The Arrival of Miss Sarah Liverage. Page 121.The Arrival of Miss Sarah Liverage. Page121.
"And this was Harvey's room," continued the woman glancing around the chamber, and then bestowing especial attention upon the fireplace.
"This was his room," replied Leopold, as he moved towards the door. "Can I do anything more for you?"
"No, nothing now. You are the boatman, I believe; and you have bought a new boat."
"I bought one just before Harvey Barth left the house. Did he tell you about her?"
"Well, nothing in particular, only he said you were a great boatman, and a very good boy."
As the woman did not seem inclined to say anything more, Leopold left the room, and returned to the office.
"Can you make out what she is, Leopold?" asked his father.
"No; she says she is no relation to Harvey, but she was a good deal interested in him. She seems to know all about me; but I suppose Harvey Barth told her."
"I wonder what she is driving at?" added the landlord, whose curiosity, as well as that of his son, was raised to the highest pitch.
"I haven't any idea. If she is not a relation of Harvey, what is she, and why did she want his room?"
"I can't tell."
"How old do you think she is, father?"
"About forty, I should say."
"Harvey couldn't have been engaged to her, or anything of that sort—could he?" suggested Leopold.
"I should think not. She is ten years older than he was, I should say," replied Mr. Bennington.
No satisfactory solution presented itself, and Miss Sarah Liverage had to remain a mystery for the time.
Miss Sarah Liverage had been three days at the Cliff House before the mystery of her coming appeared to promise a solution. The landlord was sure she had come for something, for all her speech and all her actions indicated this. She had not visited the shore for recreation, and was not idling away a vacation. One day she commenced a conversation with Mr. Bennington, and the next with Leopold; and, though she evidently desired to make some important revelation, or ask some startling question, she always failed to carry out her purpose. She was nervous and excitable; and on the second day of her stay at the hotel, the chambermaid discovered her in her room, on her knees before the fireplace, apparently investigating the course of the flue; but when the girlasked her what she was doing, she answered that she was looking for her shawl-pin, which she had dropped.
The weather was rather chilly, and the wind blew fresh and stormy on the bay, so that Leopold seldom went out in the new boat, but did a man's work about the hotel; for as the season advanced the "help" was reduced. Miss Liverage, for some reason, seemed to be very desirous of cultivating his acquaintance, and she talked with him much more than with his father. On the second day of her stay she offered him a dollar, when he brought her a pitcher of water to drink in the parlor, which the young man was too proud to accept. The guest talked to him for half an hour; and he noticed that she did not drink any of the water he had brought. On the strength of this and other similar incidents, Leopold declared that she was a very strange woman. She sent for him, or procured his attendance by less direct means, as though she had something to say; but she did not say it. She asked a multitude of questions in regard to some of the localities in the vicinity, but she did not connect her business at Rockhaven with any of them.
On the third day of her residence at the Cliff House a violent north-east storm commenced, and the guest could not go out of the house as she had been accustomed to do in the forenoon for a short time. From the cliff near the house Leopold had explained to her the geography of the vicinity; and when she inquired where the ledges were on which the Waldo had been lost, he indicated the direction in which they were situated, for the high land on the south shore of the river intercepted the view of them. Miss Liverage appeared to become more desperate in her purpose, whatever it was as the day passed away; and the storm seemed to increase her excitement. On the fourth day after her arrival, she vibrated between her chamber and the parlor all the forenoon, occasionally visiting the dining-room and the office. The landlord said she was "as uneasy as a fish out of water;" and he carried books and newspapers to her, but these did not seem to occupy her attention. She only glanced at them, and it was plain that her mind wandered when she attempted to read them. After dinner, on this eventful day her desperation appeared to culminate in a resolve to dosomething; and for the twentieth time since her arrival she sent for Leopold.
When he entered the parlor, where she was nervously walking across the floor, she closed the door after him, and looked out at the windows which opened on the piazza, apparently to assure herself that no one was within hearing distance of her. She labored under more than her usual excitement of manner, and the landlord's son was impressed with a belief that something was about to happen. Miss Liverage had evidently made up her mind to say something, and Leopold promptly made up his mind, also, to hear what it was.
"I didn't come down here for nothing," said she, and then paused to observe the effect of this startling revelation upon her auditor.
"I didn't suppose you did," replied Leopold, judging from the pause that he was expected to say something, though he was not very deeply impressed by the guest's announcement.
"Leopold, Harvey Barth said you were a very nice young man," she added.
"Then I suppose I am, for I think Mr. Barth was a man of good judgment," laughed Leopold.
"He told me you owed some money for your new boat."
"He told the truth at that time; but I don't owe anything now. I was very lucky with the mackerel, and I have had plenty of jobs for the boat, so that I have paid up all I owed."
"Then you have paid your debt," added Miss Liverage, apparently "headed off" by the young man's reply.
"I don't owe a cent to anybody."
"I didn't know but you might want to make some money."
"I do; I am always ready to make a dollar, though I don't owe anybody anything," replied Leopold, willing to encourage the woman, while he did not desire to make anything out of her.
"Five hundred dollars is a good deal of money," continued Miss Liverage, watching the countenance of the young man very closely.
Leopold did not dispute the remark, and with a nod he admitted the truth of it.
"I suppose you would not object to making five hundred dollars, Leopold."
"I don't believe I should, if I could make it honestly, fairly, and above-board; but I wouldn'tsteal five hundred dollars for the sake of having it."
"Of course not. I wouldn't, either," protested Miss Liverage. "I never did anything which was not honest, fair, and above-board, and I never mean to. Now, Leopold, I can put you in the way of making five hundred dollars."
"Can you? I am sure I shall not object. I suppose the money would do me as much good as it would anybody."
