AT CLOSE QUARTERS.
M. Crenelette was a gray-haired, benevolent looking man with mild blue eyes. It was impossible to associate him with anything in the nature of lawlessness, and the boys were tempted to think they were on the wrong track.
M. Crenelette was French, but he talked English like one to the manner born.
His establishment was a veritable junk shop.
"What can I do for you, my friends?" he asked, getting up from a desk where he had been writing.
"Have you any objections to letting us take a look through your basement?" asked Matt.
"Basement? basement?" repeated the antiquarian, puzzled.
"Yes, through the cellar under your store."
"My dear young man, there are no cellars in New Orleans. The ground is too low, and there is water too near the surface."
Once more Matt and Dick began to feel that they were making a mistake in coming to M. Crenelette.
"Is there a room in this building that is inclosed with stone walls?"
"Ah!" and M. Crenelette's face brightened, "you speak now of the vaults of the old bank. They are on the second floor. I do not use the second floor, and it was rented, a few days ago, to an American gentleman. He has not moved in, yet. What interests you in the old vault?"
"We simply want to look it over," Matt answered. "Will you show us how to get up there? If the man who rented the place hasn't moved in yet I suppose there won't be any objection?"
"Certainly not. Come this way."
The Frenchman passed out the rear of his store and pointed to an open back stairway.
"The door may be locked," said he, "and, in that case, you will be disappointed, for I have given the key to the new tenant. You might go up the stairs and try the door."
As Matt and Dick ascended the stairs, M. Crenelette posted himself to watch. The bell at his front door suddenly tinkled, however, announcing a customer, and he had to go away.
The boys tried the door and found it open.
"The new tenant," remarked Dick, "isn't a very careful man. I wonder if his name is Jurgens?"
"Probably," said Matt, stepping into the room beyond the door.
It was a small room, and there was another door opposite the one by which he had entered.
"Dowse my toplights!" exclaimed Dick. "This doesn't look much like a bank. And then the idea of a bank being on the second floor! All my eye and Betty Martin!"
"Perhaps the bank was on the first floor and the vaults on the second," suggested Matt. "It was probably an old institution. From the looks of this building it must have been standing at the time Jackson whipped the Britishers."
"I'm a Britisher, you know, old ship," laughed Dick, "and I don't like to have you rub that Jackson fight into me. Push ahead and let's see what's in the next room."
Matt opened the door and was confronted by a windowless room as dark as Egypt. The only daylight that reached it came from the room in which the two boys were standing.
"Shiver me!" muttered Dick. "I guess we've reached the vaults, matey."
"They wouldn't have a door like this to a bank vault, Dick. We'll go in and see if there isn't a door on the other side that we can open."
Matt entered the room, groping his way through the thick gloom. Dick followed him closely.
Suddenly, the door through which they had just come slammed shut and a key was heard grating in the lock.
"Trapped!" muttered Dick. "There was some one here and laying for us."
"Quick!" called Matt, whirling around. "Try the door."
Before Dick could get back to it, Matt heard a muttered exclamation and the sound of a struggle. It was impossible to see a thing, and the young motorist could only guess at what had happened.
"Dick!" he called, leaping forward.
"Look alive, mate!" panted Dick. "Some one's got hold of me."
Before Dick had fairly finished speaking, a pair of stout arms went around Matt, and he was forced to fight on his own account and leave Dick to look after himself.
It was a struggle at close quarters, and a very unequal one. Slowly but steadily Matt was forced across the floor.
"Who are you?" he panted. "What are——"
"Whistler!" came a husky voice, "I'm closer to you, now, than I was at the bayou. Saw you coming across the street and opened the door to make it easy for you to get in. I don't know how you found out about this place, but your call here won't do you any good. You've bothered Jurgens and me as long as you're going to, and you and Ferral will never live to get away from this building!"
With that, Matt felt himself hurled roughly backward. He struck against a wall and dropped half stunned to the floor.
The next moment Dick came banging against him, and there followed the clang of an iron door, the rattle of a key, then silence.
"Matt?" called Dick, his voice echoing and reëchoing strangely.
"Here," answered Matt.
"Blest if we smoked Whistler's roll quick enough! We came easy for him—so easy that I'm ashamed of myself. The fact that he was here proves that this is a sort of headquarters for him and Jurgens."
"If this wasn't a rendezvous of theirs, of course Whistler wouldn't have been around."
"Where are we?"
"I guess," answered Motor Matt, slowly, "that we have found the old vault. That was an iron door that closed on us, if the noise it made counts for anything."
"Oh, glory!" grunted Dick, disgustedly. "How long can we stay in here without smothering to death?"
"The air seems to be fairly pure, at present—purer, in fact, than it was out in that other room. But, Whistler! Why he was the last man I was expecting to see."
"And we didn't see much of him, at that," growled Dick. "My eye, but here's a go! Whistler didn't lose much time coming in from that bayou. I wonder if he's found Jurgens, and if the two of them have got the hooks on Carl?"
"There are a whole lot of things I wish I knew, Dick," said Matt.
"Same here, matey. Whistler had some one with him, and that other man may have been Jurgens."
"Well, if it was Jurgens, then it's a cinch Jurgens wasn't so much off his balance as Rigolette led us to believe. But I don't think it was Jurgens."
"Why not?"
"Jurgens would have said something to let us know that he had a hand in our capture."
"Right-o. Jurgens is a good deal of a boaster and likes to run up his signals whenever he gets the chance. We've had a nice time of it since we reached New Orleans, I must say! With you and me locked up, and Carl running around with his mind in a haze, I wonder what's going to become of theHawk? She can't roost out there on the dock indefinitely."
"We're not going to stay locked up for long," returned Matt. "Just as soon as we catch our breath we've got to take a look around here and see if we can't get away."
"With an iron door to batter down, matey, the outlook isn't what you might call promising. I've heard of men being shut up in bank vaults, but they usually smothered. Oh, hang the luck! And hang the way we dropped into this bunch of trouble! We ought to have suspected there was some one in here when we found the door open."
"No use crying over spilt milk, Dick. Don't you think it might have been Whistler instead of Jurgens who rushed into the house of Rigolette's and took the idol's head away from Joujou?"
"One guess is as good as another," said Dick, heavily.
"Well, we'll stop guessing and try and get down to facts. Have you any matches?"
"A pocketful."
"Then strike one and we'll find out where we are."
The floor of the room was of brick. Dick scratched a match on the floor and then got to his feet and held the light in the best position for him and Matt to make a survey of their quarters.
The room in which the boys found themselves was about ten feet square. The walls and ceiling were of stone, and there was only one opening, and this was closed with a heavy iron door.
Dick stepped to the door and pushed against it. Although rust encrusted the iron plates, yet the door rigidly resisted his push upon it.
