CHAPTER XXI
For once in his career, Don Miguel O’Donnell was a battered, defeated soldier of fortune. He had lost his schooner and was bound to accept whatever terms might be dictated, or face the unpleasant alternative of being marooned on Cocos Island. A prisoner in the cabin, he was stanching the blood from a cut on his cheek when Richard Cary came down from the deck and said:
“Here, let me fix that for you. My steward is coming aboard to help patch up your men. Sorry, but two or three of them are past mending. It was a dirty job you forced on me.”
“I wish I had left you alone, Captain Cary,” replied Don Miguel, without a trace of animosity. “I was the stupid one. It was in my mind that you might try to capture this vessel, but those machine guns made me feel easy. I lose and I must pay.”
Cary smiled. He could afford to. It was a waste of breath to denounce this veteran adventurer as a murderous blackguard who had brought disaster upon himself. He had behaved according to his own code which gave the spoils to the victor.
“Aye, you lose,” said Captain Cary. “You have until sundown to get your shore party and supplies aboard and make sail. If there is no breeze, I will tow you to sea.”
“And if I am not ready to sail by sundown, what then?”
“I shall sink your schooner. And I won’t feel at all backward about using the machine gun you made me a present of.”
“Machine guns are trumps,” said Don Miguel. “I am leaving Cocos Island before sundown. It will not be healthy to stay longer. To wait for another ship to take me off would be too much like Robinson Crusoe. Six months, a year?Quien sabe?”
“You are fed up with Cocos Island?” observed Cary. “I feel something like that myself, but I shall stick a while longer.”
“To find the treasure, my dear young man? Yes, I see you are in a hurry to go back to your camp and dig, just as soon as my schooner is on the ocean again.”
“Right you are. I expect to occupy the camp to-night. Señor Bazán will be fidgeting to get ashore again.”
“I hope you will find something,” very courteously replied Don Miguel. “Perhaps you will find something to-night. Señor Bazán seems to know exactly where to look for the treasure. I was not so lucky with my chart of Benito Bonito’s boatswain.”
Soon after this interview, Captain Cary returned to theValkyrie. Mr. Duff was left as prize master with a guard of five men. Señor Bazán was found asleep in a deck-chair after wearing himself out with fears and anxieties. Ricardo felt his pulse. It relieved him to find that the old gentleman had survived such a racking night as this. His heart was behaving far better than could have been expected. Apparently the sea voyage had been good for it.
Well, there would be no more clashes and alarms on Cocos Island. The argonauts from Cartagena could remain as long as it should please Ramon Bazán to hunt for the pot of gold at the rainbow’s end. They had found an awkward neighbor in Don Miguel O’Donnell, but he was departing bag and baggage.
Captain Cary slept late into the forenoon. The black cares had lifted. His own wounded men were on the way to recovery. His was the satisfaction of having fought and maneuvered his way out of an exceedingly tight corner, with the favoring aid of the goddess of chance. He felt a young man’s pride in defying the odds and smashing a way through adverse circumstances.
When he came out of his heavy slumber, Ramon Bazán hovered beside the bunk. His spectacles were on his nose. He was examining the chipped ear and the grazed arm which Ricardo had covered with strips of plaster.
“All’s well,” yawned the hero. “What do you say? Shall we shove off to the camp to-night?”
“I hope so,” chirruped Ramon, who was in high spirits. “The men have told me all. Do not trouble yourself to talk too much now. Do you know what I have decided? To give you half the treasure as soon as we find it. It will be my gift to you and Teresa, three millions besides the gold ingots. You must chase after that girl and marry her, Ricardo, if it will make you happy. With this treasure you can live quiet and safe. If you keep on fighting like this, Teresa will be a widow. Of course, when I die you will get my treasure, too, you and your sweetheart, except what I give to the splendid officers and sailors of theValkyrie. There is nobody to leave it to, only you and Teresa. Now you will have some fun in digging up this Cocos Island.”
“Oh, I have had fun enough already, and a bully good run for my money,” Ricardo assured him. “It is very fine of you to feel this way, but what do I want with three million dollars? Supposing we let it rest until we turn up the treasure.”
“If we miss finding it,” uneasily pursued Papa Ramon, “I have not much to leave Teresa. There is my house in Cartagena, and some more land, but this steamer and the voyage have cost me many thousands of dollars.”
“Please forget it,” urged Ricardo. “If I can find Teresa and she still loves me, what else in the world do I want?”
“That girl used to tease me and call me a horrid old monkey, but I will never scold her again,” said Papa Ramon. “Yes, Ricardo, perhaps there are more precious things than money. I have been learning it for myself. Loyalty? Is that the word? It is bigger than life itself. Why did you capture the schooner? Why will these men follow you anywhere you say? It is not for money at all.”
“It is never too late to learn,” smiled Ricardo. “I should call this a liberal education for all hands of us. Travel and entertainment, with frequent trips ashore. It puts it all over a cruise in a banana boat.”
