The deep blue skies wax dusky and the tall green trees grow dim,And the sickly, smoky shadows through the sleepy sunlight swim,And on the very sun's face weave their pall,
The deep blue skies wax dusky and the tall green trees grow dim,And the sickly, smoky shadows through the sleepy sunlight swim,And on the very sun's face weave their pall,
but there were no blue skies or green trees. The heavens were just a dull slate-grey with streaks of smoke-colored cloud scurrying across from the west, and the trees that might have been green in a better light were black and gaunt, like weird spectres which had taken on wild shapes and unorthodox hues. There was just the slightest suggestion of chill in the atmosphere, and that, combined with the scurrying clouds, made me study the sky with growing anxiety.
"If that's not a storm brewing," I said, pointing skywards, "I'm anything you like to call me."
Cumshaw cocked one eye in the direction indicated. "It does look like it," he said lazily, after a prolonged study of the sky.
I looked him up and down as best I could. One can't survey a man too well when lying on one's back; but something in the glance and more that I gave him, struck him as being so odd that he sat up and stared at me. I made no movement.
"Well?" he queried at length.
"It's just the other way round," I said in my most aggravating tone.
He looked at the sky again at that, and then turned his dark eyes on me. "I can see it's going to be a fine old storm," he said, "but I don't understand why you're worrying about it."
"I'm not," I said a trifle untruthfully. I was worrying, but not as much as he seemed to think. Ordinarily I would have told him just what I fancied was wrong, but this time I didn't fancy anything. For all I could say to the contrary there was just an ordinary April storm brewing over across the hills, and presently the thunder would begin, and then the lightning, and after that the rain; still I felt like a man who is on the verge of a great discovery, on the brink of finding that something that means all the difference in the world between success and failure. Even now when I come to consider calmly the emotions of that hour I cannot say that what I have just written down is a true description of my feelings and thoughts. What happened later that same night has had its effect on my memory and has mixed itself inextricably with my earlier recollections. All this about my fancying that the storm meant more than a storm usually means may be due to the fact that, but for it, the momentous event itself would never have occurred.
I do know that I was a little doubtful about the security of the improvised tent that sheltered Moira, and I think I must have showed a little of that anxiety in my face. That perhaps was what struck Cumshaw and led him to make the remark that he did.
Presently Moira called us to tea, and we hauled ourselves up from the grass and went over to her. The fire was burning up brightly and threw the tent and the surrounding trees into bold relief. It made the sky look even darker and more threatening than before. The scurrying clouds had all passed away by now, but in their train came thicker and heavier ones, big black things that rolled slowly across the evening sky with the heavy implacability of Fate. They moved like the advancing vanguard of a wild army of infamy, and soon had shut out altogether the dying light of day and the growing radiance of the silver stars. The sudden chill of thirty minutes previously had passed like a swift breath of wind into the limbo of lost and forgotten things, and in its place had grown a deadly hot oppressiveness that somehow reminded me of the sweltering dampness of those Gaudalcanar forests I had so recently described to Cumshaw. It filled us with something of its own torpor, so much so that we ate languidly, and when we spoke at all we spoke in monosyllables.
The storm broke almost without warning. There was just one low premonitory growl of thunder, the sky was split by a yellow sword of lightning, and then the rain came pouring down in the way that can be best described as the bursting of the flood-gates of heaven. At that our torpor vanished and we made an unceremonious rush for the poor shelter afforded by the tent, bringing with us what was left of our meal. The tent had not been constructed with a view to holding more than one; at its poor best it was but a rough shelter from the night dew. We had never intended it to keep out the rain; it had not entered our heads as even a remote possibility. I, perhaps, as the only one of the three who had had any practical experience of out-door life, should have kept just such a chance in mind. The fact remains that I overlooked it, and I can't say that then or at any other time was I sorry for my miscalculation.
I had lived so long in the tropics that the rain that came seemed to me the veriest drizzle, but the others had their own opinion, as I learnt the moment I said what I thought. Cumshaw remarked that it was the devil of a downpour, and Moira expressed her idea in less forcible though more polite terms. It was no use my saying that if I were in Port Moresby or Samarai the rain would have gone through the thin fabric of the tent like a rifle bullet through butter-cloth. They pointed out with equal truth that the present rain was dribbling through even as it was, and that a quarter of an hour more would see us saturated.
Whether we would or not must remain a mystery. No doubt we would have found out sooner or later had it not come on to blow. The thunder had ceased and the lightning flashed less frequently, now that the rain had set in, but the wind began to rise, and almost on the last clap of thunder I felt the wall of the tent shiver under the impact of the blast. It occurred to me in one of those flashes of memory that we sometimes have in moments of tension that we had not troubled about running up guy-ropes, and there was nothing now to hold the tent if the wind caught it squarely. Scarcely had the thought formed in my mind than an extra fierce blast caught the light fabric, shook it as a Newfoundland dog would shake a small terrier it had picked up in its mouth, and then, before we knew what had happened, the wind had whirled the tent away like a child's balloon, leaving us standing bareheaded, shivering and exposed to all the force of the elements. I left Moira with Cumshaw and groped about in the darkness, hoping to find our missing tent, but I might as well have been hunting for the proverbial needle in a bundle of hay for all the chance I had. I merely got wet through, so much so that I changed by mind completely about the force of Victorian storms, and when at last I found my way back to the others I was sopping from the sole of my boots to the top of the woe-begone hat I had hurriedly thrust on my head. As matters stood I could not get any wetter, and I supposed that Cumshaw was in much the same state. Nevertheless there was Moira to think of, and the sooner we got to shelter of some sort, a cave on the hillside or even a tolerably thick bush, the better it was going to be for all of us. I shouted this to Cumshaw—it was very hard to hear now that the gale had risen and was blowing everything to ribbons—and he understood me only after a couple of attempts. So I took Moira by one chill wet hand and Cumshaw took the other, and thus in the darkness and the steady soaking rain began our hunt for shelter of some sort.