"We might blow the door down with a stick of dynamite," said Dick, "but that's the only way we could do the trick, mate. I'm a Fiji if——"
"Look!" came hoarsely from Matt; "on the floor, there, off to the left of you!"
The flame of the match was eating close to Dick's fingers, but in the last, dying glow he swerved his eyes in the direction indicated by Matt, and an astonishing duplicate of Yamousa's second smoke picture burst on his eyes.
On the brick floor lay a man with gray hair and gray mustache, bound hand and foot and gagged.
It seemed to Matt and Dick as though they were again in the hut by the bayou and peering into the smoke arising from the earthen jar under the spell of Yamousa.
"Townsend!" gasped Dick.
THREE IN A TRAP.
The boys knew Archibald Townsend, otherwise Captain Nemo, Jr., of theGrampus, well. The matchlight was feeble, but there could be no mistake.
Both of them crept forward, and while Dick groped about with his hands to unloosen the cords that bound the prisoner, Matt removed the gag.
"King!" gasped Townsend, as soon as he could speak; "and Ferral! This is the most amazing thing I ever heard of! How is it you happen to be here?"
"That will be even more amazing, Townsend," answered Matt, "when we tell you about it. How long have you been here?"
"It must be all of two days, although there's no telling the difference between night and day in such a black hole. Gad, but it's good to see you boys again. When did you get here?"
"To-day," answered Matt.
"And it's been our busy day, too," added Dick. "We've been on the jump ever since we struck the town."
"I was so astounded when you boys were thrown in here that I could hardly think," continued Townsend. "Later, when you began to talk, what you said aroused my curiosity. You got my telegram, of course?"
"Yes, and started at once as soon as it came to hand."
"What happened to you? I might as well tell you, before you begin to talk, though, that Jurgens has got the iron chest away from me again."
"We know that," said Matt, "for we picked it up out of an empty boat in the river."
An exclamation of astonishment burst from Townsend.
"Start at once," said he, "and give me the whole of your experiences. After that I'll tell you what happened to me, and we'll have a fair understanding of the situation."
Matt and Dick, between them, related their adventures, beginning at Bayou Yamousa. Townsend was absorbed in the recital, but made no comment until the last word was spoken.
"Mystery seems to have been following mystery!" he exclaimed. "The Obeah woman has helped you, and me, in a most remarkable way. I am not particularly credulous, and that talk of yours about the smoke pictures, coming from any one else but you, would be hard to swallow. Most remarkable—in fact, astounding! By some arts of her own she seems to have thrown into the screen of smoke events that were to happen, as well as to give you a view of my situation, many miles away—a view that was complete in every particular.
"All that is strange and incomprehensible, but it is hardly a marker to the rest that happened. The head of an idol in that iron chest! I wonder if it had anything to do with the unbalancing of Jurgens, Bangs and Carl? Furthermore, I wonder how it happened that Bangs was on the levee to spring that cock-and-bull story on you when you arrived? These are all inexplicable things to me."
Townsend fell silent, apparently musing in the blank gloom.
"You are probably anxious to hear how I lost the chest a second time," he presently went on. "It happened principally because I was ignorant of the fact that our old enemies, Jurgens and Whistler, were in New Orleans. I had not heard a thing about them since they vanished so mysteriously from that little island in the Bahamas.
"As soon as theGrampusreached this port, I immediately laid my plans to have the iron chest removed to a place of safety. It was night, and I hired a man with a wheelbarrow to take it into town. I went with the man, but, before I left theGrampus, I arranged with Cassidy to send you a telegram on the following day. It was not my intention to return to theGrampusthat night, and I expected to be busy locating the lady for whom the Man from Cape Town had asked me to look.
"While we were crossing the levee, and were in a dark and obscure place on the water front, I and the man with the wheelbarrow were set upon by a gang of roughs. The man who was wheeling the chest was knocked down and left unconscious, and I was bound, put in a closed carriage and brought here. Since that time my mind and body have both been shrouded in total darkness. Twice a day a negro has come and given me food, but I have seen nothing of either Whistler or Jurgens.
"However, I surmised the reason for my capture and detention in this place. My scoundrelly enemies wished to keep me in limbo until they had divided the treasure in the iron chest and got well away with their booty. Yet the time I spent here has not been altogether lost. I have cultivated my negro jailer. He would tell me nothing about my captors, nor why I had been captured, but he has promised to release me if I would give him $500. The last time he came with food I wrote a line to Cassidy telling him to pay over the money and ask no questions. The negro may get the money and then fail to carry out his part of the contract—but it was a chance I had to take."
"Isn't there any other way to get out of here except by the negro's aid?" asked Matt.
"I have had little else to do, while lying here, but turn such expedients over and over in my mind. I believe there is a way, Matt, providing we were armed with a crowbar. You will notice that the air in here is pure and wholesome—something you would not find in an air-tight vault."
"Matt noticed that, Townsend," returned Dick, "as soon as we landed in here."
"Well," pursued Townsend, "light another match, Ferral, and then watch the flame."
The match was lighted, held about a foot from the floor, and the flame was seen to be sucked sideways and downward, as though by a draught of air.
"There's a current of fresh air blowing through here," observed Matt.
"I noticed that the first time the negro brought my food to me," said Townsend. "He had a candle, and the flame of the candle, like that of the match, inclined downward and burned with a hissing sound as though fanned by a draught of air. I managed to roll about and investigate a little, tapping with my heels on the brick. There are crevices in the brick, over near the end of the vault, and I am sure that a little work with a crowbar would bring us either into the outside air, or into the shop below. But," and Townsend gave a grim laugh, "we have no crowbar; and, at the time I made my discoveries, I did not even have the use of my limbs."
"I've got a dirk, old ship," said Dick. "Give me time enough and I could dig through a stone wall with it."
"It will be just as well to wait until night," answered Townsend. "The man in the store below might hear us and he may be in league with Jurgens and Whistler."
"He's not," averred Matt, "I'll answer for that. If there was ever an honest Frenchman, he's one."
"But he's letting Jurgens and Whistler use this floor for lawless purposes."
"He doesn't know what they're using it for. In fact, he doesn't think they've moved in here yet."
"Then we might go ahead with our work," said Townsend. "Can you work in the dark, Ferral?"
"If I have to, aye, aye," answered Dick; "and it looks as though I'd have to, considering that the only light we have is furnished by matches."
"Well, start in. You can tell where the place is by the cool air along the floor. It will be a long job, and Matt and I will relieve you from time to time."
Dick lost not a moment in getting to work.
"The chances are, Townsend," observed Matt, "your negro will never have the opportunity to get into this vault again. Whistler has been away and has come back. He will take the vault key and act as jailer, if I'm any prophet."
"From what Whistler said when he and his man threw us in here," spoke up Dick, "it's my idea that he intends to leave us here to starve. He wouldn't be above that sort of thing."