"I have no doubt it would. Now, can you keep a secret?" demanded the woman, more excited than ever; so much so that her manner began to be decidedly melo-dramatic.
"That depends on circumstances," answered Leopold, who was not yet quite clear in his own mind whether or not the woman was crazy. "If it is to cheat anybody out of a cent, even, I wouldn't keep a secret any more than I would the itch, if I could get rid of it."
"Nonsense, Leopold! I am not going to cheat or wrong anybody. I wouldn't do such a thing for all the money in the world."
"I can keep a secret that won't harm anybody," added the young man.
"Will you promise me solemnly not to tell any one, not even your father, what I say to you?" asked Miss Liverage, in a low tone, and in a very impressive manner.
"If the matter don't concern my father, I won't tell him of it, or anybody else. But I don't want you to tell me anything that concerns any person—that is, in a way to do any injury."
"It don't concern any living soul," interposed Miss Liverage, impatiently. "I know where there is some money."
The last remark was whispered, after a glance at the door and all the windows of the parlor.
"Where is it?" asked Leopold, now for the first time manifesting a real interest in the conversation.
"In the ground."
"Buried?"
"Yes."
Miss Liverage was very much agitated for a few moments, for she had now actually entered upon the business which had brought her to Rockhaven. Of course this important revelation was in some manner to involve Harvey Barth;but Leopold was not willing to believe that the sick man had buried any considerable sum of money, unless his speech and his life while at the hotel were both a lie.
"Will you promise to keep the secret?" demanded the woman, as soon as she had overcome in a measure her agitation.
"On the condition I said, I will," replied Leopold. "But after you have told me, if I find that anybody is to be wronged by my keeping still, I shall tell all I know."
"I'm satisfied. I hope you don't think I came down here, all the way from New York, to cheat or wrong anybody."
"I hope not. If you did, I can't do anything for you."
"You shall judge for yourself. It is just as Harvey Barth said: you are a good young man, and you will be as honest by me as you mean to be by other folks."
"Of course I will be."
"Your share of the money will be five hundred dollars. Shall you be satisfied with this?"
"I think I shall be," laughed Leopold, to whom the amount seemed like a fortune.
"You agree to take this as your share?"
"Yes; I agree to it."
"And to keep the secret?"
"On the conditions I named."
"I am satisfied with the conditions. If you and I don't get this money, somebody else will, who has no more right to it than we have."
"But who owns the money?" asked Leopold, whose views of an honest policy required him to settle this question first.
"Nobody."
"Nobody!" exclaimed the young man. "It must belong to somebody."
"No it don't."
"How can that be?"
"The owner is dead and gone."
"Then it belongs to his heirs."
"He has no heirs."
"Who is he, anyhow?"
"He isn't anybody now. Didn't I say he was dead and gone?" demanded Miss Liverage, impatiently.
"Well, who was he, then?"
"I don't know."
"It's very strange," mused Leopold.
"I know it's strange. I am the only person living who knows anything about this money. If I don't take it, somebody else will, or it will stay in the ground till the end of the world," said the woman. "It's a plain case; and I think the money belongs to me as much as it does to anybody else."
"Where is it buried?"
Before she would answer this question, Miss Liverage satisfied herself that Leopold understood the bargain they had made, and was ready to abide by all its conditions. With the proviso he had before insisted upon, the young man agreed to the arrangement.
"I don't know exactly where the money was buried," continued the owner of the great secret.
"O, you don't!" exclaimed Leopold, rising from his chair, and bursting into a laugh. "Then this is a 'wild goose chase.'"
"No, it isn't. But now you have agreed to the terms, I will tell you all about it. Sit down; for I don't want to scream out what I have to say. Will any one hear us?"
"No; I think not."
"Won't your father?"
"No, he has gone up to Squire Wormbury's."
Miss Liverage drew her chair up to the cheerful wood fire that blazed in the Franklin stove, and Leopold seated himself in the corner nearly opposite her, with his curiosity intensely excited by what he had already heard.
"In the first place do you know whatever became of Harvey Barth's diary?" Miss Liverage began.
"I haven't the least idea; but he said it was stolen from him, and he was going to get it when he went to New York," replied Leopold, deeply interested even in this matter.
"But he never found it, and I don't believe anybody stole it. I think it is in this house now. Our first business is to find it."
"We couldn't find it in the time of it, and I don't believe we can now."
"We must find it, for that diary will tell us just where the money is buried."
"You never will find the diary or the money."
"Don't be too fast. Harvey told me where the money was buried. It was under the cliffs at High Rock," added Miss Liverage.
"The cliffs are about a mile long."
"The money was buried in the sand."
"The beach under High Rock is half a mile long, and it would be a winter's job to dig it all over. But who hid the money there?"
"A man who was wrecked in the brig."
"Was it Harvey Barth?"
"No; the man was a passenger and called himself Wallbridge; but Harvey thought this was not his real name."
"That was the name of the passenger as it was printed in the newspaper."
"Harvey wrote down all he knew about him in his diary. He buried his money—twelve hundred dollars in gold—on the beach; and in the diary the place is described. Harvey inquired about the passenger in Rockland; but no one knew anything about him."
"Twelve hundred in gold," said Leopold, musingly.
"Yes; and I have agreed to give you nearly half of it."
"If we find it," added the young man, who considered the information rather too indefinite for entire success.
"I think we can find it."
"Did Harvey Barth tell you just where the money was buried?"
"He said it was buried on the beach. He talked a great deal about it the day before he died, and said, if he ever got well enough, he should go and get it; and then he would pay me handsomely for all I had done for him. I was a nurse in the hospital, you see, and was his only companion. He felt very bad about the loss of his diary, and told me all about it. He said he put it in the flue of the fireplace, because there was no closet in the room. Now, if nobody stole it, the diary must be there yet. I have looked into the flue, but I couldn't see anything of it; and I have made up my mind that it dropped down somewhere."