I haven't an idea how far we walked. We just kept on and on, and really I think we did not notice the storm so much as if we had been standing still. Most of the time our attention was too taken up with feeling our way, for the ground was very slippery and more than once I almost lost my footing, to give more than a passing thought to personal discomfort. It was too dark to see more than an inch or so in front of us, and even then we saw nothing more than a black wall that constantly receded as we advanced and yet was still as near as ever in the end. I don't think any of us realised that we had drifted into a gully or a track of some sort until I put out a tentative hand and felt a wall of bushes dead in front of me. I pulled back with a jerk, but my sudden movement startled the others, and in the flurry of the moment they did the very thing I had been trying to avoid. They slipped and I went with them. I had sense enough to release Moira's hand the moment I felt the drag of her body, and then, before I quite knew what had happened. I found I was whirling along in the mud, cavorting down the side of something that looked, or felt—for I couldn't see, as I've already stated—very much like the edge of a precipice. I brought up, just when I was beginning to wonder how much further I had to fall, by colliding with something that felt very like a hedge of brambles. There I lay in the soaking rain, with the mud plastered thickly on my face, and every bit of breath knocked out of my body.
Somehow it seemed quieter down here. The wind still whistled and roared, but it was some feet or more above my head and it touched me not. Presently I began to sit up and wonder where I was and what had happened and what had become of the others. I felt very stiff and wet and dirty, and my right knee ached more than I liked. I was just on the point of staggering to my feet and feeling my way to leveller ground, when quite close to me I heard something very like a moan. I dropped on my knees at that and put out a tremulous hand. My fingers touched something soft and cold, and then I realised that it was a human face—Moira's, judging by the tangle of hair. I put my hand under the head and raised it up. A heavy mass of loose hair fell damply about my arm, and I knew then that it was my sweetheart I held. She stirred a little and moaned again. I was in a quandary. Clearly something must be done, but how or what I could no more say that I could fly. The night and the storm had swallowed Cumshaw up for the time being, but, beyond wondering vaguely what had become of him, I never gave him a thought. All my life long I'd been too used to men taking care of themselves to worry myself much about my missing colleague. But Moira's case was insistent and called for immediate attention. If there had been any shelter handy, even the rudest of bark humpies, I would have known what to do, and, what is more, I would have done it on the instant. Obviously the only course I could take was to crawl in under the ledge or precipice, or whatever it was, down which we had fallen and trust to the overhang—if there was any—and the few bushes that I had crashed through as I spun down, to keep the worst of the rain off us.
Accordingly I rose to my feet and lifted Moira up in my arms. She was a greater weight than I had thought, and that and my own condition caused me to walk with the uneven steps of a drunken man. At last I found some sort of recess in the side of the slope—I came across it more by accident than of set purpose—and there I crouched with Moira between me and the wall. The rain whirled in on me, and, if possible, I got a trifle wetter than before, but I had the satisfaction of knowing that my body kept both the rain and the wind away from her. It was a tedious enough job, holding the unconscious girl in my arms, and more than once I felt like dropping her, only that I recollected in time that I was crouching ankle deep in mud. I am stronger than the average, and I have had my body trained in hard schools, but even that has not made a Hercules of me. I was more than glad when she opened her eyes, or, rather, when she moved a little in my arms and then spoke.
She was not hurt much, she said in answer to my question, but she felt stiff in every limb, and the dampness seemed to have soaked through to her very bones. How was I, and what had happened?
I answered the two questions in almost the same breath. Brevity is not only the soul of wit, but it is the sole method of carrying on a conversation when both parties are wet and shivering.
"Have you any idea where we are?" Moira asked.
I shook my head and then, remembering that my answer was unintelligible in the darkness, I said, "I haven't. We fell over a cliff or a precipice, and that's all I can say about it."
"Why," she said, "you're shivering!" And she put out her hand to touch me. Her fingers came to rest on my arm, and I could feel her stiffen in the dark.
"Jim, why did you do it?" she demanded, with yet a curious softness in her voice.
"Do what?" I fenced.
"As if I don't know that you're in your shirt sleeves. That's your coat that's wrapped round me."
"What if it is?"
"You shouldn't have done it. You'll catch your death of cold."
"Much chance there is of that," I grunted.
She was silent for a time, and then I felt her arms about me, and I realised that she was trying to place my coat about my shoulders.
"If that's what you're after," I said, "I'll put it on. But you'll catch cold yourself."
She made no direct answer, but I heard something that sounded curiously like a sob.
Presently she moved up closer to me and a soft voice whispered in my ear, "Jim, I'll be warmer if you'll let me snuggle up to you. It's a long time since last ... I didn't deserve it then."