It was late in the afternoon when the watchers on theValkyriesaw Don Miguel’s party come down the road to the beach, dragging the last cart-loads of the stuff they wished to take with them. Their boats carried it off to the schooner. Prize-master Duff, at a signal from Captain Cary, withdrew his guard and returned to the steamer. A light breeze was sighing off the land. Shortly before sunset the tall sails were hoisted and the anchor weighed.
The schooner rippled slowly past theValkyrieto trim her sheets and follow the fairway out beyond the headlands of the bay. Don Miguel O’Donnell paced the quarterdeck, a straight, vigorous figure of a man who bore himself gallantly. He raised his hat and bowed in courteous farewell. As he turned away, however, his hand went to his cheek, to touch the ugly cut that had marked him for life. It was a gesture which did not escape the scrutiny of Richard Cary. He made up his mind to steer clear of Ecuador. Soon the schooner caught a stronger draught of wind and heeled to its pressure as she made for the open sea.
Captain Cary mustered a landing party and beckoned Señor Bazán. Alas, the old gentleman was the picture of unhappiness. It had occurred to him, as an appalling possibility, that thepiraticosof Don Miguel O’Donnell might have discovered the treasure during their one day in camp. Perhaps it was some of the bullion in canvas bags that they had been trundling in the carts. To soothe Papa Ramon it was advisable to lose not a moment in investigating the camp. And so they lugged him along in the hammock slung from a pole.
To his immense relief, the excavation which they had begun close to the face of the cliff was found to be no deeper, nor had the gravel been disturbed elsewhere. Captain Cary’s first task, after they had put the tents to rights, was to detail a burial party for the body of the Colombian sailor which had been hidden in the bushes during the forced retreat. Papa Ramon wept. He had turned quite sentimental. He would pay for many masses to be said in the cathedral of Cartagena for the soul of this valiant mariner.
The air was uncommonly cool at dusk. The wind suddenly shifted and swept in from the sea. It was a refreshing night for tired men to rest their bones in sleep. They were eager to be up with the dawn and resume the toil with pick and shovel. Therefore most of them were in their hammocks as soon as darkness fell. Señor Bazán was snoring in his tent, after pottering about until his legs rebelled. Richard Cary wandered to a smooth rock and sat down to smoke and ponder. His nerves were still taut. It was difficult to relax.
The camp became silent. The only sounds were the rustle of the cocoanut palms and the music of falling water. For some time he sat there, and then prowled to and fro. The sky presaged fair weather. The sky was brilliant with stars, and almost cloudless. Little by little he felt lazily at ease. He decided to go to his tent.
Just then he heard a bell. Its notes were sonorous. The air fairly hummed with them. They were lingeringly vibrant. They were the tones of such a bell as had hurled its mellow echoes against the walls of Cartagena when the galleons of the plate fleet had ridden to their hempen cables. To Richard Cary’s ears the sound of this bell seemed to come from a distance, and yet it throbbed all about him. It was the bell of theNuestra Señora del Rosariowhich had been mounted upon the roof of theValkyrie’s forecastle.
He was accustomed to hearing it daily on shipboard as it marked the passing hours and changing watches, but even there it never failed to thrill responsive chords in some dim recess of his soul. Until now, however, it had not been heard as far inland as the camp. The fresh breeze blowing across the bay and the silence of night were conditions peculiarly favorable, thought Cary, but he stood in an attitude of strained attention.
Dong-dong—dong-dong!
Four bells!Richard Cary scratched a match and looked at his watch. The hands pointed to a quarter after nine. By the ship’s time, two bells had struck and it was not yet three bells.
Dong-dong—Dong-dong!
The galleon bell tolled again, Four bells! So far away and yet so dangerously insistent, as loud in his ears as though he stood upon the ship’s deck. He seemed also to hear Teresa’s voice attuned in harmony with it, to hear her saying in thepatio:
“There is something about this old bell, very queer, but as true as true can be. If anything very bad is going to happen to the one it belongs to, this bell of theNuestra Señora del Rosariostrikes four times,dong-dong, dong-dong. Four bells, like on board a ship. When there is going to be death or some terrible bad luck! It has always been like that, ’way, ’way back to my ancestor Don Juan Diego Fernandez.”
While Richard Cary listened, the bell sounded its warning once more, and then was mute. He was not dreaming, nor was he under the spell of those visions which had so often disquieted him. He rubbed his eyes and stared at the tents, the bare cliff, the yellow streaks of gravel. The sailors were asleep in their tents. For a long moment he stood bewitched and helpless. He refused to believe and yet he dared not disobey. He was pulled two ways. Common sense flouted it. What shook him free of this trance was the voice of Ramon Bazán who called out piteously. Cary ran to the tent and found the old man sitting up in his cot.
“Thank God, you have come, Ricardo. In my sleep I had a fearful dream. Four bells! I heard it and then I was awake, and I thought I heard it again. I feel very sick. Has the time come for me to die? You didn’t hear any four bells, did you, Ricardo? I am shaking all over.”
“Nonsense, Papa Bazán,” exclaimed Ricardo, patting the bony little shoulder. “I heard the bell, but it just happened that the wind brought the sound to us. Four bells? Perhaps the ship rolled in a ground swell and swung the clapper.”