"The room is directly over this parlor, and if it dropped into the chimney, it must have come down into this fireplace," replied Leopold. "I am sure nothing was ever seen of it."
They examined the flue of the Franklin stove, and Miss Liverage was satisfied with the young man's statement in regard to its construction.
"Some one may have picked it up and put it away," suggested the nurse.
"There was a summer piece fastened into the front of this stove, which was not taken down till I removed it to make the fire when you came. If the diary had been there, I should have found it. But I will search the whole house for it, though I am of Harvey Barth's opinion, that some one stole the book. If any person saw him put it into the flue, as Harvey thought the drummer did, he might have supposed it was something very valuable. Why should he take so much pains to hide it, if it was not? If the drummer did not take it himself, he may have told somebody else, who did steal it. If he had left the diary on the table, nobody would have touched it, I know. It was all because he hid it, that he lost it."
Miss Liverage was sure the diary was still in the house, and during that and the next day, while the storm lasted, Leopold searched the hotel from cellar to garret. He did not find the key to the hidden treasure of High Rock. The nurse searched for herself, so far as she could do so without exciting the suspicions of the hotel people; but she was no more successful than her confidant in the secret. If thediary was in the house, it could not be found. The structure of the chimney, in which the flue of the fireplace was built, was carefully examined; and Leopold's conclusion seemed to be fully verified. Miss Liverage was reluctantly compelled to abandon all hope of finding the coveted volume.
The storm ended, and the sun shone again. The wind came fresh and cold from the north-west. The nurse looked from the windows of the hotel upon the waters of the river, which, sheltered from the force of the blast, were as smooth as an inland pond though the waves rolled up white and angry beyond the point. The guest at the Cliff House, though she had given up all expectation of finding the diary, had not abandoned the hope of obtaining the hidden treasure.
"Now, Leopold, we must go to the beach under High Rock," said she, after the storm was over.
"What is the use of going there, if you don't know where the money is hidden?" demanded the boatman.
"I think I can find the place," replied MissLiverage. "Harvey told me where it was; but I can't think of the names he used in telling me. I was pretty sure I should find the diary, when I left New York."
"If you want to go to High Rock, I will take you down there in the boat," added Leopold.
"I'm afraid of boats. Can't we go by land?"
"Not very well. My boat is as stiff as a man-of-war, and you can go a great deal easier in her than you can climb over the rocks on the other side of the river."
Miss Liverage considered the matter, and after dinner she decided to undertake the hazardous trip, as she regarded it. She had an engagement the next week in New York, and she could not remain in Rockhaven more than a day or two longer. What she did must be done at once. Mr. Bennington was astonished when he saw his son taking her out to sail on such a chilly, blustering day; but he always allowed his guests to suit themselves, and offered no objection to the expedition. Leopold seated his timid passenger in the standing-room, and shoved off the boat. In the river she made smoothsailing of it; but the instant she passed the range of the high bluff on the north shore, the No-Name plunged into a heavy sea, burying her bow deep in a foam-crested billow, whose dense spray drenched the water-proof of Miss Liverage, and it seemed to her as if the end of all things had come.
"Mercy on us!" screamed she, trying to rise from her seat, as the bow of the boat was lifted far up by the wave.
"Sit down, Miss Liverage," said Leopold, pushing her back into her seat.
"We shall be drowned!" cried the terrified passenger.
"This is nothing; the boat is doing first rate," answered Leopold.
"I shall be wet to the skin," she added, as another cloud of spray was dashed over her. The skipper went to the cuddy, forward, and brought from it an old oil-cloth coat, which he spread over his passenger. Though this garment protected her from the spray, the angry waves were still a vivid terror to her, and the skipper vainly assured her there was no danger. Letting off the main sheet, he put the boatbefore the wind, and then she rolled, pitched, and floundered, till Miss Liverage declared she was frightened out of her life.
"Don't be alarmed. There! you can see the ledges now where the Waldo went to pieces," added Leopold, pointing to the black rocks, now in sight, upon which the white foam broke at every surge of the sea.
"I can't see anything, Leopold," gasped Miss Liverage, holding on to the washboard with both hands. "Do go back as fast as you can."
"But you can't find the money if you don't go and look for it."
"I don't care for the money. I wouldn't stay out here another minute for the whole of it," protested the passenger.
She pleaded so earnestly that Leopold finally came about, and beat his way back to the river, and soon landed her in front of the hotel. She declared she would not get into a boat again for all the treasure hidden in the bowels of the earth.
Miss Liverage was satisfied that Leopold was both honest and zealous, and she finally concluded to commit to him the search for theburied money. The next day she started for home, disappointed and disheartened at the result of her visit to Rockhaven, though she had some hope that her confidant might yet discover the treasure.
The landlord of the Cliff House was a man who attended to his own business to the exclusion of that of others, and he did not trouble himself any further about the affairs of his guest, though his curiosity was somewhat excited at first. Leopold "was not happy" in being obliged to conceal his thoughts and actions from his father; but then Mr. Bennington did not question him in regard to her conduct after he was a little accustomed to the ways of Miss Liverage. The young man did not place much reliance upon the statements of the nurse. He had heard and read about "money-diggers" before. He was familiar with the story of Wolfert Webber, who had dug over the whole of his cabbage garden in search of hidden treasure, and he had no little contempt for thosewho allowed themselves to be carried away by such vain and silly illusions. While he had no doubt that Miss Liverage was in earnest, he had little confidence in the existence of the hidden treasure at High Rock.