"He and Jurgens," said Townsend gravely, "wouldn't be above anything. This is a rare opportunity to get all of us out of the way—too good an opportunity, I'm afraid they'll think, to be allowed to pass. We'd better depend upon our own efforts, and dig out as quick as we can. We'll have to be quick, too, before hunger and thirst get the better of us."
"Have you any idea, Townsend," asked Matt, "why that Man from Cape Town should put an idol's head in that iron chest?"
"Not the slightest," declared Townsend. "I can't believe it possible that he is trying to hoax anybody. We must not lose sight of the fact that the lady I am to look for, in this city, he claimed to be his daughter. I was to find her, you may perhaps remember, open the chest in her presence and divide the contents of the chest equally. It would be difficult for us to divide an idol's head, and there would be small gain for us, even if we did it. No, no, boys, there is something more back of this—another mystery among the many that have already put us at sea."
"Something must have turned the brains of Jurgens, Bangs and Carl," remarked Matt, "and that could not have happened until the chest had been opened. Could you make a guess as to what it was, Townsend?"
"Guesses are easy—but profitless. Bangs, you say, is a prisoner. If he recovers his wits, perhaps he will tell us what we want to know."
"That creole in St. Peters Street," put in Dick, "may not hang onto Bangs if we don't show up at the house to-night. We told him we'd come, but he may think we've slanted away for good and let Bangs go. He told us Bangs was a messmate of his."
"Well," suggested Townsend, "there's Carl. He'll be able to tell us something when he comes to himself and finds you again. If——"
There came a snap as of broken metal from Dick's end of the vault, followed by a muttered exclamation.
"What's the matter, Ferral?" asked Townsend.
"I've broken my dirk short off at the hilt!" growled Dick. "Keelhaul me for a bungler!Nowwhat are we going to do? We haven't even a knife to work with."
A pall of dejection settled over the three in the stone and iron trap. Each, perhaps, was casting vainly about in his mind for some expedient which could help them to their freedom.
Before any of them could speak, there came from the door a sound as of some one trying to push a key into the lock.
"Whistler!" whispered Matt.
"He'd not come here alone, mate," said Dick, "knowing that two of us are free and that we have surely released Townsend. If it's Whistler, you can lay something handsome he has a gang at his heels."
"No matter if he has," spoke up Townsend, "it's a chance to fight our way out of this dungeon. Group yourselves about the door and, when it opens, spring out and do what you can with your fists."
The suggestion captured the instant approval of Matt and Dick. All three of the prisoners huddled close to the door, and when the key grated, and the door was pulled ajar, they all sprang out.
Contrary to their expectations they met with no resistance. A negro with a candle had unlocked the door, and he was nearly overturned by the concerted rush of the prisoners.
"Why," cried Townsend, "it's the man who has been bringing my meals."
"Great spark plugs!" exclaimed Matt, "we know him, too. He's the fellow that hauled Bangs, Carl and the iron chest to the house in St. Peters Street!"
"Well met, old ship!" jubilated Dick. "We can forgive you a whole lot for this."
AN ASTOUNDING SITUATION.
From his appearance, the expressman was not feeling at all easy in his mind. His knees were knocking together, the candle was shaking in his hand, his teeth were chattering, his eyes were rolling frenziedly, and a grayish pallor had overspread his black face.
"Ah's got de feelin' dat Ah's er gone niggah," he mumbled. "Da's right, cap'n. Ah's done seen t'ings, dis ebenin', dat Ah ain't nevah gwine tuh git ober."
"You got the five hundred?" asked Townsend.
"Sho'ly, sho'ly. En Ah's er hones' niggah er Ah'd nevah come hyeh afteh what Ah seen."
"Did you have the key?"
"Whistler got de key away f'om me, along endurin' de aftehnoon, cap'n; but I come hyeh en Ah—Ah done got it back, but Ah mos' died a-doin' it. Oh, by golly, hit's de wustest t'ing Ah evah did!"
"You didn't have to kill Whistler to get the key, did you?" went on Townsend, startled by the darky's fright.
"No, no, boss, Ah ain't dat kind."
"Where's Whistler?"
"He's heah——"
"Here!"
"Da's whut! En Jurgens is heah, en anudder white man—dey's all heah."
"Where are they? What are they doing? Can't they overhear us?"
Townsend fired his questions like the reports of a Gatling, meanwhile looking about him as though to fight whatever peril might show itself.
"You ain't got tuh feah dem no mo', cap'n," went on the darky. "Ah took de key f'om Whistler, en he didn't stop me—he wasn't able. I's feelin' monsus out ob sorts wif mahse'f, en now dat Ah's let you-all loose, Ah's gwine tuh cl'ar out. Take de candle if you want tuh stay heah, but Ah's gwine."
The darky forced the candle into Townsend's hand and whirled away.
"Hold up!" cried Townsend. "Don't be in such a rush. Tell us what——"
But the negro was gone, clattering across the floor of an outer room and rushing down the outside stairs.
"What do you suppose put him in that kind of a taking, mates?" asked Dick.
"It puzzles me," answered Townsend.
"Suppose we look around," said Matt.
They were in the dark room in which Matt and Dick had had their short struggle at close quarters with Whistler and his man. Dick opened the door on the right. It led into the room that opened upon the outside stairs. The door at the head of the stairs was ajar, and the released prisoners could see that dusk had fallen outdoors.
"Nothing in this direction, mates," announced Dick. "Try that other door next to you, Matt."
Matt opened the door, and instantly a peculiar odor was perceptible.
"We've sniffed that before, Matt," said Dick.
"I remember it," returned Matt; "it was in the court of Rigolette's house. I wonder what it can be, and how we are able to smell it here?"
Shielding the flaring candle with his hand, Matt stepped into the other room. In doing so he stumbled against something on the floor and stooped downward.
It was the form of Jurgens!
As Matt recoiled, startled cries came from Townsend and Dick.
"Three of 'em, or I'm a Hottentot!" exclaimed Dick. "Look, will you! And there's the head of Obboney!"
Dick's report was literally true. Lying sprawled about the floor, breathing heavily, was not only Jurgens, but Whistler and one other man, as well. They lay around the idol's head, and the head, face upward, offered a most diabolical spectacle in the candlelight.
The beady eyes gleamed and glittered, and the distorted face took on an expression it had not held in the broad light of day.
"Most remarkable!" murmured Townsend, stepping over the form of Jurgens and picking up the head. "What a monstrous thing!" he added, shuddering as he held the head up and looked into its face. "What heathen mind was ever able to conjure that out of a block of wood? The arch fiend himself must have had a hand in the work."
"But how do you account for all this layout?" queried Dick, waving his hand at the forms on the floor.
"Jurgens, after he took the head from the court of Rigolette's house," surmised Matt, "must finally have reached here with it. He arrived after you and I were thrown into the vault, Dick, and that unknown man, lying near Whistler, must have been the one who helped put us into the stone chamber. Jurgens, Whistler and the other man came into this room, and in due course they fell under the baneful spell of Obboney. I don't know what else to call it."