“Then you did hear it, too?” quavered Ramon, clutching Ricardo’s arm. “It is no nonsense, not when the bell sounds like that. We must get out of this camp and go back to the ship. It is the safest place to be. Not for six million dollars will I stay here to-night. We must all go to the ship, I tell you. Will you take care of me, Ricardo?”
“Back we go to the ship, Papa Ramon,” readily agreed Richard Cary. “I feel like a fool, but I’ll confess I am creepy. I am whistling to keep up my courage. If there is a curse on this Cocos Island, we may as well get out from under. When it comes to fighting with spirits, a machine gun is no use at all.”
“Quick, Ricardo! Get the sailors to carry me in the hammock. I cannot walk out of the tent.”
Cary lifted him from the cot. He clung like a frightened child. At the lusty shout of all hands, the men came boiling out of the tents. They slept with one eye open. Was it another attack? They crowded around their captain. He was at a loss to explain it. The thing seemed too preposterous for words. While he hesitated, Ramon Bazán plucked at his shirt and implored him to make haste.
“Jump out of this. Vamoose! To the ship! On your way, boys!” thundered Captain Cary.
They obeyed on the instant. Some new danger threatened.El Capitanwas very much alarmed. When he gave an order like this, it meant something. Excitedly they straggled toward the trail. A grotesque exodus for brave men, if they had known it, and Richard Cary reproached himself as a womanish coward, but he was in a cold sweat of impatience, nevertheless, to set foot on the deck of his ship. Trudging behind his men, he found himself glancing back like an urchin in a haunted lane.
The pace slackened. One or two sailors ventured timid questions. He was still evasive. He gruffly mentioned a warning message. They inferred that perhaps Don Miguel O’Donnell had come sailing back to make a stealthy landing. Bewildered but trustful, they plodded on, swinging lanterns and sleepily chattering. The two who bore Señor Bazán in the hammock halted to ease their shoulders. The others waited.
A terrific explosion rocked the earth. The detonation stunned them. The first thought was that a volcanic eruption had blown up through the dead crater. They rushed to the nearest opening in the jungle. They could see the dark loom of the hill climbing to the little lake in the bowl at the top. It was undisturbed.
They turned to look in the direction of the camp. The sky was a glare of crimson. They could hear the crash of rock falling from the cliff, of débris raining from the air. Then came a roaring, grinding sound like a landslide. Huddled together, the fugitives were dumb until Captain Cary spoke up:
“I have a notion we pulled out just in time. Let’s go take a look.”
They rushed back to the end of the trail and out into the clearing beyond the ravine where the tents had stood. There were no tents and no cocoanut palms. They had to climb over huge heaps of broken rock which had been jarred from the crumbling, fissured face of the cliff. Their excavation was buried many feet deep in earth and stones dislodged from the steep slopes above the cliff. Great ragged holes yawned in the gravel banks. Richard Cary took a lantern and explored the chaos. He returned to report to Señor Bazán who had been laid on a blanket found wrapped around the splintered stump of a tree.
“Four bells was right,” said Ricardo. “The camp is blown to glory. And a big piece of the hill is dumped on top of it. This Don Miguel was a poor loser. I wish I had killed him with his machine gun. It’s easy enough to figure how the trick was done. He had a lot of dynamite left, so he told his gang to mine the camp. They cut the fuse long enough to burn several hours. I stumbled over one of his iron pipes. They ran the fuse through it, I suppose. An excellent joke, said Don Miguel, eh, Papa Ramon? ‘Perhaps you will find something to-night,’ said he. He has a sense of humor.”
“He couldn’t forgive you for whipping him,” feebly piped the old man. “Four Bells, Ricardo! Now I do not have to die.”
“I should say not. Now you can live to be a hundred. And we’ll have to give you a vote of thanks for putting the galleon bell on the steamer. Not that I am convinced, but it was a most extraordinary coincidence.”
“You are a fool, Ricardo,” snapped Papa Ramon, with a flash of the old temper. “And Teresa would call you worse names than that. It was the intercession of the Blessed Lady of Rosario for whom the galleon was named.”
A sailor exploring the débris with a lantern suddenly went insane, or so it appeared. He screeched, slid into a hole on his stomach, and wildly waved his legs. His comrades scampered to haul him out. Instantly they, too, became afflicted with violent dementia. Cary went to investigate. He caught up a lantern and peered into this fresh excavation torn by the explosive. A frenzied sailor was filling his straw hat with tarnished coins. Another was struggling to lift a heavy lump of metal, but had to drop it for lack of elbow room. Cary reached down and jerked the two men out of the hole. They danced around him, spilling Spanish dollars from their hats and shirts. He slid down and tossed out the weighty lump which looked like bullion fused and roughened by heat.
He ran to fetch Papa Ramon and to spread his blanket close to this miraculous gravel pit. The sailors darted off to search for bits of board to dig with. One of them was lucky enough to find a broken shovel. By the light of the lanterns they made the gravel fly like infuriated terriers. They turned up more coins, hundreds of them, and a closely packed heap of those roughened lumps of bullion. They discovered rotten pieces of plank studded with iron bolts and braces. They piled the booty upon Señor Bazán’s blanket. He let the blackened Spanish dollars clink through his fingers. He fondled the shapeless lumps of bullion.