Though Leopold did not intend to become a Wolfert Webber, and dig over half a mile of beach under the cliffs, he admitted to himself the possibility of the existence of the treasure. He had promised the nurse that he would search for the money, and he did so; but he felt that the task was like "looking for a needle in a hay-mow," and he abandoned it before he had made himself ridiculous in his own estimation. He wrote a letter to the nurse, who had given him her address in New York, informing her of the ill success of his endeavors. She answered the letter, giving him further instructions, saying that the money was buried not more than a foot below the surface of the beach, and near a projecting rock. Probably when she was less excited than during her visit to Rockhaven, her memory had recalled some of the statements of Harvey Barth; for certainly she had said nothing so definite as this when she was with Leopold.
The young man, aided by these directions, which certainly were not very precise, made another attempt to find the treasure. There was more than one "projecting rock," and he dug over all the sand and gravel to the depth of a foot in the vicinity of every part of the cliff which answered to the description given. He worked very hard, and the boatmen who saw him at his labors wondered if he expected to find clams so far up on the beach.
He found neither clams nor money; and when he had finished the search he was more than ever dissatisfied with himself for being led away by such a chimera. He wrote to Miss Liverage again, informing her of the continued failure of his efforts, and declaring that he would not "fool with the matter" any longer. The nurse did not answer his last letter and it was evident that she too had "lost hope." Leopold never heard anything more from her or about her, and in a few weeks he had forgotten all about the "hidden treasure of High Rock," for he did not believe there was any treasure there, and it was not pleasant for him to remember that he had made a fool of himself.
Leopold and Stumpy went to school together during the winter, and continued to be as good friends as ever. Mrs. Wormbury struggled with her hard lot, and Squire Moses still threatened to take possession of the cottage. The Cliff House prospered in its small way, and the landlord still nursed his grand project of having a big hotel in Rockhaven. During the next season Leopold did very well with his boat, both with the fishing and with the "jobs" from the hotel. He saved his money and still kept it in the iron safe of Herr Schlager, who was as proud of and as devoted as ever to his nephew. In the spring, the question for the name of the new boat came up again, and the skipper was prepared to settle the question. Among the guests at the hotel in the summer, was the family of the Hon. Franklin Hamilton, a wealthy merchant of New York, who was a native of Rockhaven. They had spent a few days at the Cliff House for several seasons, though it was painfully apparent to the landlord that his accommodations were not satisfactory to his distinguished and wealthy guests, for the time they spent at the house was very brief. The family consisted of Mr.Hamilton, his wife and an only daughter. They always wanted to sail when they came to Rockhaven, but Ben Chipman's boat did not suit them. Leopold did not buy his sloop till after they had gone; but he congratulated himself upon the fact that when they came the next season he should be able to sail them in a boat which was good enough for any nabob in the land.
Being in funds in the spring, he fitted up the sloop very nicely, and could not help anticipating the pleasure it would afford him to sail the Hamiltons, especially the daughter, who, at the age of fourteen, was a very pretty girl. Revelling in these delightful thoughts, it suddenly occurred to him that he might give the young lady's name to the boat. It was certainly a very pretty name for so jaunty a craft as the sloop. It was Rosabel. In another week it appeared in gilt letters on the stern of the boat. In the summer the family came again. Rosabel was taller and prettier than ever, and Leopold actually realized all his pleasant and romantic anticipations, as he sailed her and her parents about the bay. Mr. Hamilton engaged the boatfor every day during his stay, which was prolonged to a whole week, or twice as long as he usually remained; for Rosabel was so pleased with the water excursions that her father extended his visit at her desire. Probably Leopold had as much romance in his nature as most young men of seventeen, and after his first full season in the Rosabel, the beautiful face and form of Miss Hamilton were a very distinct image in his mind, often called up, and often the subject of his meditations, though he could not help thinking of the wide gulf that yawned between the daughter of the rich merchant and the son of the humble landlord of a small hotel.
In the fall of the year, Leopold observed that his father was making frequent visits to Squire Moses Wormbury; and it soon came out that the rich man was to loan the landlord six thousand dollars, to enable the latter to make his contemplated improvements upon the hotel. The squire was to have this sum on the first of January, and though Mr. Bennington did not want it for several months, he consented to take it at that time; for Squire Moses would notallow it to remain a single month uninvested. The landlord was confident that he could make money enough on the new hotel to pay off the mortgage in three years. As soon as the snow melted in the spring, the work was commenced. The old portion of the hotel was partly torn to pieces, and for a time business was very good at the Island Hotel, for the Cliff House was closed.
Both the landlord and his son, pleasurably excited by the alterations in progress, worked with their own hands. Among other changes, the parlor chimney was taken down, and Leopold took a hand in the job, enjoying the operation of tumbling down to the cellar great masses of brick.
"Hold on, Le," shouted the mason who was at work with him, when they had removed the chimney as far as the level of the parlor floor. "What's that?"
The mason pointed to a bundle which was lodged in an opening back of the flue of the Franklin stove that had stood in the parlor. It was covered with bricks and lime dust, but the mason brought it to the surface with his iron bar.
"I know what it is," exclaimed Leopold, as he picked up the package, and knocked it several times against a partition in order to remove the soot and dust from it.
It was the oil-cloth containing the diary of Harvey Barth.
Leopold was somewhat excited by the discovery, and all the incidents of Miss Sarah Liverage's visit to the hotel came back fresh to his mind, though they had occurred eighteen months before.
"What is it?" asked the mason, whose curiosity was excited by the event.
"It is a book that belonged to Harvey Barth, the steward of the Waldo, which was wrecked off High Rock," replied Leopold. "I will take care of it."
"But how came it in the chimney?" asked the workman.
"He put it in the flue of the fireplace, and it tumbled down."
"What did he put it in there for?"
"Because there was no closet in the room, and he was a very queer fellow. He is dead now."
"What are you going to do with the book, then?"