"That's the way of it, Matt," said Townsend; "that must have been the way of it. When the negro came here, he found these men sprawled out, just as we see them now. Negroes as a rule are superstitious, and you can understand what a tremendous effort it must have taken for that darky to step across Jurgens, pass this head and take the key of the vault from Whistler's pocket! No wonder the fellow was half scared to death! It speaks pretty well for him that he dared to do what he did and earn the five hundred I asked Cassidy to give him."
"A main fine thing for us," remarked Dick, "that he had nerve enough for the job."
"There must be something about this head that is valuable," muttered Townsend. "It would not have been in that chest if it wasn't valuable. Still, I can't understand why the Man from Cape Town should want the chest opened and the idol's head revealed before a woman. Why, this thing is enough to send a woman into hysterics."
"He had a scheme," said Dick, "but shiver me if I can fathom it."
"I'm beginning to feel a bit queer in the head," spoke up Matt. "I wonder if I only imagine it?"
"No imagination about it, matey," declared Dick. "I'm feeling some queer myself."
"I don't see why we should," said Townsend. "What is there about this head to exert such an evil influence?"
"There must be something," returned Matt, "to stretch out fellows like Whistler and Jurgens as we see them."
"Whoosh!" exclaimed Dick. "Hear 'em breathe! Their breath seems to be coming harder and harder. I wonder if that odor could kill a man?"
"It must have killed the monkey," said Matt. "If it would kill an animal in that way, I don't see why it wouldn't kill a man."
"Have you that paper that was found in the chest, Matt?" asked Townsend.
"Yes."
"Read it to me."
Matt drew the parchment from his pocket and stepped closer to the candle which, a few moments before, he had handed to Dick.
Then, while he read the written words, Townsend kept his keen, inquiring eyes on the idol's head.
"It may be," observed Townsend, when the reading was finished, "that there is a hidden meaning in that communication. The question is, what is that hidden meaning? Does it deal with high finance, or thaumaturgy, or any of the other arts, black or white, with which princes of the black art are supposed to arm themselves? Ha! Answer me, some of you."
Matt gave a jump and stared at Dick. Dick, also startled, returned Matt's stare with interest.
Townsend was talking nonsense—and he was always a grave, earnest man with no use whatever for anything foolish or extravagant.
Was the deadly odor taking effect upon his brain?
Holding the head as Hamlet held the skull of Yorick, Townsend struck an attitude.
"Alas, poor Yorick!" he began.
But he got no further.
Just at that moment some one bounded into the room, snatched the head of Obboney from his hands and hurled it against the wall.
There was a smash, a tinkling clatter as of pebbles upon the floor, then silence.
"Ged oudt oof here! ged oudt or you vas all deadt men! Helup me, Matt, to pull dose fellers on der floor indo der odder room. Ach, himmelblitzen! you don'dknow vat a shance you vas daking. AberIknow—yah, so helup me!"
"Carl!" gasped Matt, staggering toward the Dutch boy.
"You bed you," answered Carl. "Ged Downsent avay, kevick! Tick, you do dot. Matt und I vill look afder der fellers on der floor."
THE TREASURE.
Townsend was babbling Shakespeare as Dick grabbed him and hauled him out to the room at the top of the stairway. There, seated on the landing, with the cool night air fanning his face and clearing his brain of the deadly influence of the odor, he slowly regained his poise.
Matt and Carl dragged Jurgens, Whistler and the other man out of the fatal room, and Carl, the last to leave, shut the door tightly.
A few minutes in the night air served to revive Carl, Matt and Dick. Then, quite naturally the others wanted to know what had happened to the Dutch boy, and where he had been.
Carl related his experiences in the house of Rigolette, holding his listeners spellbound with his recital.
"Afder I dumpled ofer," he went on, "I ditn't know nodding ondil I seemed to vake oop und foundt meinseluf in a shdreed. I don' know der shdreed, und I vas losdt. Vat I vanted vas to findt my vay to der tock, und der air ship, for I got der notion dot you vould be dere, Matt, und Dick, too. I vanted to dell you vat a mess Tick und me made oof it py hafing anyt'ing to do mit dot Pangs feller.
"Veil, I feel kindt oof hazy yet mit meinseluf, und I vander aroundt ondil id pegins to ged tark. I know vere I vant to go, aber I don'd seem to haf der sense to ask somepody vich vay it iss. Den, pympy, I see dot Jurgens feller comin' along der shdreet. He has der headt under his arm, und he iss valking fasdt, baying no addention to any vone. I follow him, und he comes py dis blace. Oop der shdairs I come afder him, und he valks indo dot front room. I vould haf valked in dere, too, only I see dot Whistler und anodder mans, so I packs oudt.
"You see, my mindt vas gedding clearer und clearer, und I know a leedle how to dake care oof meinseluf. I ged indo der pack room und vait, und t'ink vat I shall do; und vile I vait und t'ink, I keep vishing und vishing dot Matt und Tick vas somevere aroundt.
"Vell, pympy, pooty soon, along comes dot nigger feller vat took Pangs und me und der chest py dot house vere ve vent. He comes droo der room vere I vas und goes in der odder, und I hear him yell. I shday avay, und greep town der shdairs, t'inkin' I vas pedder off oudt oof der house as in id. Den I t'ink meppy I go pack, but I vait some more for der nigger feller comes down der shdairs so kevick as anyt'ing und runs avay.
"All der time I vait in der air, oof course my headt vas gedding clearer mit itseluf. In a liddle vile it geds so clear dot I haf der nerf to come oop der shdairs some more. Den vat a surbrises! I look in der front room und I see Whistler, und Jurgens, und der odder feller on der floor, und Matt, und Tick, und Downsent shdanding oop, und Downsent looking at der itol's headt. Den I rush in so fast as bossiple, snatch dot teufelish t'ing avay, und—und—vell you know der resdt.
"It's der headt vat has der otor dot makes peobles grazy! Und oof der headt shdays long enough py a feller, it vill make him as deadt as some mackerels. Yah, so helup me!"
Silence followed Carl's talk.
"Rigolette's monkey got the idol's head, Carl," said Matt. "The animal must have crawled in through the window that gave way under your weight, picked up the head and scampered off with it."
"Hooray for der monkey!" said Carl. "If it hatn't peen for him you vouldn't have a Dutch bard some more, Matt und Jurgens und Pangs vould have peen some goners, too."
"It seemed," said Townsend, with his usual gravity, "as though I was somewhat affected by that head."
"Sink me if you weren't, Townsend," answered Dick. "You were spouting Shakespeare and using words a fathom long."