He was a supremely happy old man, nor was his emotion altogether sordid. He was happy for Ricardo and Teresa. And the spirit of romance, the enchantment of adventure had renewed, for this transient hour, the bright aspects of his youth.
“We have found it,” he gasped, his voice almost failing him.
“Don Miguel found it for us,” replied Ricardo. “The laugh is on him, after all. I wish I could send him the news. It would make this the end of a perfect day.”
Ramon Bazán chuckled and tried to say something. After a thickened, stammering word or two, his voice died in his throat. He swayed forward, his hands filled with Spanish dollars. They slid from his helpless fingers. Ricardo caught him in his arms and gently laid him down. The wizened brown face had turned ashen. It was pinched and very old.
In his shirt pocket was a little leather case with a vial in it. Richard Cary found it and forced a capsule between the bloodless lips. It failed to revive him. A second capsule was no more effectual.
The worn-out heart, which had been so often spurred by the powerful drug, had made its last rally. Presently Cary discovered that it had ceased to beat. He told the sailors that Señor Ramon Bazán was dead. They were shocked and very sorry. Crowding around the blanket, they bared their heads and crossed themselves, earnestly muttering the prayers of the Church.
Even their simple souls comprehended that fate had not been unkind to this aged man. His departure was not essentially mournful. It could even be regarded as a felicitous ending. He had achieved the goal of his desire, which bright fortune is vouchsafed to few. Most men spend their lives in search of some treasure, hidden or elusive, and rarely do they find it. Nor do they understand that the joy is in the quest and not in the possession.
CHAPTER XXII
They wrapped the body of Ramon Bazán in the blanket, and Richard Cary took the light burden in his arms to carry it back to the ship. It was right and proper that he should be the bearer. It appealed to him as an affectionate duty. In the morning they would build a coffin and find a burial-place beyond high-water mark on the beach. It was a pleasanter spot to lie than in the unholy desolation of this torn landscape near the cliff, with its recent memories of bloodshed and commotion, and its ancient memories of abominably evil deeds.
A subdued procession followed Richard Cary down the dark trail. The Colombian sailors whispered uneasily and were very willing to await the friendly light of day before trying to find more treasure. Could it be that the very touch of the Spanish dollars and bullion had killed Señor Bazán? Had an unearthly vengeance smitten him because he had led them straight to the place where the treasure was, with that pirates’ chart of his? If he had not come to Cocos Island, the secret hoard would still be undisturbed.
There were things that no man could explain, said they. What was the message that had warnedEl CapitanRicardo to flee from the camp? How had it been brought to him? It had saved them all from being as dead as poor Señor Bazán. It was a question whether honest sailormen had not better let that treasure alone. Life was sweet to them. However, it was forEl CapitanRicardo to tell them what should be done.
When morning came, theValkyriedisplayed the Colombian colors half-masted. The owner of the ship reposed in his own room, a peaceful old man whose fevered anxieties were stilled, who had acquired a certain dignity denied him in life. Chief Officer Bradley Duff stole in to look at him. Emotional in such circumstances, he blew his crimson nose and wiped his eyes. He did not know just why, for there was no reason to give way to grief. In his time he had seen many a better man slip his cable. Dutifully he muttered aloud:
“The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, and what do you know about that? Anyhow, you got what you wanted, didn’t you, Papa Ramon, and you sailed off into the great beyond as happy as a kid with a Christmas stocking. There is only one drawback. Coin to blow and no chance to blow it! It breaks my heart to think of a thing like that. But, hell’s bells, what could an old man blow it on? Here’s hoping you have laid up treasure in heaven, for it’s your only bet—”
Richard Cary interrupted this impromptu elegy and beckoned the chief officer outside to say:
“All hands will go ashore that can be spared from duty, Mr. Duff. Clean clothes—make them look as smart as you can. At ten o’clock this forenoon.”
“At four bells, sir?”
“Yes, at four bells. It seems appropriate. Have the bell tolled during the burial service.”
“Right, Captain Cary. Let me tell you, though, the prickles ran up and down my back when the man on watch banged out four bells at six o’clock this morning. If it’s all the same to you, I won’t have four bells struck after to-day.”
“I am not very anxious to hear it myself, Mr. Duff. And so you heard it last night when I did? The bell actually rang itself? Did you look at the clock?”
“I looked at the clock with my two eyes as big as onions,” earnestly answered Mr. Duff. “It was eighteen minutes after nine. I had come on deck after saying good-night to the chief engineer. Charlie was fussing and cussing some because his leg hurt him, and he was missing all the excitement.Dong-dong—dong-dong, went the silly old bell, and I walked as far as the bridge to bawl out the anchor watch. Nobody was near the bell. Says I to myself, one of those Colombians has an extra drink under his belt and is skylarkin’ to get a rise out of me.