"Send it to his friends, if I can find where they are."
Leopold carried the diary to his room, in a part of the house which was not to be disturbed, and locked it up in his chest. He wanted to read the portion which related to the wreck of the Waldo, and the burying of the money, if such an event had occurred, of which he had some grave doubts. But he could not stop then, for he was doing a man's work for his father, and his conscience would not allow him to waste his time. The mason asked more questions when Leopold returned to his work, and they were answered as definitely as the circumstances would permit. The young man examined the construction of the chimney, and found another flue besides that of the Franklin stove, into which the diary had fallen. It had formerly served for a fireplace in an adjoining apartment, and had been bricked up before the landlord purchased the estate. The Franklin stove, which was merely an iron fire place set into the chimney, had the less direct flue of the two, sothat the package had fallen where it was found.
During the rest of the day, Leopold's thoughts were fixed upon the long-lost diary, for which Miss Liverage and himself had vainly searched. Doubtless she would claim the diary, if it was found; but had she any better right to it than its present possessor? Leopold considered this question with no little interest. The secret of the hidden treasure was certainly in his keeping, and after the "trade" made between them, he felt that she had some rights in the matter which he was bound to respect. But the affair was no longer a secret; for after the "humbug was exploded," as Leopold expressed it, he told his father all about it. The landlord only laughed at it, and insisted that the nurse was crazy; and her excited conduct at the hotel rather confirmed his conclusion.
The result of Leopold's reflections during the day was a determination to write to Miss Liverage again, if he found anything in the diary which would enable him to discover the hidden treasure. The day seemed longer to him than usual, so anxious was he to examine the pages of the diary. When at last his work was done, andhe had eaten his supper, he hastened to his chamber, and opened the oil-cloth package. He was greatly excited, as most people are when long-continued doubts are to be settled. In a few moments he would know whether or not Miss Liverage was crazy, and whether or not there was any foundation to the story of the hidden treasure. He locked the door of his room before he opened the package, for he felt now that the secret was not his own exclusive property. If there was twelve hundred dollars in gold buried in the sands under High Rock which belonged to nobody, he felt bound in honor by his agreement with the nurse to make the division of it with her, in accordance with the conditions of the contract.
He desired very much to speak to his father about the diary; but he did not feel at liberty to do so. It did not appear that the mason with whom Leopold was at work had told Mr. Bennington, or any person, of the finding of the package. After his questions had been answered, he seemed to feel no further interest in the diary, and probably forgot all about it before he went home to dinner. The discovery of it did not seem to him to be a matter of any importance, and Leopold kept his information all to himself.
Leopold makes a Discovery. Page 149.Leopold makes a Discovery. Page149.
Removing the string from the package, the young man proceeded to unwrap the oil-cloth, shaking the soot and lime dust into the fireplace as he did so. The diary came out clean and uninjured from its long imprisonment in the chimney. Leopold's agitation increased as he continued the investigation, and he could hardly control himself as he opened the book and looked at the large, clear, round hand of the schoolmaster. The writing was as plain as print.
He turned the leaves without stopping to read anything, till he came to the record of the last day whose events Harvey Barth had written in the book; but those pages contained only an account of his illness, and a particular description of his symptoms, which might have interested a physician, but did not secure the attention of the young man. He turned back to the narrative of the loss of the Waldo. It was very minute in its details, and contained much "fine writing," such as the editor of the newspaper had struck out in the manuscript for publication.
Leopold had read the account in the newspaper, and he skipped what he had seen in print, till the name of "Wallbridge" attracted his attention. The first mention of the passenger that he saw was made when he went into the cabin, after his recovery from the effects of the lightning, and returned with something in his hand. The reader followed the narrative, which was already quite familiar to him, till he came to the landing of the party in the whale-boat on the beach; and at this point he found something which Harvey Barth had not written in his newspaper article, or mentioned during his stay at the hotel. Leopold read as follows:—
"As soon as we had landed on the beach, Wallbridge told me he had twelve hundred dollars in gold, which he had earned by his two years' work in Cuba. By the light of the flashes of lightning I saw the bag in his hand. It was an old shot-bag, tied up with a piece of white tape. Wallbridge said he was afraid the bag might cost him his life, if he held on to it, and I suppose he thought he might have to swim, and the weight of the gold would sink him.
"I have figured up the weight of twelvehundred dollars in gold, and I found it would be almost five pounds and a half Troy, or nearly four and a half Avoirdupois. I don't blame him now for wanting to get rid of it; but I did not think before I figured it up, that the money would weigh so much. Four and a half pounds is not much for a man to carry on land, but I should not want to be obliged to swim with this weight in my trousers' pocket, even when I was in good health.
"Wallbridge said he would bury the money in the sand, under a projecting rock in the cliff, so that he could come and get it when he wanted it. Just then a flash of lightning came, and I looked up at the cliff under which he stood. I saw the projecting rock, and it looked to me, in the blaze of the lightning, just like a coffin, from where I stood. It seemed to me then just like a sign from Heaven that I should soon need a coffin, if the sea did not carry me off; but if the sign meant anything, it did not apply to me, but to Wallbridge, who in less than half an hour afterwards was swallowed up in the waves. I am sorry for him, and I only hope he had not done anything very bad, for I could not help thinking he had committed some crime."