"I have no remembrance of that—only a hazy recollection that I didn't know what I was doing. I presume the idol was carved out of some kind of wood that has that deadly odor, and that the mahogany sawdust in the iron chest helped the head to retain the baneful influence. But why should the Man from Cape Town pack the deadly thing in the chest and then ask me to open the chest in the presence of his daughter? There are features of this case which it is difficult to reconcile with the facts."
Matt started up suddenly.
"Did you break that idol's head, Carl, when you smashed it against the wall?" he asked.
"Vell, I bed you!" answered Carl. "I made oop my mindt dot I vould preak him indo a t'ousant bieces. Dot von't shtop der shmell oof der vood, aber it vill shpoil der headt, all righdt."
"We'll have to go back there," said Matt.
"Nod on your life!" cried Carl.
"We can't leave the fragments, for one thing," insisted Matt, "because they would be a source of peril to whoever found them and did not understand their power; then, for another thing, I have just thought of something."
"Of course we'll go back," said Townsend. "There can't be any danger in going into the room for a few minutes."
"Den," said Carl, "der fairst t'ing vat ve do vill be to put der bieces oof der headt in my coat und tie dem oop tight; und der next t'ing afder dot vill be to go to der rifer und shake out der bieces indo der vater. Dot vill be der lasdt oof Obboney."
"Good idea, Carl," approved Townsend. "Pull off your coat and come on."
Dick had left the candle in the room where Jurgens, Whistler and the other man were lying. The three men were lying just as when Townsend and the boys had left them, a short time before, but it was plain that their breathing was becoming easier by slow degrees.
Matt picked up the candle and preceded his companions into the front room.
The head of Obboney was not in a thousand pieces, but it had been smashed utterly beyond repair. Carl sprang forward, his coat in his hand, to pick up the pieces and wrap them in the garment. Before he got near the wall, however, he started back with a shout of surprise.
"Look!" he cried; "see dere, vonce! Vot you call dose t'ings?"
Matt held the candle nearer the floor, and the light fell over little scattered objects that gleamed like dewdrops. There were several handfuls of them, and in two or three places they were heaped up in irridescent piles.
"By Jove!" gasped Townsend, starting forward and dropping to his knees.
He picked up several of the glimmering objects and examined them under the flame of the candle; then he turned to the boys with an odd, exultant look and spoke but one word:
"Diamonds!"
"Tiamonts?" echoed Carl.
"Strike me lucky!" muttered Dick.
"Do you mean to say those are diamonds, Townsend?" queried Motor Matt.
"Yes, and of the first water. They're South African stones. There was quite a little method in the madness of the Man from Cape Town, after all. Get the pieces of the head in your coat, Carl, and put up a window, Dick. We can't take any chances with these stones while those fellows are in the next room."
Carl hurried to spread out his coat and pile the fragments of the head upon it. While he was engaged in that, Dick hoisted a window and allowed the outdoor air to purify the noxious atmosphere of the room. After that, Matt, Townsend, Dick and Carl spread their handkerchiefs upon the floor and gathered up all the scattered stones.
"You had an idea that idol's head was hollow and that there was something in it, hadn't you, Matt?" queried Townsend, as they hunted the floor over for diamonds.
"Yes," was the answer. "I dug it out of the first paragraph written on that piece of parchment. 'Read and give heed, for the head of Obboney contains many things, perilous and otherwise.' I got to thinking that those words might be read in two ways."
"It was a great scheme that," observed Townsend, "hiding a treasure of diamonds in the head of an idol which gives off a deadly odor. I wish we knew more about the Man from Cape Town and where he got the stones; but he is dead, and the mystery will no doubt always remain unsolved."
"Unless his daughter can tell us something about her father," said Matt.
"That is possible, of course. There must be fully two hundred of these stones, and they are all of the very finest. A fortune, my lads! Part of it comes to me, and out of my part we shall share and share alike."
The boys, with the exception of Carl, began to protest, but Townsend silenced them with a word.
"It is only right," he averred. "You have borne many dangers on account of that iron chest, and mere justice calls upon you to have your due share of the treasure. I shall make it my business to see that you get it."
When the last stone was gathered off the floor, and the handkerchiefs were all carefully tied up, the little bundles of stones were turned over to Townsend. He stowed them carefully away in his pockets.
"The question now arises," said he, "as to what we shall do with Jurgens, Whistler, Bangs and the unknown? No doubt we could make them smart for what they have done, not only here in New Orleans, but also for Jurgens' and Whistler's criminal work in stealing theGrampus. But will it pay to bother with them?"
"Not to-night," returned Matt, promptly. "The thing for you to do, Townsend, is to get safely aboard theGrampusas quick as you can. You have the price of a king's ransom about your clothes and it would be foolish to take any chances with it."
"Like alvays," chirped Carl, "Modor Matt has hit der nail righdt on der head. Vat he says goes mit me, und it ought to go mit eferypody else."
"It does," asserted Townsend. "I have lain a prisoner in that old bank vault for two days, and the inconvenience and discomfort I have been put to I shall not soon forget; but Jurgens and Whistler have been beaten at their own game. Besides, my lads, it was, on the whole, a good thing that Bangs worked his little game successfully. If he hadn't, I should have opened that iron chest in the home of a lady on St. Charles Avenue, and who knows what the consequences would have been? Jurgens and Bangs first tested the deadly effluvia of the idol's head, and we were able to profit by their experience. Yes, it is best to leave them hereand allow them to recover and go their ways. The knowledge that they are beaten will be punishment enough for them."
Having settled the matter in this way, Townsend and the boys passed the prostrate forms in the other room, gained the apartment at the head of the stairs, blew out the candle and went away.
Fifteen minutes later they were on the levee; and ten minutes after that they were boarding theGrampusand slipping down under her decks through the top of the conning tower.
DIAMONDS GALORE.
Before Carl climbed downward through the conning tower of theGrampus, he shook the fragments of the idol's head out of his coat upon the rounded deck of the submarine and heard them glide off and splash into the water.
"Dere vill be some foolishness among der fishes, I bed you!" he chuckled; "aber, all der same, it vas goot-py to Obboney! Und may nodding like him efer come oudt oof Africa again."
Cassidy, mate of theGrampus, was the only one of the crew aboard. He had had no idea of the perils through which Townsend had passed, nor of the troubles encountered by the boys. He knew, of course, that the boys had arrived, for all up and down the river front theHawkwas the topic of conversation.
In the conning tower of theGrampus, that evening, there was a spread. Cassidy opened canned goods and made coffee on an alcohol stove. The guests at the "feed" sat around with their tin plates in their laps, and while they ate they talked over recent exciting events.
Carl offered information of value by telling how the iron chest had been stolen from Townsend, placed on a boat in the river, and had then vanished while Jurgens and Whistler were dodging the watchmen.
"That boat must have been adrift on the river for two days!" exclaimed Townsend. "Strange that some one else did not find the chest instead of you boys."