I reached out in the darkness and drew her towards me. With her tired head resting on my shoulder we waited for the dawn.
It was a long time coming, how long I cannot say, for in my then state of nervous tension the hours dragged with the awful unendingness of eternity. At last the black wall of night cracked into streaks of grey, looking for all the world like feeble sun-rays filtering through the chinks in the roof of a deserted house. Moira stirred a little, and I saw in one hasty glance that her wet hair was streaming about her face and her saturated dress was caked with black mud.
I held her off at arm's length and looked her over quizzically. Then we each laughed outright at the sight the other presented.
"You're wet through, Moira," I said, "and you look as if you've been having a mud-bath. All the same you're a brick to have stood it all the way you have."
"I'm not and I haven't," she said cryptically, and silenced my further objections with a kiss.
When I looked out on the world again it was to see that the day had already broken, and a dirty and bedraggled Albert Cumshaw was making his way towards us with slow and painful steps.
I cannot explain why just at that instant my heart gave a thump. There was nothing for it to thump about. Cumshaw, toiling up the slope, for all his woe-begone look, was the most ordinary figure imaginable, and there was nothing in the landscape to excite or rivet attention. It was a white dawn, and, though the rain had ceased long before, everything was still dull and grey. In the hollows the mist lingered and hung between us and the further view like a great white curtain. That and the advancing Albert Cumshaw completed the picture, a picture that was neither interesting nor sensational. Yet at the sight, as I've already stated, my heart jumped queerly and unaccountably. Do coming events really ever cast their shadows before them? Are we sometimes granted visions of "the things beyond the dome?" I do not know, and, even if I did, I would not care to express a definite opinion in my own case. I have seen things dangerously like coincidences happen so often in my own experience that I have grown chary of either affirming or denying that there is something more than chance at the bottom of it all. Still the fact remains that twice within twenty-four hours the same queer feeling crept over me, and on each occasion the course of events proved that it was premonition. But that is running a shade ahead of the story.
I ran down the slope to meet Cumshaw, and the first thing I noticed was that there was a great livid bruise across his right temple.
"You've got a nasty knock there on your forehead," I greeted him, in the casual self-contained fashion of the men who live in the open.
He answered me with one of those laughs that are nothing more than almost soundless chuckles.
"Is it hurting?" I enquired with a trace of anxiety in my voice.
"Hurting, hell!" he said impolitely. "Of course it is."
"How did you do it? Was it an accident?"
"I don't look as if I did it just for amusement, do I?" he snarled.
"It hasn't improved your temper, my lad," I said under my breath. Aloud I remarked: "We're all in much the same boat. Miss Drummond's had a stiff time of it, and I've got all my bruises where you can't see them, but I can assure you that they hurt all the same."
At the mention of Moira a shadow passed over his face. Frankly I could not quite understand his attitude towards her. At first I was rather of the opinion that he was in love with her, but latterly I hadn't been so sure, for he had had the decency to suppress his feelings once he found how the land lay. The mere mention of her name calmed him down wonderfully. He even seemed a little ashamed of his outbursts of temper.
"I might have remembered that I wasn't the only one in the party," he said. "But then I came a fearful cropper, and on top of it I've been out in the rain all night."
"We were a little luckier." I told him. "We found an overhang and that kept off most of the rain. All the same I wouldn't mind a chance of drying myself."
"And we're likely to get that," he said with some asperity. "All our goods are God knows how many miles behind. I've got a box of matches in my pocket, but they're just about as useful here as they would be at the bottom of the sea."
"Come now," I said, "it's not as bad as all that. We've got a lady to take care of, and we've got to shuffle our brains about a bit and see what we can do. We'll never get anywhere by standing still railing at our fate."
"Well, you're in charge, Carstairs," he told me. "It's up to you."
"It is," I admitted, "and as the first step towards success I might point out to you that the mist is lifting."
He wheeled round at that with greater agility than I expected, seeing that by his own account he was still feeling pretty dicky. The mist was lifting in truth, and yellow spears of sunlight were thrusting themselves through like hat pins run through cloth.
"It'll be the better part of half an hour before the place's clear," he asserted, with one eye cocked at the sky and the other watching me.
"In the meanwhile we'd better go back to Miss Drummond and set her mind at rest," I suggested.
He trudged along at my elbow with a step that lacked its usual buoyancy, but the sidelong glances I stole at him every now and then showed me that he was fast recovering his spirits. The bruise on his forehead, seen now close at hand and in a better light, was not the fearsome thing I had at first taken it to be. True, it lent him an air of general disrepute, but then none of us were quite fit for the drawing-room. Even Moira, sheltered as she had been, showed very much the worse for wear. She greeted Cumshaw with a cheery smile, the bravest thing about her I thought, and a ready question as to his adventures. But he could tell her little more than that he had gone over the edge with us and rolled away until he brought up against the stone or whatever it was that had bruised his face so nicely. Our own story, what there was of it, was soon told, and a few glances about us showed that in the murk of the night and rain we had missed our footing and shot off the track a dozen feet or so to the level ground below. Above us waved the tall shapes of kingly gums, and below us lay vast spaces of bracken. Beyond that we could form little idea as to our position, though the mist was slowly drifting away now.