Leopold did not see why the writer should think so; but then he had not read the preceding pages of the diary, which Harvey Barth had written just before the passenger came to the galley to light his pipe. The narrative, after a digression of half a page of reflections upon the unhappy fate of Wallbridge, continued:—
"Wallbridge got down on his knees, and scooped out a hole not more than a foot deep in the sand, and dropped the bag into it. I looked up at the projecting rock again, when another flash of lightning came, and there was the coffin, just as plain as though it had been made for one of us. It was not a whole coffin, but only the head end of one. It seemed to project and overhang the beach at an angle of about forty-five degrees, and a man could have sat down on the upper end, which was about twenty feet high. The shape of it startled me so that I did not think any more of what the passenger was doing, though I saw him raking the sand into the hole with his hands. I thought the thing was a bad sign, and I did not like to look at it, though I could not help doing so when the lightning flashed. I walkedalong to get out of the way of it, and passed the place where Wallbridge was at work. When I looked up at the cliff again, I could not see the coffin any more. There was the projecting rock, but on this side it did not look at all like a coffin.
"I walked along to the end of the beach, where an angle in the cliff carried it out into the water. I expected every moment to be carried off by the sea or to be crushed against the rocks. I did not expect to save myself, and I could not help feeling that the coffin I had seen was for me. Just then a flash of lightning showed me a kind of opening in the cliff, near the angle."
Leopold knew this part of the story by heart, and had often passed up and down through the ravine, which Harvey Barth described in his diary with as much precision as though the locality had contained a gold mine.
"A projecting rock shaped like a coffin!" said the reader, as he raised his eyes from the book to consider what he had read. "I don't remember any such rock, though there may be such a one there. I must go down to High Rock ina thunder-storm, and then perhaps it will look to me as it did to him."
But the nurse was right, after all; there was a solid foundation to the story she had told, though she had not mentioned any rock shaped like the head of a coffin. Probably Harvey Barth, who at the time he told the nurse the story had expected to get well enough to go to his home, had not intended to describe the locality of the hidden treasure so that she could find it, but only to assure her that he should have money with which to reward her, if she took good care of him during his sickness. Leopold read the account of the burying of the money again; but he could not recall any rock answering to the description in the book. He had dug up the sand under every projecting rock that overhung the beach, to the depth of a foot, without finding the treasure. By the death of every person on board of the brig except Harvey Barth, the knowledge of the acts of Wallbridge was necessarily confined to him. If the money had ever been buried on the beach, Leopold was confident it was there now. No one could have removed it, for no one could have suspected its existence.
Faithful to the agreement he had made, Leopold wrote a letter that evening to Miss Liverage, directing it to the address she had given him. The letter contained but a few lines, merely intimating that he had important business with her. The young man was now anxious to visit the beach under High Rock, for the purpose of identifying the mortuary emblem which had so strongly impressed the author of the journal, in the lightning and the hurricane; but he could not be spared from his work, and it was several months before he was able to verify the statements in the diary.
Weeks and months passed away, and no answer to his letter came. In June he wrote another letter, to the "Superintendent of Bellevue Hospital, New York City," in which Harvey Barth died, requesting information in regard to Miss Sarah Liverage. A reply soon came, to the effect that the nurse had married one of her patients, and now lived somewhere in Oregon, the writer did not know where.
Miss Sarah Liverage had taken herself out of the reach of all further communication in regard to the hidden treasure. Leopold had no hope of being able to see or hear from her. She had not sent him her last address, and he had used all the means in his power to carry out the terms of the agreement. He considered himself, therefore, released from all responsibility, so far as she was concerned. But even then he did not feel like going to High Rock and taking the money for his own or his father's use. He could not get rid of the idea that the money belonged to somebody. If Wallbridge had saved this money from the earnings of two years in Cuba, it certainly ought to go to his heirs, now that he was dead.
The remarks of Harvey Barth in his diaryseemed to indicate that the passenger had committed some crime, or at least that he was open to the suspicion of having done so. Leopold considered, whether this might not be the reason why no one had yet claimed any relationship to him. The young man was sorely perplexed in regard to his duty in the matter; and he was really more afraid of doing wrong than he was of losing twelve hundred dollars in gold. He did not like to confess it even to himself; but he was afraid that his father's views, if he told him about the hidden treasure, might he looser than his own. He believed that the landlord was even more honest than the majority of men; but, after he had commenced upon the extensive improvements of the hotel, the son feared that the father might be tempted to do what was not exactly right.
While all these questions remained unsettled in the mind of Leopold, he did nothing to recover the money, until the hotel was nearly completed. In fact, he had no time to do so, for his father kept him busy from morning till night, and then he was so tired that he did not even feel like reading the diary. After he hadobtained the important facts in regard to the buried money, he did not feel any further interest in the journal of Harvey Barth. He had tried to read portions of it; but each day commenced with a detailed account of the writer's health, with remarks on the weather, and similar topics, which did not hold the attention of the young man. The enlargement of the hotel was a subject which engrossed his whole mind, after the novelty of finding the diary had worked itself off. He was deeply interested in the progress of the work; and when the putting up of the partitions gave form and shape to the interior, not many other matters occupied his mind.
The mechanics finished their labors, and the hotel was ready to receive the new furniture which had been purchased for it. Leopold was busier than ever, and hardly a thought of the hidden treasure came to his mind. He put down carpets and put up bedsteads, till he was nearly worn out with hard work, though the excitement of seeing the various apartments of the new house assume their final aspect prevented him from feeling the fatigue of his labor.By the middle of June everything was ready for the reception of guests, though not many of them were expected to arrive till the middle of July. Now the hotel was called the "Sea Cliff House," and its opening was advertised in the principal cities of New York and New England. As the Island Hotel lost its "trade" and the new house obtained it all, Ethan Wormbury was correspondingly angry.
