grenville had fancied it drifting rapidly in when he last discerned its form. No lights were displayed upon its mast or deck to indicate its presence off the headland.
Elaine was persuaded at last to retire, though she knew she should not sleep. Grenville remained on guard alone, pacing back and forth from the head of the trail to the lone tree reared above the cliff. His senses were strained to catch the slightest sound, but none came upward from the sea. From time to time he halted by their smoldering bit of coals to assure himself the last of the sparks had not been permitted to die.
At length, far in the silent night, the tidal wailing began, its weirdness increased an hundredfold by the tension of the hours. It seemed to Grenville unusually loud, so acute had the darkness made his hearing.
No sooner had the final note died out on the gently stirring air than answering cries, no less weird and shrill, arose from out upon the water. The visiting craft had drifted past the headland and was somewhere off on Grenville's right. The cries from its deck were like a response to some spirit of the island. They were rather more awed than exultant, Grenville felt, and he fancied some chanting, that came to him brokenly out of the heavy shades of night, was possibly a prayer.
When he came before her shelter again, Elaine was standing in the door. She had heard the cries from the boat.
"They haven't landed yet?" she said, in a whisper.
"They won't land now till daybreak, and perhaps not then," he answered. "Go back—and go to sleep."
"I'll try," said Elaine, and disappeared.
For Grenville, however, there could be no sleep, though the darkness rendered up no further sound. Like the outer sentry of a picket-line, with the enemy close, and his whereabouts unknown, he glided silently from one dark edge of the terrace to another, as the hours wore on, alert for the slightest alarm.
He finally sat by the head of the trail, convinced that the visitors would give him no trouble till morning, yet guarding the only way by which they could gain the summit of the hill.
He was weary and doubtless he nodded, lulled by the softness of the breeze that came up at last, burdened with its ozone from the sea. And, despite the fact he was afterwards positive the nod was the briefest in the world, full daylight was spread to the ends of the world, and the sun was gilding the island's tufa walls, when at length he started to his feet.
It seemed to him then some sound from below had played through the fabric of his dream. But nothing disturbed the usual calm, save the morning cry of distant parrots. Stooping, he moved through the scattered rocks, to survey the waters far and wide.
There was nothing to be seen, in all that expanse, of the craft that had ridden near at midnight. All the round of the wall he made in this manner of caution. When he came at length above the blackened clearing, where for day after day he had toiled with fire and chisel, he gazed about the open space bewildered and incredulous.
His half-finished boat was gone!
The truth of his loss was hardly to be credited as Grenville continued to stare below where the hollowed log had been.
There was not a sign of a living thing in the clearing or near-by jungle. There had been no sounds of unusual movement in the thicket, he was sure, or otherwise he must have wakened. No voices had spoken, since his ears had all but ached to catch the slightest disturbance.
On the blue of the sea, so tremendously expanded from this particular point of vantage, there was not a hint of a sail. But the fact remained his boat was gone, with all the work it represented, and all the hope their situation had centered upon it for them both.
An utter sinking of the heart assailed him. His moment of sleep, he told himself, could have been no more treacherous had it been planned by a scheming enemy to complete their abandonment to some rapidly impending fate. And yet had he waked in the gray of the dawn, with his bombs and fuses still too damp for employment, and his cannon planted only to guard the trail, the boat could hardly have been saved. At most, his protest would merely have betrayed the fact he was camped there on the terrace.
A new line of thought sprang into his brain, as one suggestion after another was swiftly deduced from his loss. The natives who had landed and carried off his precious craft must certainly have found the wall with which he had barred the trail. He could hardly doubt they knew of his presence on the hill. They might even now be lying in wait to get him the moment he appeared.
His preconceived theory, that they dared not land while those tidal sounds still haunted this end of the island, received a shattering blow. Their craft was doubtless hidden now behind either one of the other lofty walls comprised by the neighboring hills. The thieves had cut off all possible hope of his escape with Elaine by means of his solid, if crude, canoe, and could finally starve them on the hill, if they had no courage for a battle.
Yet how had they happened on his boat and why had they removed it? That they must have carried it bodily down to the shore, through the jungle, was absolutely certain. And this, he thought, argued a half-dozen men, though it might have been done by four.
He remained there, stunned by this utterly defeating discovery, watching the thicket for the slightest sign that might betray the presence of the enemy and revolving the proposition over and over in his mind. When at last he admitted that the natives might have known the log was lying there, if they had not indeed prepared it with fire for some of their uses the previous year, he was more than verging on the facts. They had felled it solely for a boat—and much of their work he had completed.
This line of reasoning did not, however, serve to quiet further questions. The visitors must certainly have wondered how it came about that the log was so nearly hollowed. The clay, still plastered upon it, must have suggested to their minds the work of a craftsman minus tools. That the workman must be present on the island would be more than suspected, since his boat was not even launched.
They might suppose the tiger had captured and devoured him—always admitting they knew of the brute's former presence on the place. It seemed far more likely to Grenville they had found his tracks about the spring, his gate on the trail, and the signs of his recent fires and general activity about the region of his smelter, and would therefore conclude he was still encamped on the hill.
He could fancy a half-dozen pairs of maliciously glittering eyes fastened even now upon the crest and edges of the terrace, all hidden by the thickets. Had the poisoned dart from a blowpipe come winging swiftly up from the shadows of the foliage, he should not have been surprised.
But not a leaf below him was disturbed. Not a sound arose to warn his eager ears. With a sense of bitter rage and humiliation in all his system, he finally crept once more to the trail, and beyond it to the cliff's final shelving.