"The best thing to do, I suppose," I remarked, "is to get back to last night's camping-place and see what we can find of the stores. Of course we shouldn't have left them, but it's no use being wise after the event. We've to go back as quick as we can now, and maybe we can dig up something warm. That's supposing that everything isn't too wet to be used."
"As I remarked before, it's up to you," Cumshaw threw at me. "Lead on, Carstairs."
"If you can show me any way back to the main track, I'll lead on with pleasure," I told him. "There's none visible that I can see, and I don't fancy that my eyes are over dull."
Cumshaw said something under his breath, but before I could drop on him for it Moira interposed. "How about walking round at the foot of this ridge and seeing where it'll lead us to?" she suggested.
"That's as fine a plan as any," I answered. "We'll try it."
We did. We sauntered along listlessly for the best part of an hour, and then it struck me all of a sudden that we were rising rapidly.
"We're on the wrong track," I said, stopping short. "We didn't come down as steep a slope as this last night."
"You're right there, Carstairs. We didn't," Cumshaw said, stopping short and looking about him with a puzzled air.
"Why not keep right on?" Moira advised. "It's just possible that we're working back to the track."
"We'll give it a chance," I said, after chewing the suggestion over in silence for a few minutes. "We'll keep on for ten minutes or so, and if it gets any worse we can always go back."
The ground became rougher at every step and finally in despair I called a halt. The sun was well up by this and the mist had cleared away from the hills, though filmy vapors still lingered in what I knew must be the hollows. In front was a causeway, strewn with boulders, and beyond that what I took to be a sea of wattles. I could see no use in progressing further in that direction, and I said so as succinctly as I could. Cumshaw was inclined to argue, but the consensus of opinion was against him. The outcome of it was that we decided to retrace our steps. Before we did so I suggested looking about for something that would give us an indication of our present position.
I stumbled on it quite by accident. Another step further and I would have fallen down the funnel-shaped opening that gaped at my feet. I drew back just in time to save myself, and for the second time that morning my heart gave a jump. To think that we had gone so close to missing it altogether! The thing, so to speak, had lain at our feet all the time. I turned about and searched the landscape for my companions. Moira was visible in the near distance; the wattles had swallowed Cumshaw.
"Cumshaw, Moira, I've found it!" I called at the top of my voice.
Moira whipped round at the sound of my voice. I waved to her and she came running towards me. A second later I saw Cumshaw come out of the shadows, and I yelled at him with all the power of my lungs. I don't know what he must have thought of the yelling, dancing, frantically waving figure that caught his eye. He must have fancied for a moment that I had gone mad. Then, in a flash, so he says, the truth dawned on him, and he in his turn sprinted towards me, the one idea uppermost in his mind being that the valley must have been found. At the same instant my soul was singing "Eureka!" and Moira was weeping and laughing at the same time.
"Cumshaw," I cried, as he came within speaking distance, "if that's not the funnel that your father and Bradby left the valley by you can call me a goggle-eyed Chinaman."
And then somehow we all seemed to be talking together.
"That must be the valley down under the wattles."
"I knew we'd find it."
"It only shows that one should never give in."
"If we hadn't fallen down that slope last night...."
"If I hadn't kept going when you all wanted to turn back, you mean."
"It's found now and that's the best part of it."
I must confess that I lost my head just as the others did. I should have known better, I suppose, than to go yelling out our discovery at the top of my lungs, but knowing's one thing and doing's altogether different. I've seen miners on the Lakekamu shouting themselves hoarse over even less of a discovery, seasoned men who knew how and when to hold their tongues. Could tyros like ourselves be blamed for what we did? I don't think so.
"That's the funnel right enough," Cumshaw said. "There can't possibly be two of the same kind in the same district. I'm sure this is the one; it's been described too often to me for there to be any mistake about it. But what's puzzling me is the valley. There doesn't seem to be much of one here. All I can see is wattles, wattles whichever way I look."
"There's one way to settle it," I said in an aside to him, and I looked at Moira.
He gathered from my warning glance that I had something to say I didn't want her to hear, so he shifted out of earshot with me.
"There's things you don't want a girl to see," I explained as we walked off; "but if this is the valley the skeletons of those two horses should be down there somewhere," and I pointed over the edge of the funnel.
"I'll go down," he said with alacrity. "I guess it's my go. It's time I took some sort of a risk."
"You surely don't expect there'll be anything wrong?" I queried.
"I can't say," he answered with a shrug of his shoulders. "Anyway, I think you'd better get back to Miss Drummond. She's looking over this way, and in a minute or so she'll be asking awkward questions, if you don't go and tell her something."
"All right," I agreed. "Look as slippy as you can, but be careful. An injured man is always more or less of a nuisance, you know."
He grinned cheerfully at that, and then, without another word, turned on his heel and made off towards the funnel. I walked back to Moira.
"What are you going to do now?" she asked me suspiciously. "What's Mr. Cumshaw after?"
"He's going down through that funnel-shaped thing," I answered. "He wants to see what's at the end of it."
The golden-brown eyes regarded me thoughtfully for a space and then: "Why didn't you go yourself instead of sending him?" she asked.
"It was his suggestion," I said defensively. "He seemed to think he had a better right than anyone else, so I didn't argue with him about it. I let him go."
"We could all have gone," she hinted.
"We could have," I agreed, "but we didn't."