"I reckon she caught in the eddies below the town and drifted back and forth until she finally got out in the current," surmised Dick. "That's the only way you can account for the fact that she wasn't picked up."
"You vas bot' wrong," asserted Carl, solemnly. "Dere vas a gaptain on dot rowpoat all der time. It vas Captain Obboney, in der chest. Nodding could habben py dot poat mit dot itol's headt apoard."
"There may be something in that," observed Townsend, half smiling and half serious. "This New Orleans affair appears to be wrapped up in a great deal of occultism. Personally, I never took much stock in occultism, but I don't know how I can dodge the facts developed by those smoke pictures."
"And then there's a whole lot more to Yamousa than just those smoke pictures," said Dick. "Whistler went to see her to find out if she couldn't tell him what had become of the chest."
"Voodooism used to be quite strong in New Orleans, among credulous blacks and superstitious whites," said Townsend. "Of course, there's nothing in voodooism as it is usually practiced, but this Yamousa seems versed in many peculiar things. Really, I don't know what to think of her."
"Well," asserted Carl, "she makes a misdake vonce in a vile."
"How so, Carl?"
"Vy, she gave Matt a charm vich vasn't no charm ad all, but a hootoo. I tried it oudt, und I know. Tick," and here Carl faced his chum, "dot dried frog don'd vas any goot as a luck pringer. It got me indo lods oof drouple. I safed dot from you, bard," and Carl shifted his gaze to Matt.
"Where is that charm now, Carl?" inquired Matt.
"Pangs dook it avay from me," chuckled Carl, "und I bed you someding for nodding dot it made all der drouple for Pangs, Jurgens und Whistler."
"We might just as well explain it that way as in any other," said Townsend. "Many things have happened which defy explanation, so Carl's guess is just as good as any one's else."
"I can tell you somet'ing vich ain'd a guess," continued Carl, "und dot iss dot Jurgens hat a feller vatching Cassidy, und ven Cassidy sent dot delegram to Modor Matt, Jurgens' man vas aple to findt oudt vat vas in it. Dot's der vay Pangs habbened to be on der levee ven der air ship come down on der dock. He knowed dot ve vas coming."
"Where were you this afternoon, Cassidy?" inquired Matt.
"I took theGrampusover to Algiers yesterday," answered the mate, "and didn't get back until about four this afternoon."
"That's the reason we didn't see you," put in Dick. "If you had been around the levee Bangs would never have been able to pull off that game of his."
"I told Cassidy to drop over to Algiers if he thought best," said Townsend. "It was unlucky that he happened to be there at just the time he might have been of service to Matt and his friends. However, as I told you in the rooms over the antique shop, it's just as well events turned out as they have. We have won out against Jurgens and Whistler, and if they know when they're well off they'll steer clear of all of us in future."
"Dose fellers hat two hang-oudts," remarked Carl. "Vone vas ad Rigolette's blace, vere der chest vas dookfrom der tock, und der odder vas ofer der antique shop. Vone, I reckon, vas vere dey dook us in, und der odder vas vere dey viped us oudt. But der itol's headt fooled der lod oof us. I vish, py shinks, you couldt haf seen Jurgens und Pangs ven der chest vas obened und dey saw nodding more as sawdust!"
Carl threw back his head and laughed till he shook.
"I vasn't in der blace vere I could enchoy dot, at der time," he went on, "but I can haf fun mit it now. Id vas a derriple tissapointment. Den, ven Jurgens kicked der headt oudt oof der sawdust, eferypody vas scart, including me. Yah, I vas as afraidt as anypody. Den, pympy, I tropped ashleep und I vasn't affraidt no more."
"You were tied, weren't you, Carl, while you were in that room at Rigolette's?"
"You bed you I vas, Matt, handt und feet."
"How did you get clear of the ropes?"
"Dot vas some mysderies. I don'd know dot, onless I vorked meinseluf loose ven I come to und vas grazy. Anyvay, ven I vas aple to know vere I vas I vas in der shdreed und dere vasn't any ropes on me. Vat you say Rigolette call dot monkey?"
"Joujou," replied Dick.
"Den I vas mooch opliged to Chouchou. How t'ings fall oudt mit demselufs oof you leaf dem alone! Dere vas me, und Jurgens, und Pangs, lying in dot room mit der itol's headt, und passing oudt oof der game py inches, ven along comes Chouchou. He hat dook my hat, pefore dot, und I oxbect he vas looking for me to gif it pack. Anyvay, he leafs der hat und goes off mit der itol's headt, safing me, und dose odder fellers, aber killing himseluf in der oberations. Yah, Chouchou vas a goot monkey, I tell you dot. Dit you see der barrot?"
"No," said Dick. "Has Rigolette a parrot?"
"Yah, so, und dot barrot make some foolishness mit me aboudt der time der monkey shdeal my cap. Vell, anyhow, it vas all ofer now, und I feel dot I can laugh at some t'ings vich ditn't blease me pefore."
"What will you and your chums do now, Matt?" inquired Townsend.
"We seem to have wound up our business in New Orleans in short order," laughed Matt, "so I suppose we had better bear away for Atlantic City."
"You haven't helped me, yet, in the work for which I wired you to come on here."
All three of the boys were startled.
"Wasn't it to help you recover that chest?" asked Matt.
"Not at all. At the time I requested Cassidy to send you the telegram, I had the chest safely in my hands and hadn't the least idea that Jurgens and Whistler were around and still had designs on it. You got here in good time to be of invaluable assistance to me, and fate so played the cards that I couldn't have won out without you—but I wanted you for something else."
"In that event," returned Matt, "we'll have to stay and give you our assistance."
"TheHawkhas an excellent berth on the big dock and will be amply protected in case of high winds or bad weather; and, so far as I can see, you and your friends will be as well off as though you were in Atlantic City. So far as profit is concerned, there will be diamonds galore for all of you, and by this one trip to New Orleans you will have cleaned up more than you could possibly have made in a dozen years at Atlantic City."
"Tiamonts galore!" caroled the Dutch boy. "Dot soundts goot. I like tiamonts pedder as anyt'ing else, und ven you ged a whole lod, all in a punch, it makes you feel like you vas somepody. I vould like to haf some oof dem set in pins, und rings, und pud dem all ofer me. I vant to be a prilliant feller," he grinned, "und I guess dot's der only vay vat I can be dot."
"To-morrow morning," went on Townsend, "I will hunt up this lady about whom the Man from Cape Town told me. Following the division of the gems, I will call on this Rigolette and, if he has not already released Bangs, will have him do so. Then, when we have a clear slate, I will lay before you the business which I have in prospect."
"Iss it easy?" queried Carl.
"No, very difficult."
"Dot's vat ve like. Anypody can do der easy t'ings, aber it dakes Modor Matt to do der hard vones."
"Carl has an armful of bouquets, to-night," laughed Matt, "and he don't care where he throws them."