“I stood there looking at the shack of a fo’castle we knocked together and the bell hanging in the frame on top of it. I’m a son-of-a-gun if the bell didn’t ring again. I was as flustered as a woman with a mouse in her petticoats. I had heard the yarn—why Señor Bazán insisted on fetching this old relic along. Well, sir, I was froze to the deck like a blasted dummy, my mouth wide open, and I’m a liar if she didn’t hammer out four bellsagain. Three times is out, says I, and something is due to happen. It did. That infernal explosion made my teeth rattle. From here it looked as if old Cocos Island had split herself wide open. I was never so thankful in my life as when you showed up on the beach with all hands accounted for except poor Ramon Bazán. That was his own private signal the bell tapped off, as I figure it.”
“And you examined the bell?” asked Cary. “I haven’t had a chance to look it over.”
“Yes, sir. I made myself go for’ard and I climbed on the roof. I laid on my back and felt inside of this spooky bell. It was a brave deed, Captain Cary. Please enter it in the log that Bradley Duff was meritorious. The tongue of the bell is hung on a swivel bolt and there is a lot of play in it, due to wear and corrosion. The ship was rolling last night, a strong breeze blowing straight into the bay and considerable ground swell. The tongue might possibly have swung to strike the rim of the bell, but it never happened before, not even in that gale off the Colombian coast. That’s all I can say, sir, and I have to believe it or admit that I’ve gone clean dotty.”
“What else can we say, Mr. Duff? The more we guess the less we know.”
“But who will it warn next time, now that it has done its duty by Señor Bazán? What about that, sir?”
Ricardo was immensely startled. This had not occurred to him. He look frightened as he replied:
“Señorita Teresa Fernandez, his niece? I wonder if I shall hear four bells if any misfortune hangs over her. I may not know where she is. Suppose I am not there to help and protect her. You and I are certainly going dotty, Mr. Duff. I want to get this ship to sea again.”
“First time I ever saw you down-hearted,” said the sympathetic chief officer. “Sit tight and forget it. Señor Bazán was due to pass out anyhow. He was living on borrowed time. It’s different with a healthy girl that knows her way about, though I know there’s nothing worries a man as much as a sweetheart. Lord love you, I used to have ’em from Singapore to Rio.”
Cary turned away. The talk was getting too intimate. He called himself an idiot for letting such strange fancies distress him. He had lost a devoted friend in Ramon Bazán, for all his whims and crotchets, and he felt badly shaken by it. When later in the morning the ship’s company decorously assembled on the beach, he was deeply affected. Solemnly the bell tolled on theValkyrie. A prayer-book was lacking, but Ricardo said the verses he had learned at his mother’s knee. And when the grave was filled, the sailors covered it with gorgeous wreaths of tropical flowers. An assistant engineer, with cold chisel and hammer, cut the dead man’s name and the emblem of the Holy Cross. This they did for Ramon Bazán who had fared venturesomely forth from Cartagena to find his journey’s end on this lonely, storied island of the wide Pacific.
It was not demanded of them that they should any longer be idle. And so Richard Cary led them to the devastated camp to view it by daylight. They were bold and eager again. The terrors of darkness had faded from their minds. Instantly they fell to enlarging the hole in which they had discovered the silver. They expected to uncover tons of it. Disappointment was their lot. In all they uncovered no more than three hundred weight. This seemed trifling. They were uncertain where next to explore. At random they shoveled the gravel and threw out scattered coins and bars of bullion.
The greater part of the treasure might be underneath the vast heap of rock which had fallen from the cliff, or it might be buried far under the landslide from the higher slope. All the rest of the day they toiled, but it was a gigantic task for a few men, and they felt baffled and discouraged. They doubted the truth of the saying that faith can remove mountains. There was no inclination to remain away from the ship after the sun went down behind the lofty hill. The shadows of night were fearsome company.
For Richard Cary the enterprise had lost its zest. He kept his thoughts to himself until evening when he went to Charlie Burnham’s room. These two were kindred spirits, in a way, youthful tropical rovers who had wandered far from rugged New Hampshire farms. They were sprung from the same kind of stock. They spoke the same language and were ballasted with like traits of character. Because they understood each other, Cary could lay aside the masterful pose of one whose word was law. It was safe to make a confidant of Charlie Burnham.
“Instead of raising such a row, you ought to be thankful you didn’t lose a leg,” said Cary as he pulled a chair close to the bunk.
A grin was on the homely, honest face of the chief engineer.
“Little old New Hampshire was never like this,” said he. “Give me another week and I can steam slow speed ahead on a crutch. All that really bothers me is that I never got a crack at those outlaws. You’ll have to hand it to Don Miguel O’Donnell. The trick of bumping you off with dynamite was neat. He was a mining engineer, all right. What’s the big idea now? Do we get rich quick or not?”
“A tremendous lot of rock and dirt to move, Charlie, and then we don’t know what’s under it. Too much for this short-handed crew to tackle.”
“I can swing the job, Captain Cary,” eagerly exclaimed Charlie. “It means a trip to Panama to get me a donkey boiler, for one thing. I can shift a winch engine ashore and rig a derrick to handle that rock. Then I’ll want some more iron pipe to run Don Miguel’s hydraulic line over to our location. We can wash that dirt out in no time. Gosh, we’ll root that treasure out like a pig in a manure pile. It’s a cinch, now we know it’s there or thereabouts.”