In the meantime Cumshaw had lowered himself carefully down into the opening, felt about a bit with his feet, found a foothold, and then swung easily down from projecting ledge to projecting ledge. He emerged quite unexpectedly into a tangled mass of wattle. That puzzled him much, as it had puzzled me a few minutes previously; the elder Cumshaw's tale contained no mention of wattle save the golden barrier at the further side of the valley. Yet here was wattle as far as the eye could reach. It looked as if a generous scientist, like the man in H. G. Wells' "Food of the Gods," had let loose some power capable of forcing on this abnormal growth. The valley itself was in an undulating sea of vegetation. Had it been early in September the place would have been a vast expanse of golden glory, but as it was late March the dominant color note was that of grey-green. Under the circumstances it was as clear as daylight how the elder man had missed the place. It was buried under the rank growth, and all definable features, as we learnt later—everything that could be used as a leading mark—had disappeared or been swamped by the wattles. The bushes were not so thick about the lower entrance to the funnel as to impede Cumshaw's movements, and so he began to look about him in the hope of locating the one thing that would definitely identify the place. The horses had been shot close to the wall of rock, and it was a practical certainty that some trace of their bodies would be found in the vicinity. Ten minutes' close search brought to light a pile of bones that might or might not be those of the missing animals—Cumshaw had no knowledge of anatomical structure and so did not feel quite clear on that point—but the remarkable feature about them in his eyes was that they were all more or less blackened, and amongst them he found a heap of lime-dust, which he took to be bones reduced to their elemental form by the application of great heat. Still he felt justified in regarding the identity of the place as being sufficiently established, and without wasting any more time he returned the way he had come.
"There's no doubt about it," I agreed when I heard his tale. "This is the valley right enough. I vote on going down there at once. The old hut can't be far away, and it'll be somewhere for us to camp in and fix up our clothes. And that reminds me that one of us'll have to go back for our stores and extra clothes. There's no need for both of us to go; one will do. However that can wait until we find the hut."
"I'm not hungry," Moira said, "and I think my clothes are practically dry. The sun's coming out now, and I don't see why we should feel any the worse for last night's adventures if we only take reasonable care of ourselves."
"If that's the case," I remarked, "let us go down by all means."
I sent Cumshaw down first, as he was the only one of us who was familiar with the place, and then I handed Moira down to him. Or, rather, I helped her down; Moira at the best of times is no light weight. For a moment we stood blinking at the entrance to the funnel, and then Moira caught my arm in her impulsive way and cried, "Come on, Jim! Let's enter into Paradise!"
I smiled at her quaintness and made to follow her, but Cumshaw interposed quickly. "Not that way," he said. "This is the way." He glanced at me as he spoke, and I realised that he was taking us by a path that would lead us away from the mouldering bones.
The ground was rough underfoot, and the matted cover of vegetation that effectually hid stray boulders from view made it all the worse. In places the wattle grew over our heads in a profusion that was almost tropical, and more than once we would have lost our way had I not taken our bearings at the start, and thus was able to guide the party by means of my pocket-compass.
"In your father's day there was a wood hereabouts," I said to Cumshaw presently. "There doesn't seem to be one now."
"There doesn't," he said. "Can you understand how practically the entire physical features of the place have changed so much?"
"Frankly I can't. But they apparently have, and that's about all we can say. We'll just have to keep our eyes open and trust to luck."
"Our luck seems to have held good so far," Moira said, turning to me with high hope in her face.
"Mind your footing," I said warningly. "You want to watch every inch of the way. There's all sorts of rocks and boulders under this stuff."
"I'll be careful," she smiled, and scarcely were the words out of her mouth than her foot caught in something. She pitched forward on her face before I could spring to her assistance. I lifted her up carefully, but she seemed none the worse for her fall.
"I don't know what it was that tripped me," she confided. "It wasn't a boulder or anything of the sort. I think it was a log of wood, yet my foot seemed to catch underneath it."
I was on the point of offering a suggestion, but something held me silent, and instead I dropped down on my knees and felt feverishly in the undergrowth. Of course it was a silly thing to do—there might have been snakes and all manner of noxious crawling things there—but I didn't think of that at the time. I was too intent on solving the riddle. My hand touched something.... I straightened up and faced the others.
"Moira and Cumshaw," I said. "I've found the hut. That's a piece of it there." Bending down, I dragged to light a rough-hewn beam that possibly had been the threshold plank. It was weather-worn, and in places the fungus had grown thickly on it; but I could see for all that that it had been warped and twisted and charred in the blaze of a fire. Three pairs of eyes met across the plank, and three lips put the same idea into words.
"There's been a fire here," we said in chorus.
"And that," I added on my own account, for the benefit of the others who had not jumped to the same conclusion as I had, "and that explains everything that's puzzled us since we entered the valley. There's been a bush fire here at some period during the last twenty years. It destroyed the hut, it burnt down the wood, and it made that pile of lime you found, Cumshaw."
"What pile was that?" Moira queried quickly. "I didn't see any."
"Mr. Cumshaw passed a pile in the bushes as we came along," I said off-handedly. "The heat must have rendered the stones down."
She accepted my explanation at its face value.
"No wonder the place remained hidden," I ran on. "If you'll look over east, where there should be a lone tree, you won't find any. It's wattle everywhere you look. The fire cleared out all the trees and forced the wattle on in their place. If you came by here on any side but the one we came by you'd take this to be just an ordinary hollow full of wattle."