"Iss id t'rilling vork?" continued Carl.
"Likely to be," smiled Townsend, "and perhaps a bit dangerous."
"Den be sure und keep id for us. All vat I ask iss, dot you cut out der foodoos. A leedle oof dose iss more as enough."
THE END.
THE NEXT NUMBER (14) WILL CONTAIN
MOTOR MATT'S PROMISE;
OR,
THE WRECK OF THEHAWK.
On the Levee—Mixed Identities—Double Trouble—Tricked—Motor Matt's Promise—Dashington Dashed—A Hot Starter—A Bullet from Below—The Wreck—The Unexpected—A Friend from the Enemy's Camp—The Bag of Diamonds—A Daring Plot—On the Road—A New Man Takes a Hand—Conclusion.
On the Levee—Mixed Identities—Double Trouble—Tricked—Motor Matt's Promise—Dashington Dashed—A Hot Starter—A Bullet from Below—The Wreck—The Unexpected—A Friend from the Enemy's Camp—The Bag of Diamonds—A Daring Plot—On the Road—A New Man Takes a Hand—Conclusion.
NEW YORK, May 22, 1909.
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San José Lighthouse shone from the back of a tunnel-like creek on a barren stretch of the Chilian seaboard. Passing ships caught its secret rays most suddenly; much in the same manner as a lonely wayfarer might be startled at a swift glance of a light far down a secret entrance.
The moment the light of San José fell upon a ship, that vessel at once hugged the land and crept warily along the inshore water. A false order, a mistake at the helm, and the "Devil's Teeth," the offshore reef, would grind her ribs to matchwood.
The light was built on top of an old chapel whose ponderous walls could have carried the Eddystone itself. This building crouched in the left-hand corner of the creek, with its back built into the angle of the cliff, which, on that side, rose plumb as a wall and ran out into deep soundings. There was, however, one break in it about eighty yards in front of the lighthouse. From this opening an overhead traveling cable passed across the creek to the mid-level of "Cassandra Mine," which honeycombed the right bank.
This latter side, though rocky, was fairly easy of ascent by means of buttress-like masses of rock jutting out from the cliff, and the rubbish shot out from the mine.
Such was the lonely creek of San José when the revolution broke out against President Balmaceda, and left us, Gilbert and myself, stranded helplessly on a foreign shore.
Nine months before, we had departed from our homes in the States, appointed engineers to the Cassandra Coppermining Company, Limited. Nine months before! and now our situation was worse than any Bowery loafer's; he, at all events, could try the station house when the nights grew colder.
"I knew it was too good to last," cried Gilbert, one morning as we awoke to find ourselves in a dismal plight. The mine was deserted: every man had gone to shoulder a musket on the principle of "compulsory volunteering." We transferred our worries by means of a letter to the head office, and then fell to unlimited euchre, awaiting instructions. Meanwhile, our funds melted away.
At last came one day of maddening heat that drove us to the shade of the mid-level of the mine. There we did what we ought to have done a month before: we held a council of war.
"We've just three and a half pesos left—that's about three dollars," quoth Gilbert sourly.
"Then we've got to tramp."
"Tramp!" echoed Gilbert, "inthat!" and he cast an exasperated glance at the landscape. It was an open oven. Below us, the lighthouse lenses flashed back the sunlight in such brightness that if we had not known that all the lights on the coast had been extinguished by order, we might have thought the lamps were still burning. The village huts seemed to shrink and huddle from the glare. Not a creature was abroad; the very air seemed to have swooned in the heat of that narrow creek.
And yet, over the hill crest where the village path cut the upland, a tiny speck rose to sight, and without a pause descended the slope toward us.
"Impossible!" gasped my chum, starting up in amazement. "He's stark, staring mad!"
It was a man running at a sling trot.
"Madman number two," cried Gilbert, and another speck breasted the crest, and hurriedly descended on the heels of the first comer. And then, by ones and twos, more men appeared and swung downward, hurriedly and without a halt, until we counted twenty-one of them on the slope. They came nearer and lower, and we saw sparkles of light breaking off them as they ran; then we both cried together: "Soldiers!" And at that word all the world was of interest.
By this time they were up to the first huts, and at a cry every soul rushed outside.
Some of the runners had fallen by the houses, and people began to carry water to them.
"Poor beggars," cried Gilbert, "but if theywillrun on a day like this—why on earth don't they go inside and rest peacefully?"
But that was the last thing they gave us any impression of so doing. We saw Henrico, the old sailor with the earrings and Spanish handkerchief for a cap, talking among a group of the soldiers. Now and again they looked back to the crest, and then toward our side of the creek. Something of great interest was meanwhile passing from hand to hand. Suddenly Henrico turned to the villagers, addressing them in no little heat. The soldiers seized their guns, and then, led by Henrico, the whole crowd, villagers and soldiers, began to ascend the talus of the mine. Halfway up, Henrico turned and called back to the women, "All you in siesta again." But one of them, Chloe, the sharp-tongued beauty of the village, broke away, and headed the whole crowd.
Striding along with her buoyant energy, she soon outstripped them all, and in a few minutes she appeared on the ledge in front of us, two hundred feet above the creek. For a moment she stood silent, a swarthy black-eyed beauty, holding the two plaits of her hair in outstretched hands: just in the same attitude and with just the same smile on her arched lips we saw her every morning when she called us to breakfast; for she was Henrico's niece and we lodged with him.
"Fortune, señors!" cried she. "Here are soldiers with a message; we do not read in our village; we come to you to speak it to us." And now the soldiers filed in, and Henrico proffered me a crumpled paper. I read on it: "To Capitan Barras." "Here!" cried I, "this is not for us."
"No," said a dusty, sweat-soaked soldier, "Capitan Barras is killed. I am his sergeant. Read, señor, I am the next."
"I nodded and read on:
"The enemy are reënforcing by sea. Have correct information that they intend capturing the lighthouse at San Joséon the 12th, and light it to guide the transports which are due to pass the inshore channel of the Devil's Teeth. Detail a command to destroy the lighthouse beyond repair. I have wired to the cruisers; latter will be able to overtake and capture transports if delayed off San José on the night of the 12th. You have six (6) hours start of the enemy."Rodrique Gomez."
"The enemy are reënforcing by sea. Have correct information that they intend capturing the lighthouse at San Joséon the 12th, and light it to guide the transports which are due to pass the inshore channel of the Devil's Teeth. Detail a command to destroy the lighthouse beyond repair. I have wired to the cruisers; latter will be able to overtake and capture transports if delayed off San José on the night of the 12th. You have six (6) hours start of the enemy.
"Rodrique Gomez."
As I finished this terse and emphatic message the sergeant cried "Ho!" and "Is that the lighthouse?"
"Yes," sang out the villagers as one man.