Cary was unresponsive. His mind was far away. After a long pause he said:
“Listen, Charlie. Your scheme is good enough, and I don’t propose to stand in your way. And I waive all claim to any more treasure you may find. Out of what you have dug up already, I shall take the share that was promised me as master of the steamer when we sailed from Cartagena. That will be stake enough.”
“You sound as if you meant to quit us,” was the reproachful accusation. “Please don’t do that. Why, I can see us cleaning up millions! And there isn’t a man in the ship that wouldn’t be tickled to death to give you half of it. You are the whole works, sir.”
“There is nothing to hold me, now that Ramon Bazán is dead,” explained Ricardo. “I had to stand by—there was an obligation—but now I am free to look after my own affairs and go my own way. You raise a question that puzzles me. This steamer is left on my hands. I am Señor Bazán’s agent, I presume, until I get in touch with Cartagena, or find his niece. He left no instructions. You can have the vessel for a small charter price, if you like, to go ahead with your plans. I see no objection to that. She will be earning something, and Mr. Duff can take the command. If it costs too much to operate her, why not take her home to Cartagena and then come back in a small schooner?”
“Great Scott, Captain Cary, we can’t lose all that time!” excitedly protested Charlie Burnham, rumpling his hair with both hands. “The boys will want me to charter this old hooker. They have dug up enough silver to keep things going for some time. But see here, sir, you’ve got me puzzled, too. How much of this treasure stuff honestly belongs to us? What if we do find the rest of it? Señor Bazán outfitted the voyage, and it was his chart that steered us to the right place on Cocos Island. We might not have found a thing, though, if Don Miguel hadn’t blown the scenery upside down. What’s the answer?”
“Send me word when you find your millions,” laughed Ricardo. “Then we can talk it over. I swear I don’t know what the answer is just now. It is too thick for me. As far as I am personally concerned, I don’t want to touch any more of the cursed plunder than I can help. All I ask is enough to send me on my way. A week more, shall we say? This will give them time to dig their fool heads off and tire themselves out. And by then you will be able to get down to the engine-room.”
“Huh, the only thing to make you talk this way is a girl,” snorted Charlie. “It’s all right, Captain Cary, and you have handled this proposition like a wise guy from start to finish, but the best of us skid. It’s Cocos Island for mine.”
“Well, I think I got what I was looking for,” said Ricardo, with a cryptic twinkle. “I have only one fault to find with Don Miguel O’Donnell. He was born about two hundred years too late. I wish I might have met him, in these same waters, before machine guns were invented.”
“He would have been there with the goods,” heartily replied Charlie.
Captain Cary spent little time ashore after this. Mr. Duff was delighted to take charge of the volunteers who grilled in the sun and made slaves of themselves with pick and shovel. He had been a boss stevedore, among his various employments, and his Spanish vocabulary was like hitting a man with a brick. Tremendously he told them what to do and how to do it. They accomplished prodigies in moving rocks and gravel. He had to admit, however, that it was a job for Charley Burnham’s ingenuity and equipment.
They did find more scattered bullion, blown hither and yon from some undiscovered hiding-place. It handsomely rewarded them for their pains, but made them more than ever dissatisfied. Not a gold ingot had they found. Gold was the word to conjure with. It tormented them. At the end of a week they packed their silver hoard in canvas sacks and weighed it on the scales in the ship’s storeroom. Captain Cary calculated that they had scraped together something like eight thousand dollars’ worth of coins and bullion.
They held a conference. Mr. Panchito, the cheery second mate, addressed them with his arm in a sling. As a compatriot he was able to bombard the crew with an oration. He persuaded them to demand no more than their wages, to be paid them on arrival at Panama. The greater part of the booty was to be entrusted to the chief engineer as the managing director. He would make all the necessary arrangements for a return voyage to Cocos Island.
“Alas, my brave men, we must loseEl CapitanRicardo,” passionately declaimed Mr. Panchito. His eloquence was hampered because one arm was in a sling. “What shall we do withoutEl Tigre Amarillo Grandewho conquered Cartagena with an iron bar in his hands, who has conquered this Cocos Island with nothing but his courage in his hands, who has conquered his brave shipmates with the goodness of his heart, who laughs at us naughty children and punishes us when we deserve it.Viva El Capitan!Shout as loud as you can.”
They shouted, and Ricardo blushed. In this manner the finish of the chapter of Cocos Island was written for him. TheValkyriesailed at daybreak, her engines complaining loudly as she plodded out to sea. Charlie Burnham sat on a stool in the stifling compartment and luridly told the engines what he thought of them. The firemen briskly fed the coal to her and, for once, there was no grumbling. They were rich men and they expected to become vastly richer.
It seemed as though ill omens and misfortune had been left astern. An ocean serenely calm favored the decrepitValkyrieas she laid a course for Panama. Only one of the wounded men was still confined to a bunk. It was a ship whose people had been welded together in a stanch brotherhood. Nothing could dismay them.
They made light of it when Charlie Burnham sent up word that the crack in the propeller shaft didn’t look any too healthy to him, and he thought he had better tinker with it. Give him a day and he could fit a collar and bolt it on the shaft before it broke clean in two and punched the bottom out of the ship or something like that.