"You're talking nothing else but wattle," Cumshaw interrupted. "What has the wattle to do with the fire anyway?"
"Why, don't you see?" I cried. "Without the fire there wouldn't have been any wattle here. The seed'll lie dormant in the ground for years sometimes; it takes great heat to germinate them. That's why wattle always springs up in profusion after there's been a bush fire. The same thing happens with grass, the coarser kinds, though to a lesser extent."
"I see," he said gravely. "It means that we are back just where we began."
"It doesn't mean anything of the sort," I said quickly. "All this is in our favor. We're better off than we were before."
"I don't see how that is," he replied.
"But it is," I persisted, "and I'll show you why when the time comes. And now there's plenty to be done. One of us has to go back for the provisions that we left behind last night, and the other's got to stop here with Miss Drummond and run up a bit of a bark humpy that'll keep off the wind and won't let the rain through. Now if you're as hungry as I am you'll understand just how pressing the need of that food is. It's you or I, Cumshaw. Which of us is to go?"
"I'll toss you," Cumshaw offered.
I nodded, and he drew a coin from out his pocket and spun it in the air.
"Heads!" I called.
We bent down over it. "It's tail," said Cumshaw. "I go back for the food," I said.
I straightened up and spoke seriously to the pair of them. "Cumshaw," I said, "do as much as you can while I'm away, and keep one eye on the horizon all the time. You must remember that there's always danger about; the luck's been with us so far, but it may turn any minute, and our rivals are just the sort of men who'd come on you suddenly and shoot before you could say 'Jack Robinson.' And as for you, Moira, keep out of harm's way and do what you can towards keeping a good lookout. I'm going across to the other side, as I reckon that we must have travelled round the valley last night."
"You'll be careful, won't you, Jim, dear?" Moira whispered.
"Aren't I always careful?" I said. "It's you that's got to watch out. Now, one kiss, dear. I'll be back as soon as I can possibly manage it."
Five minutes later I had gained the further wall of the valley, and found that, with the help of the bushes, it was the easiest thing imaginable for an active man like myself to haul himself up over the ridge and drop on the track which Abel Cumshaw and the late Mr. Bradby had trodden so many years before. I took my bearings carefully, then snapped up my pocket-compass and set off down the road with as jaunty a swing as I was capable of. I had long got over my stiffness, and now that the sun was shining brightly I began to feel more confident than ever that all was going well. If it had not been for the terrible way in which the dread purpose of our rivals had been brought home to us already I would have felt absolutely at ease. As it was I did not let my rosy anticipations of the future interfere at all with my sense of caution.
As a matter of strict fact the place was much further away than I had anticipated. We must have wandered a considerable distance in the confusion of the evening's storm and covered more ground than we had thought. I had positioned the sun as I had left the valley and judged the time to be about eleven o'clock; "that," I thought, "will bring me back by two at the very latest." But really it was close on five, and the shadows were already dropping down over the country-side before I was ready to return. I found our little store of goods intact, though most of them were rain-soaked, and as a measure of good fortune I retrieved the tent whose sudden departure had been the primary cause of our hurriedly shifting camp. There was a fair load in all, but when I had made it up and rolled everything packwise in the tent and fastened it on my shoulders with what odd bits of string I found handy, there wasn't anything in it that would seriously try the strength of a seasoned explorer like myself. Then, because the night was beginning to draw in and I did not want to go stumbling through the valley in the dark, I set off at my top pace. I don't claim to be anything wonderful as far as walking is concerned, but if I were ever asked what I considered my record I would point back to that very night. I forced myself along, my whole being intent on reaching the valley before the sun slipped down behind the hills. I think it was more will-power than sheer physical strength that kept me moving. I was just a little anxious about Moira too. Cumshaw was a fine chap and clever in his own way, though he did have occasional spurts of temper; but he lacked my woodcraft experience, and I wasn't sure but what he might go to pieces if any prowlers pounced down on him unawares. Neither he nor Moira had ever come up against anything that would teach them to act as quickly as they could think, and, though they might work like niggers when they were under someone else's orders, an emergency that threw them on their own resources might find them seriously wanting.
The shadows lengthened as I sped along, the tired yellow sun slipped down behind the hills like a penny-into-the-slot machine, and the early April twilight touched all inanimate objects with its own drab lack of coloring. I had no fear of losing my way in the darkness—I had too much locality sense for that—but the possibilities of my being ambushed appeared too many to be pleasant. A hurrying man, who is also heavily-laden, cannot pick his footsteps with the meticulous care that he would like, and it seemed within the bounds of probability that some strange listener might start out on my track and put an abrupt period to my career of usefulness. I have an unqualified and not unreasonable objection to being cut off in what is practically the flower of my youth. I was afraid. I admit that quite frankly, and I have yet to find the man who has not known fear whenever he drifted into a tight corner. But fear is not the hall-mark of a coward; it is at worst a natural impulse to seek safety and take precautions, and at its best it is the intellectual penalty that a strong man pays for having a will-power that will not permit him to scurry away from danger and earth himself like a rabbit in its burrow.