As usually happens to those who rebuild and remodel private or public houses, the expense far exceeded the estimates. The war of the rebellion was in progress, and the prices of everything in the shape of building material and furniture had fearfully increased. The nine thousand dollars which Mr. Bennington had on hand to pay his bills, was exhausted long before the work was completed. The landlord was sorely troubled, and he went to Squire Wormbury to obtain a further loan on his property; but the money-lender declared that he would not risk another dollar on the security. Then Mr. Bennington mortgaged his furniture for two thousand dollars,—all he could obtain on it,—in order to relieve the pressure upon him; buteven then the "floating debt" annoyed him very seriously. He had always paid his bills promptly, and kept out of debt, so that his present embarrassment was doubly annoying to him, on account of its novelty. With all his mind, heart and soul he regretted that he had undertaken the great enterprise, and feared that it would end in total ruin to him.
The landlord talked freely with his wife and Leopold about his embarrassments, and the son suffered quite as much as the father on account of them. There were guests enough in the hotel to have met the expenses of the old establishment, but not of the new one; and the landlord found it difficult even to pay the daily demands upon him. He was almost in despair, and a dollar seemed larger to him now than ever before, and hardly a single one of them would stay in his pocket over night. The interest on the mortgage note would be due on the first of July, and Mr. Bennington knew not where to obtain the first dollar with which to pay it. The landlord was in great distress, for he knew that Squire Moses was as relentless as death itself, and would show him no mercy.
"I don't see but I must fail," said Mr. Bennington, with a deep sigh, as the day of payment drew near.
"Fail, father!" exclaimed Leopold.
"That will be the end of it all. If I don't pay my interest on the day it is due, Squire Wormbury will foreclose his mortgage, and take possession of the house," groaned the landlord.
"Can't something be done, father?" asked the son.
"I don't know what I can do, I have borrowed of everybody who will lend me a dollar. With one good season I could pay off every dollar I owe, except Squire Wormbury's mortgage. It seems hard to go to the wall just for the want of a month's time. I am sure I shall make money after the season opens, for I have engaged half the rooms in the house after the middle of July. Half a dozen families from Chicago are coming then, and when I was in Boston a dozen people told me they would come here for the summer."
"I think you will find some way to raise the money, father," added Leopold, more hopeful than his father.
"I don't see where it is coming from. The bank won't discount any more for me. I feel like a beggar already; and all for the want of a month's time."
Leopold was very sad; but in this emergency he thought of the hidden treasure of High Rock. But he had already made up his mind that this money did not belong to him. He even felt that it would be stealing for him to take it. In his father's sore embarrassment he was tempted to appropriate the treasure, and let him use it as a loan. But then, if his father should fail, and the heirs of Wallbridge should appear, he could not satisfy them, or satisfy his own conscience.
But the temptation was very great; and the next time he went out alone in the Rosabel, he visited the beach under High Rock. It was the first time he had been there this season. He landed, and commenced the search for the projecting rock which was shaped like a coffin. He walked from one end of the beach to the other, without discovering any rock which answered to Harvey Barth's description. He started to retrace his steps, remembering thatthe writer of the journal had been unable to observe the singular form of the rock after he had changed his position. The tide was low, and he walked on the edge of the water; but by going in this direction he had no better success. After spending an hour in looking for it, he could discover no rock which looked like the emblem of death. He returned to Rockhaven, almost convinced that Harvey Barth had imagined the scene he had described in his diary.
The next day, just at dark, a thunder-storm, the first of the season, came up. The weather had been warm and sultry for a week, and the farmers declared that the season was a fortnight earlier than usual. The roaring thunder and the flashing lightning reminded Leopold of the scene described in Harvey's journal, and especially of the burying of the twelve hundred dollars in gold. Without saving anything to any one of his intention, he left the hotel, and embarked in the Rosabel, with no dread of the rain, or a squall. There was wind enough to take him down as far as the ledges, and then it suddenly subsided. Leopold furled his mainsail, for the calm indicated a coming squall. Itwanted an hour of high tide, and he anchored the Rosabel at a considerable distance from the shore, paying out the cable till the stern of the boat was in water not more than three feet deep. Pulling upon the rope till he was satisfied that the anchor had hooked upon one of the sharp rocks below the beach, he prepared to go on shore. The beach sloped so sharply that the sands were not more than twenty feet from the stern of the Rosabel.
It was now quite dark, but the scene was frequently lighted up by the sharp lightning. The tide had risen so that the water was within a rod of the cliffs. Taking an oar in his hand, he planted the blade end of it in the water as far as he could reach from the stern, and grasping the other end, he made a flying leap with its aid, and struck at a spot where the water was only knee-deep. He had scarcely reached the beach before the squall came; but it blew out of the north-west, so that the Rosabel was partially sheltered from its fury by the projecting cliffs between High Rock and the mouth of the river. She swung around, abreast of the cliffs, into the deep water between the beachand the ledges. Leopold watched her for a few moments, fearful that the change of position might have unhooked the anchor; but it held on till the squall, which expended its force in a few moments, was over. Then the rain came down in torrents, drenching the boatman to the skin.
Leopold, with the oar in his hand, walked along the narrow beach, watching the play of the lightning on the rocks of the cliff. Occasionally he halted to observe the shapes they assumed, and he could not help perceiving that the glare of the electric fluid gave them an entirely different appearance from that which they usually wore. He had landed near the ravine by which Harvey Earth had escaped from the angry billows, and he walked to the farther end of the beach without seeing any rock which bore the least resemblance to a coffin. The tide was rising all the time, driving him nearer and nearer to the cliff. Leopold was not much excited, for his former failure to find the hidden treasure had almost convinced him that no such thing existed. He was cool enough—drenched to the skin as he was—to reason about themovements of the shipwrecked party on the beach.
"When Harvey Barth left Wallbridge filling up the hole in which he had put the bag of gold," thought Leopold, "he must have walked towards the 'Hole in the Wall'"—as the ravine was called by those who visited High Rock. "If he hadn't walked towards it, he wouldn't have found it. If he had walked up and down the beach, he would have seen Wallbridge and the mate when they went off in the whale-boat to return to the wreck. This shows plainly enough that he only walked one way before he came to the Hole. That way must have been the opposite direction from that I have just come; for if he had walked the way I have, he could not have reached the Hole; and there is no beach to walk on beyond it.