Captain Cary approved. The engines were idle while theValkyrierolled with an easy motion, and Charlie’s assistants hammered and forged and drilled. Night came down with clouds and rain, and strong gusts of wind. There was nothing to indicate seriously heavy weather. It was murky, however, with a rising sea. Soon after dark Captain Cary went to the bridge to relieve Mr. Duff.
“With no steerage way she slops about like a barge,” said the latter. “It may turn a bit nasty before morning. The barometer doesn’t say so, but my feet ache more than usual.”
“It will be a thick night, and some sea running, most likely,” remarked Cary. “I don’t look for a gale of wind.”
“In a steamer not under control it feels worse than it is, sir. How is Charlie coming along with his shaft collar?”
“He’ll have us shoving ahead by morning, Mr. Duff. And a couple of days more will see us in Panama Bay.”
Walking the bridge alone, Captain Cary had never seen a blacker night than this, with the rain beating into his face and the spray driving like mist. Her engines stilled, the ship felt helpless and dead, while the seas swung her this way and that. It was a tedious watch to stand while the captain fought off drowsiness as the hours wore on.
It was almost time to go below when he saw a steamer’s lights so close at hand that it startled him. Invisible at a distance, they suddenly appeared, glimmering red and green, out of this shrouded night. They indicated that this other steamer was on a course to strike the disabledValkyriewhich could do nothing to avert collision.
Cary held his breath, expecting to see the vessel turn in time to pass ahead of him. Instead of this, she threw her helm over too late. Blundering hesitation and a poor lookout made a smash inevitable. Richard Cary gripped a bridge stanchion and awaited the shock. There was nothing else to do. He heard a confused shouting in Italian. Then the vague shadow of a prow loomed a little way forward of theValkyrie’s bridge, moving slowly as the other steamer trembled to the thrust of a propeller thrashing hard astern.
They came together with an infernal din of fractured plates and twisting frames. With a fatal momentum, the stranger clove her way deep into theValkyrie’s side. It cracked her like an egg. Here was one peril of the deep which she was entirely too decrepit to withstand. It could not fairly be expected of her. She heeled over with a lugubrious lamentation of rivets snapping, of beams buckling and groaning. It shook the bridge like an earthquake. Captain Cary clung to his stanchion for dear life and stared with a horrified fascination. He was wondering whether this misbegotten Italian freighter proposed to cut clean through theValkyrie, like a knife through a cheese, and proceed on her way. The crumpled bow could drive ahead no farther, however, and the two ships hung locked together.
“Hold where you are!” roared Captain Cary. “Keep the hole plugged! Don’t back out! Let me get my people off before this vessel sinks.”
The frightened Italian skipper was more concerned with investigating his own damages. Paying no heed, he kept his engines reversed and sluggishly backed out of the gap he had torn. Hysterically blowing his whistle he drifted off in the darkness until his lights were lost to view.
Richard Cary lost no time making signals of distress. His job was to get the crew off a ship that was dropping from under their feet. He could hear the sea rushing into the hold.
His first thought was for the men in the forecastle. He made his way over the splintered deck which was humped like a cat’s back. Beyond the chasm in the ship’s side, he found the wooden structure still intact, but tipped at a crazy slant. Already the men were bringing out the one wounded comrade who was unable to help himself. They were excited and noisy, but ready to do whateverEl Capitansaid. He drove them aft ahead of him, telling them to find their stations just the same as at boat drill.
By now the others came rushing up from the engine-room and stoke-hole. The safety-valve had been opened to let her blow off. This was the only farewell ceremony that any one had delayed to perform. The water had been splashing to their knees when they scrambled for the ladder. Luckily the crippled Charlie Burnham had turned in for a nap and came hobbling from his room in the state of mind of a young man who regarded this as one thing too many.
There was no panic. As a ship’s crew the habit of obedience was more than skin deep. This was the finish of the old hooker and it was time for them to go. Two boats were promptly swung out. There was room and to spare in them.
“Mr. Duff takes the number one boat,” said Captain Cary. “Stow Mr. Panchito carefully and look out for his broken arm. The chief engineer goes in the other boat.”
“What about our treasure?” demanded Charlie Burnham, in anguished accents. “If we have to lose it, this shipwreck is a mighty serious affair, let me tell you, sir.”
“Let ’em go get it then,” rapped out Captain Cary, “but you’ll all be drowned if you fiddle here five minutes longer.”
Jubilantly they dragged the canvas sacks from the storeroom and flung them into the boats. Even this brief delay was perilous, but Cary had not the heart to refuse them. So fast was the steamer sinking that the waves were even now breaking across her well deck. She was going down by the head, and her stern was cocking high in air. Had they stayed too long? As he shouted to lower away, Cary wished he had parted the fools and their money.
One boat plopped upon the back of a crested wave and was safely shoved away from the perishing ship. The other waited for the captain, but he told them to let go and pull clear. Glancing forward, he saw theValkyrie’s bow plunge under in a ghastly smother of foam. Were all hands accounted for? He had to satisfy himself of this before he was willing to quit the ship. It was the imperative demand of duty, the final rite of a commander faithful to his task. Had any of those reckless idiots been left in the storeroom wrestling with their cursed bags of silver? He felt sure he had shoved or thrown them all into the boats, but he could not afford to carry the smallest doubt with him.