I reached the valley without incident, scrambled down the historic slope, now as slippery as a child's mud-slide, and was half-way across the open space before I received my first shock. Some queer sixth sense pulled me up in mid-stride. I had heard nothing, I had seen nothing; but for all that I knew that a strange and obtrusive presence was very close to me. The New Guinea native can at times tell the presence of an enemy simply by his sense of smell, and I suppose I've lived so long amongst them that I have acquired something of this kind. Be this as it may, I was aware of the other man's proximity long before my faculties went into action and confirmed me in my belief.
I slipped my shoulders out of the pack-strings and dropped it noiselessly on the ground. At that precise instant I heard a stealthy movement on my left hand. It was so dark that I could not see an inch in front of my face, but a little eddy of the breeze brought me the merest whiff of stale tobacco—the sort of smell that comes from a pipe that has been put out before it has completely burnt away. It was that dead scent that always seems to hang about the vicinity of a newly quenched fire. I was so close that I caught the sound of the man's breathing. With every second breath there came a barely perceptible wheeze, and in an instant my mind flashed back to the night of the burglary in Bryce's house and the man I had caught coming out of the library. I was so sure of it that I wasted no further time in stalking him; no two men in the world could have that same regular wheezing breath. It requires a neat sense of distance to catch an invisible man round the throat when he and everything else tangible and real is hidden under cover of Stygian darkness; but this time I made the snatch of my life, and as luck would have it, had him by the windpipe before he realised that there was anyone within a quarter of a mile of him. I didn't give him a chance to cry out—I had no idea how close his friends were, if he had any—but just threw all my weight into my clutching hands and quietly but inexorably choked the life out of him. In the struggle his hat fell off and I released one hand and ran it through his hair. Up till then there was a lingering suspicion at the back of my mind, that after all I might have throttled Cumshaw by mistake, but the feel of that straight hair completely burked the last of my doubts. There was no possible chance of mistaking Cumshaw's curly crop for the strands I held in my free hand, for he suddenly went limp under my hands, and when I fumbled for his heart I could not feel it beating. At the time I felt rather cut up, and considered that I had practically killed the man in cold blood; but afterwards, when I came to reckon up the tally of disaster, I was sorry that I had passed him out so peacefully. There were a lot of other methods I might have used had I known in time. But then I didn't, and that makes all the difference.
Satisfied in my own mind that the stranger was out of action for good and all, I rose to my feet and threaded my way back to where I had left my pack. I slipped the strings over my shoulders and set off again in the direction I hoped to find Moira and my companion. But scarcely had I taken a dozen steps forward when the silence of the night was shattered by the report of a revolver, and in an instant a perfect fusillade had begun. I dropped all caution at that. Throwing the pack from off my shoulders, I drew my revolver as I ran. I simply tore across the intervening space like a red god of vengeance suddenly descended on a planet of sin. The sound of the shots had maddened me beyond all belief, and in my then mood I would have walked single-handed into a whole army. Luckily for myself I had not gone far before I collided with a wattle bush, and the scratches I received brought me back to a saner frame of mind. I saw with an appalling clarity of vision that I was taking the worst possible course. Cumshaw and Moira were being attacked—that was beyond question—and my game was to come upon the attackers unawares and either rout or put as many of them out of action as I could with the weapons at my command.
So when I moved off again I had slackened my pace down to a stealthy cat-like tread that took me along with an incredible absence of noise. As I moved forward I began to turn the configuration of the place over in my mind and wonder to what practical use I could put the fine natural cover of the bushes. As I could see none I put the matter out of my head and devoted all my energies to coming to immediate grips with the men who had murdered the eternal peace of the valley.
Presently I caught sight of a little red flash from one of the revolvers, but as I had no idea as to whose it was I held my hand and commenced to circle round the fight. It must be remembered, in order to gauge the seriousness of the situation, that the night was as black as the ace of spades, and that the only guide I had was the occasional flash from a revolver—a flash that might have come from either friend or foe; I had nothing to tell me which. It was in this queer fashion that I was progressing when the toe of my boot touched something soft and alien. I slipped down by the side of it and ran my hand over it. It was a man's body—the still warm body from which the pulsing life had suddenly been hurled. With my experience of the other man I had handled earlier in the night I felt for the hair, and, to my utter horror, I clutched a crop of short, crisp curls. It was Albert Cumshaw beyond a doubt. I did not waste a moment in useless sentimentality over the dead. The truth flashed across my mind with the blinding clearness of lightning. Moira was by herself, fighting like some heroic goddess against those other bestial savages. I know it is the fashion to picture men in such moments as going berserker, but I don't think in my case that I have ever been so sanely clear-headed in my life. It was a monstrous and incredible thing that this quiet little corner of the quietest little State in Australia should be polluted by the presence of the incarnate fiends that had murdered Bryce, that had killed Cumshaw, and were even now seeking to send Moira to join them in the shades. A cold, pitiless anger took possession of me, and I set about my work of vengeance as calmly as if I were going rabbit-shooting. I knew now of a surety that I could shoot at any man who came within range without fear or favor.
It was then I blessed my stars for the matted undergrowth and the wild profusion of wattle. The one deadened the sound of my movements and the other gave me all the cover I needed. The game was now fairly in my hands, and if I lost it would be through no one's fault but my own. It was quite evident on the face of it that the attacking force had no idea that a third party was maneuvering outside the range of fire, and I counted on that fact to assist me in my work. The one drawback at present was that I had no notion which was friend and which was foe. The shots seemed to come from all round the compass, and any one of them might be Moira's. It was quite on the cards that she was moving round in a circle, in the full knowledge that every time she fired she shot at an enemy, and again it was just as likely that she knew nothing at all about Cumshaw's death. Clearly it was a situation that called for an immense amount of care on my part.