"Advance!" cried the sergeant, shouldering to the front of the crowd; Chloe was already on her way out, but with a sharp, smothered cry she stopped dead in the opening, turned round, and thrust back the following men, hissing the while through her teeth:
"Silence! not a breath; the enemy!"
There came a sudden metallic rattling, a rapid snapping of rifle breeches, then dead, nervous silence.
The lighthouse was in possession of the enemy! Already a couple of soldiers leaned over the balcony round the lenses, and we could hear their voices as they sang out to a mounted officer below. About this latter, and standing at ease, were some eighty men.
"And the videttes," growled the sergeant, as he pointed to the hill crest. At this an angry murmur arose about us. They were completely outnumbered by the Balmacedians; and outmaneuvred by the fatal mischance to their captain in a skirmish at daybreak. He had been shot through the throat. With a last effort he had thrust the note into the sergeant's hands and bade him haste to San José, halting neither to fight nor to rest. This we learned afterward.
From the first appearance of the soldiers in the mine, Gilbert had been eying them with undisguised irritation. He now called out in a sharp voice for their attention.
"If you stay here those other soldiers will attack you and 'gastado' the whole set of you. And this mine being American property and not a battle field, the best you can do is to clear out by the level on the far side before they discover you."
At this the sergeant looked blankly in his face.
"It's no good," quoth Gilbert, "you must clear out."
The sergeant's face changed. He slapped the breech of his rifle, swore a round oath, and cried heartily: "This place is our last stand; I shoot the first of my men that leaves!"
Gilbert dropped his eyelids in his tired way, and pulled out his watch.
"I give you five minutes," he said, in a level, matter-of-fact voice.
"And we," cried the sergeant, "have to destroy that lighthouse!"
Here Chloe thrust herself into the front of the gathering storm.
"The soldier has it," she cried, "the lighthouse must be destroyed. You, señors, engineer chiefs will show us the way; it will be done."
"I'll see you all hanged first," broke in Gilbert in terse English. Then he added in Spanish: "Clear out! only another two minutes." Chloe lifted her head in a passion, and her black eyes narrowed.
"Señors," she cried with scorn, "have we idled in the fetching of water when water was so scarce, for the big 'tub' every morn? and you have had meat and your coffee roasted to the hour. All; and not one pesos these months. Have we cried 'clear out' to you when you could not no more than these soldiers?"
Gilbert thrust his watch back in his shirt. We both flushed hotly, and we both found it disconcerting to look in one another's faces. But it had to be done.
"That's a bitter pill to swallow," growled he.
"It's true enough," I said.
Gilbert, with a short, grim laugh in his throat, growled out, "Well, let us begin to earn our grub."
Chloe read our decision in our faces. "Huzza," she cried, "the engineer chiefs—capitanos—will show us how to destroy it. We are the legs, the arms; they are the head. The lighthouse shall not be there to-night!"
In this manner Gilbert and I became "capitanos" in the Revolutionary army. From an inert and baffling position we were lifted on a wave, and flung into a rushing current. There was work for our hands and brains: a problem to solve, a thing to accomplish. And we were no longer weary.
Henrico and the sergeant joined us in a short council of war. And as at any moment the enemy's scouts might blunder on us and bring on a fight, we decided to retreat to a lower level, where we could hold an army corps at bay. Safe in this, Gilbert and I sat apart; the soldiers scooped out resting places, and, with their knapsacks for pillows, fell instantly asleep.
"Confound that girl," said Gilbert, "and confound the whole place and their tin-pot armies too! But it is a fine problem, eh? I suppose the only way to do it is by—well, anything else but fighting."
I quite agreed with him. But as hour after hour passed, and scheme after scheme was rejected, we began to think a little less of our abilities. We wrestled with the problem till our heads reeled. If only we could get a side glance even at a workable scheme. But no. At last Gilbert pulled out his Waterbury. "Five o'clock!" he cried, "we are undiluted frauds if we can't do it in another hour. It will be dark by six!"
Chloe had, in the meantime, crawled out by another level to report what was doing in the creek. She had just come back. The enemy were bivouacked round the lighthouse. On the upland, and commanding every approach, sentries and videttes marked the land as far as she could see.
However, she had brought one piece of comfort in the shape of a cool jar of water. As she served us she asked for news of our scheme.
"How soon do the hands and legs begin to work, capitanos?" she asked with a complacent smile. Gilbert, with a diplomatic, Spanish-fashion wave of his hand, replied: "So! so!"
"Ah, señors," said she, "I should want to do it—how? Why, shut up that lighthouse like flinging a blanket over it: so!"
"And," cried Gilbert, "that's just what we are going to do! Tell the men to be ready on the instant." As she departed he turned to me with dancing eyes.
"See?" he whispered.
"No; not an atom."
"No? Well, old man, she has struck the only plan possible! Observe the overhead traveling wire. It lands on the flat just outside the other opening, doesn't it? Well, suppose we hang a curtain—even Chloe's skirt, if it were big enough—on that wire, and run it out, and cut off the light from flashing out to seaward."
"But," I objected, "we can't make a screen big enough to intercept all the light at a hundred feet distance—it is impracticable."
He laughed in my face, and cried out:
"My boy, rays of light from lighthouses areparallel!"
I had forgotten this elementary fact. I cried "Eureka!" and then we faced our task: a race against time.
The men streamed up to us, heard, and set to work immediately. We requisitioned the tarpaulin covers from the bags of cement; even emptied the bags themselves. We stripped hundreds of yards of telephone wires in the galleries. We descended to a still lower level; we were all tailors, sailmakers, anything, everything. Some patched holes, while others sewed cover to cover until a sheet, fifty feet square, grew beneath our hands, sewn together with wire, and impervious to a single ray of light.
As the last hole was stilettoed with the point of a bayonet, Gilbert and I sought the upper level. We found the night had fallen. The cold sea breeze tasted like nectar after the candle-burnt atmosphere in the workshop below. Our eyes sought the lighthouse; a couple of men were in the lantern; one held a candle, and was clumsily striving to light the argand burners.
"Good!" cried Gilbert, "they'll smash some glasses, or I'm an idiot. Now for the launch!"
We descended to our workshop. The flushed, wet faces of the screen makers confronted us, and Gilbert spoke.
"We want a volunteer to cross to the other side and clear the wire, and to signal back when ready for us to haul out the screen. It must be one of you from the village, one who knows every stone in the darkness. And one who is not afraid. Who volunteers?"
There was a silence in which we heard the water dripping in far-deep levels. Gilbert looked from face to face; in vain, it seemed. The villagers were, however, weighing the risk of failure. Chloe stepped quietly from the group, and as quietly said: "This is a woman's business; is it not so, Uncle Henrico? Who knows so well as I the rock paths through the lines of the sentinels? And if I meet them—well, I am a woman and I laugh. If I were a man—well, the end of me and our venture."