"When Harvey Barth looked behind him, he could not see the coffin; and of course I couldn't see it when I came this way. I suppose it only shows itself, like the man's head near the light-house, from one particular point. The head can only be made out from a boat, when it ranges between the island and the light, one way, andin line with the dead tree and Jones's barn on the north shore, the other way. Twenty feet from this position, nothing that looks like a head can be seen. Probably this coffin works by the same rule. If it don't, it is strange that I have never noticed it. Now I will walk in the direction that Harvey Barth did, and if there is any coffin here I shall see it."
The bright flashes of lightning still illuminated the cliffs, as Leopold walked slowly towards the Hole in the Wall, scrutinizing the rocks with the utmost care. By the rising of the tide his line of march was now within ten feet of the cliff, and the beach was of about the same width as when the shipwrecked party had sought a refuge upon it; but the sea was comparatively calm, and there was no peril on its smooth sands. Leopold had gone about one third of the length of the beach, when his eye rested upon a formation in the cliff, which, as the lightning played upon it, assured him he had found what he sought. The view he had obtained of it was only for an instant. He halted, waiting again till the lightning again, enabled him to see the rock.
"That's it, as sure as I live!" exclaimed the boatman.
Again and again he saw it, as the lightning glared upon it; and the resemblance to a coffin was certainly very striking. Harvey Barth was justified again, and Leopold acknowledged to himself the correctness of the description in the diary. Thrusting the oar down into the sand on the spot where he was, so as not to loose the locality, he stood for some time observing the phenomenon on the rocks. He understood now why he had not seen it before. In his previous search, he had walked on the beach twenty feet farther out from the cliff. Changing his position by wading into the water, the shape of the coffin on the rock was lost before he had moved ten feet from the oar. From this point it assumed a new form, looking like nothing in particular but a mass of rock.
Leopold returned to the stake which he had set up, and then walked from it to the cliff. When he stopped, the projecting rock was directly over his head. He knew the spot very well. He had baked clams there for Rosabel Hamilton during one of his visits to High Rockwith her; and he had dug over every foot of sand beneath it, in search of the hidden treasure, without finding it. But Harvey Barth was so correct in regard to his description of the locality that the boatman was more disposed to rely upon his statements in other matters than he had ever been before. He gathered a pile of stones to mark the place, and then gave himself up to a careful consideration of the circumstances of the case. He could not now escape the conclusion that the money was actually buried beneath the projecting rock—"Coffin Rock" he had already named in his own mind; and he proceeded to inquire why he had not found it, when he dug the ground all over.
"Miss Liverage told me the hole which Wallbridge dug was not more than a foot deep; and Harvey Barth's diary contained the same statement," said the boatman to himself. "I dug a foot down, and the money was not there. I remember I found a piece of boat-hook, with the iron on it about that distance below the surface. What does that prove? How happened that piece of a boat-hook, to be a foot under ground? On the top of the cliffs the sand andgravel, with a little soil on top, is six feet deep, and this beach is formed by the caving down of the earth. There is no beach beyond the Hole, because the rocks are all bare on the top of the cliff. I suppose the sand keeps dropping down, and the roll of the sea has spread it out as it fell. I have no doubt that the hurricane piled the sand up a foot or more next to the cliff. That's the reason I didn't find the money. I will dig deeper now."
Satisfied with this reasoning, Leopold waded off to the Rosabel which the tide had swung in towards the beach again. In the cuddy he had a lantern,—for use when he was out after dark,—which he lighted. As he was obliged to supply bait for parties who went out fishing with him, he kept under the seat in the standing-room a boy's shovel, which his father had given him years before, with which he dug clams on the beaches. Letting out the cable, the boat drifted still nearer to the beach, and the skipper landed, with his lantern and shovel. Throwing off his wet coat, he began to dig under Coffin Rock. He allowed considerable latitude in marking out the size of the hole, toallow for any possible want of accuracy in Harvey Barth's observation.
It was pitch dark after the shower, for the sky and the stars were obscured by dense clouds. Leopold had only the light of his lantern to enable him to work, and his task was gloomy enough to satisfy the veriest money-digger that ever delved into the earth for hidden treasure. In half an hour, more or less, he had dug the hole a foot deep, and then felt that he had reduced this part of the beach to its former elevation, at the time of the wreck of the Waldo. A descent of another foot would decide whether or not the treasure had an existence, save in the brain of the sick man.
It was hard work, after a full day's labor at the hotel; but Leopold redoubled his exertions after he had removed the first foot of sand. As he proceeded, he examined every stone he threw out of the hole, to assure himself that he did not miss the bag of gold. The task began to be somewhat exciting, as the solution of the problem drew nearer.
The hole which he had laid out was six feet square; and when he had thrown out all thesand and gravel to this depth, in order to save any unnecessary labor he began to dig in the middle of the excavation, for this was directly under the centre of the projecting rock. If Harvey Barth's statement was exactly correct, the bag would be found where Leopold was now at work. Faster and faster he plied the shovel, the deeper he went, and, when he judged that the lower hole was nearly a foot deep, his excitement of mind was intense. He had come to the last layer of sand he had to remove in making the second foot in depth. Placing his heel upon the shovel, he attempted to force it down the length of the blade; but something impeded his progress. It was not a rock, for it yielded slightly, and gave forth no sharp sound. Scraping out the sand with the shovel, Leopold began to paw it away with his hands. Presently he felt something which was neither sand nor gravel. He drew it forth from the hole, and held it up where the light of the lantern struck upon it.
It was the hidden treasure.