From this extremity of the heights new aspects of the island were in view, as well as different expanses of the sea. His keen eyes searched the jungle and the clearings first, with no more results than before.
It was not until he gazed afar, on the darkening silver of the waters, that his search was at all rewarded. Even then, for a moment he was not wholly convinced that what he saw was not a spearlike leaf of foliage projected beyond the clean-cut edge of the farthest of the island's tufa towers.
But the angle of color detached itself and receded in far perspective. It was plainly the sail of the visiting craft, previously hidden from his sight by the hill at the island's end. It was already far on a northern course, where he should not have thought to find it. The freshening breeze was heeling it over gracefully; it would vanish in less than half an hour.
He wondered instantly—had they towed away his boat? Or might they have left it moored in some inlet of the island, to be taken upon some future visit?
Stifling an impulse to hasten down the trail, and aware that one, or even more, of the natives might have been left concealed upon the place, to ambush himself and Elaine, or anyone else suspected of being present on the rock, he remained behind his barrier of stones, no less cautious than before.
The fact that the entire morning passed in apparent security, with never the flicker of a leaf below to advertise a lurking menace, could not suffice to render Grenville careless or overconfident. He had told Elaine of their loss—which worried her less than himself. Together they maintained an all-day vigilance, half expectant of the sailing-craft's return and keyed to the highest tension of expectancy at every stirring of a shrub below them in the jungle.
Grenville finally armed himself with his bow and straightest arrow, to descend the trail, go quietly over to the spring, and then to the spot from which his boat had vanished. About the pool of crystal water there was not so much as a track of human boots or feet, other than his own. There were none to be seen about the foot of the trail, where there was ample dust in which they might have been recorded.
Where his boat had lain, with its end on a rock, there were far fewer footprints in the ash and soil than Sidney could have believed possible, judging the visitors at only four in number and their task not particularly light. Apparently, however, they had landed down beyond the jungle, proceeded straight to the log, and, wasting no time in wondering how it chanced to be covered with clay or hollowed to a shell, had taken it up, to depart with it as swiftly and directly as possible.
Even his tools still lay beside the hollow tree utilized for a smelter. The one explanation that addressed itself to his mind as being plausible was that the visitors, knowing of the log and having planned to secure it, perhaps in merely passing by the island, had come ashore so soon as the first faint gray of dawn broke the shadows of the jungle, when they had taken their prize and halted for nothing, not even a search for whatsoever tools they must have seen had been employed.
Once more his original theory of their superstitious fright of the island's "haunt" seemed to Grenville to be confirmed. He felt the natives had sneaked ashore—not in fear of himself, since they could not have foreknown his presence on the hill, but in possible fear of some spirit of the place whose wailing filled them with dread.
Barely less cautiously than heretofore, he followed the faintly imprinted trail of the boat's mysterious abductors, where it led across the clearing. He was certain now that a cleared path did exist where he had partially explored the previous morning. But branches and shrubbery had been freshly cut, as if to insure the silent passage of the log.
The lane thus created through the thicket led directly down an easy slope to a broken bit of seawall at the bottom. This, at high tide, would be scarcely a foot above the water. Here the log had undoubtedly been rested. Both broken clay and a charcoal smudge recorded the unseen fact.
The entire inlet was no more than twenty feet across. It was bounded on either side by pitted walls that permitted no access to the jungle. The last faint hope of again beholding his precious boat now vanished from Grenville's mind. It had not been moored, nor probably even towed, but doubtless loaded bodily on the visitor's deck, to be taken to parts unknown.
But, if this heavy fact sunk home in his breast, the man was somewhat relieved, at least, concerning a probable native left behind. He felt practically certain that none of the crew of the native craft had stepped beyond his clearing. How much they might guess as to who had hollowed the heavy log was another matter altogether. He knew that their tale would be widely told—and felt that developments would follow.
He went to Elaine, to whom he owed a report.
"I think we're alone on the place," he said, and related all he had discovered. "We may as well re-light our fires," he added, in conclusion, "and eat the best our sunny possessions afford."
Elaine could not so promptly recover from all she had undergone. She still sat staring at his face, a prey to confused emotions.
"Suppose they had really been friendly, after all—and we let them go and leave us here like that?"
"In that event they may return, since the boat will excite a bit of wonder."
"You mean they will know, of course, that someone must be here who made it?"
"It certainly tells that story rather plainly."
She was thinking rapidly.
"Then—if they shouldn't happen to be friendly, they would know it all just the same—and may still come back to—look us up?"
Grenville nodded.
"I shall certainly go to work with that chance in view."
"Yes," she agreed, "we'll certainly do all we can. But another boat would take you weeks! After all your patient, tedious work—to have it stolen like that! Oh, I could cry, if I weren't so vexed and sorry!"
Grenville smiled despite his sense of loss.
"Perhaps I can rig some sort of a catamaran," he answered. "But for day and night sailing, such as we would doubtless have before us, the best of boats would be none too comfortable."
"And we don't know where to sail."
"Well—not precisely."
"Then—what is the first thing to do?"
"Cook and devour a hearty dinner."
"But after that—to-morrow?"
"Thank God for peace—and prepare for war, meanwhile praying it may not come."
Elaine was grave, but her voice was clear and steady.
"You think it will—that a fight will come? ... I'd much rather know the worst."
"So would I!" said Grenville, cheerfully. "We can't. We can only get ready to acquit ourselves like—well, like gentlemen, and keep out an eye for a steamer.... Would you mind retreating to the cave I found, if dire necessity arose?"
"I'll go wherever you tell me," she answered, with a smile that went to his heart. "But of course I can't help wishing that a steamer would really come."