The ship was deserted. This he ascertained in a minute or two. Running to the side, he was thankful to find the second boat well away without mishap. They were yelling to him to jump. Just then a tall wave flashed and toppled across the deck. It washed him from his feet, rolled him over and over, and flung him against a skylight. The breath was knocked out of him. He felt the ship lurch and quiver in the last throes. A rending concussion tore her apart. Clouds of steam gushed through gratings and hatches. The stern rose until it stood almost on end as theValkyrieplunged under the sea.
Whirling like a chip, Richard Cary was sucked down with her. He was unable to help himself. Some convulsion of water spewed him to the surface in an eddy of foam and vapor. He was too feeble to swim or to cry out. Instinctively he kept himself afloat. All sense of direction was lost. He did not know where the boats were. The sea was much rougher than had appeared from the deck. It battered and strangled him. It bore him down into dark, seething valleys of water and tossed him up again.
A broken piece of timber scraped his shoulder. He thrust an arm over it and so eased his exertions. He tried to shout, but his voice was weak and broken. Frequently the water submerged him. Suffocation constricted his lungs. The strength had been hammered out of him. Once he caught a glimpse of the masthead light of the steamer which had sunk theValkyrie, as though she were groping about to find the survivors.
He took it for granted that his own boats were searching for him. So black and windy was the sea that it was very possible to miss him. They would expect to be guided by his strong voice calling to them. He was drifting away from the spot where the ship had gone down. His energies were so benumbed that the loudest sound he could make was like the cry of a gull, unheard above the hissing clamor of the seas that broke over his head.
For perhaps an hour Richard Cary clung to the drifting piece of timber. Once or twice he fancied he saw the shape of a boat, but it was well to windward of him and his voice was blown away. Finding a man afloat in such a night as this was merest chance. Loyal as his shipmates were, they were men accustomed to the hazards of the sea and it would be concluded that he had been drowned with his ship. It was a miracle, as he well knew, that he had been cast up alive.
He did not see the masthead light again. Probably the Italian freighter had picked up the boats and resumed her voyage. All hope of rescue was gone. Unless the sea quieted, he could not struggle much longer. Daylight was far away. Ramon Bazán and his ship, both gone, and now it was Richard Cary’s turn. But they were old and worn-out. They had lived their lives. He had been so strong in the sense of invincibility, so secure in the supremacy of youth and strength. Life and youth, love and strength and ambition, the sea extinguishes them all.
Tenaciously enduring, refusing to surrender until the last gasp, he heard the galleon bell! It was tolling for him. He was too far gone to wonder. It seemed not in the least fantastic that the bell should be tolling his requiem, even though it had gone to the bottom of the sea. At first faint and far away, it was growing louder. A phantom bell that tolled in mockery! Its grave reverberations rose above the commotion of the waves to signal the passing of the soul of Richard Cary.
It tormented him to listen to the bell that had been drowned fathoms down. Why could it not let him go in peace? He rallied from his stupor. A phantom bell? He wildly denied and denounced it.
He became conscious of a curious illusion that the bell was drifting past him. Could he be wrong? Was it calling to him with a voice of help and guidance instead of mockery? It had saved him from death on Cocos Island. Was this another intervention?
He released his hold of the piece of timber and swam in the trough of the sea, gaining strength for this last effort. What difference if he hastened the end by this much? The bell tolled in the air above his head. It was so near that it could not elude him, he babbled.
Like surf on a rock, the waves spouted over some dim floating object that bulked large. Richard Cary saw the wan flicker and curl of them. He put out an arm to fend himself off. His hand slipped along the edge of a board. He groped again and caught hold of a massive upright. Painfully he hauled himself up on a platform of boards awash with the sea. There he sprawled flat.
Soon he was able to sit and maintain his grasp of the upright which was firmly fastened to the platform. He could breathe and rest, although the water gushed over him. Reaching up, he touched the rim of the galleon bell. It vibrated to the strokes of the heavy tongue as the platform tossed and pitched with a motion giddily violent.
His refuge was the roof of the wooden forecastle house which had been torn bodily from the bolts securing it to theValkyrie’s deck. Loosened by the collision, it had been carried down and later brought to the surface by its own buoyancy, perhaps not until after the boats had abandoned the search for their lost captain.
A haunted bell, but one that could be kind as well as cruel. Twice now it had preserved Richard Cary from the immediate certainty of extinction. He clung to his wave-washed raft with the bell clanging over him, but he had ceased to despair of rescue. He was granted a surcease from the unavailing struggle to survive. He dared hope to see another blessed dawn. With clearing weather and a falling wind, he might hang on and keep alive for two or three days. Other castaways had done so with much less pith and endurance than his own.
Meanwhile the galleon bell, riding in its frame, would be a conspicuous beacon by day. At night its brazen-throated appeal would carry far over the face of the waters.
His courage was hardened, the spark of confidence rekindled, and he felt strong in the faith that this was not to be the end of Richard Cary.