I had no time to waste puzzling the matter out; whatever I did had to be done as quickly as possible, for I had no guarantee that the one-sided warfare might not terminate fatally at any moment. One of the attackers was just as likely to hit Moira as she was to hit him. I had slipped up the catch of my revolver long before this, and was carrying it in such a fashion that it could be fired instantly. I felt ready for any emergency, and the contingency that presently arose found me well prepared. There was a stealthy rush through the undergrowth, and a man backed hastily in my direction. I couldn't see him, but I knew that it was a man by the sound of the footsteps. There is always a perceptible difference between the footsteps of a man and a woman, but it requires a trained ear to pick it out. I slipped down into cover as he rushed back, and, judging more by sound than sight, I fired as he passed me. He came down heavily amidst a crash of breaking branches and the smashing of twigs. "I seem to be the only sure-footed man about to-night," I thought as the fellow thudded to the ground. At that precise moment, as if to give the lie direct to me, a deafening report sounded right in my ear, a pain as of a red-hot needle stabbed through my right shoulder, and I pitched forward on my face. Even as my nose ploughed through the soft soil it occurred to me to wonder if I had received a shot intended for the other man, or if he was not as dead as I had fancied and signalised his escape by shooting me in his turn. I was more scared than hurt, and I quickly picked myself up and clapped an anxious hand to my throbbing shoulder. The ball, by the feel of it, had done nothing worse than skim through the fleshy part of my arm, and I was in no wise incapacitated. I thanked my lucky stars that I was whole and entire, save for a spoonful or so of unwanted blood, for I rather guessed that I had heavy work ahead of me before I went to sleep that night.
Just as my mind was clearing again I became aware that someone was striking matches. I distinctly heard the scrape of one along the top of the box, and I fancied I saw a tiny phosphorescent glow such as a match makes when it misfires, but in that I may have been mistaken. As I watched for another flash it dawned on me that the artillery had ceased fire, and, for aught I knew to the contrary, I was probably the last bird topped off that night. Therefore the person with the matches could only be one of the victorious side, and was just as obviously counting up the casualties.
There came another little interlude of scraping, a match spluttered undecidedly for a moment and then glowed brightly. After the Stygian darkness the light came as a queer physical shock, and for the space of a heart-beat I blinked like an owl in broad daylight. I think the other person must have been just as much dazzled as I was, for the light died out and the glowing tip of the match fell to the ground without a movement from either of us. But it was followed almost instantly by another match, less damp than its fellow, for it splashed into light right away. And there in the little circle of radiance I caught sight of the one face on earth that I ever wished to see again.
"Moira!" I gasped and glided to her side.
She dropped the match in the surprise of the moment, and I heard her breath come and go before she answered, "You, Jim! Oh, I'm so glad! I thought perhaps...."
"They didn't," I said grimly, cutting across her thoughts. "It was the other way about."
"Mr. Cumshaw, Jim? Have you seen him anywhere?"
"No," I said truthfully enough. I hadn't seen him; it had been too dark, and I dared not strike a match.
"Oh, I'm afraid he's been shot. We got separated in the darkness, and I don't know what happened to him."
"How did you get separated?" I queried quickly.
"We were making for the cave and I lost him in the dark. After that they started firing, and I just fired back, more to keep up my courage than anything."
"But where on earth did you get the revolver? You hadn't one of your own."
"Yes, I had, Jim. I brought it with me, and I didn't say anything because I thought you might laugh or else be angry with me."
"You've certainly shown that you know how to use it," I said dryly.
Something in my voice must have told her what had happened. "What do you mean?" she asked in a frightened tone. "Did I shoot anyone?"
"Yes," I said slowly. "You pinked me. Right in the shoulder. It's only a flesh-wound; nothing to worry about."
"I've hurt you and I didn't mean to," she wailed.
I reached out and seized her by the shoulders. "Look here, Moira," I said with a semblance of sternness in my voice, "you've done a man's work to-night and it's making you hysterical. Don't let it. Pull yourself together, for heaven's sake if not for mine."
I think it was just that last bit that brought her round. "I'm sorry, Jim," she said, though what there was to be sorry about was more than I could say.
"And now, Moira," I ran on before she had time to say anything more, "the sooner we finish that interrupted journey to the cave the better. It's not as good as the hut would be if it was still standing, but it gives us shelter, and that's the main thing. Also we can light a fire and sleep the night in peace, now that the gang seems to have been rubbed out for good."
She made no answer, so I took her arm, and thus we commenced our walk across the valley. I found the pack without any trouble, though my heart was in my mouth for fear that we would trip over poor Cumshaw's body. But the luck was with me that night, though it hadn't been with him, and I reached the pack and hoisted it on my shoulders without either of us striking any of the victims of the fight. The sting of the wound in my shoulder made the pack an uncomfortable burden, but I bore it as best I could, for I was afraid that Moira would notice me if I kept wriggling it into an easier position. So I fought the pain all the way to the cave, which we reached in something under five minutes. Moira did not speak a word all the way, and somehow I hadn't the heart to break the news of Cumshaw's death to her. It had to be done sooner or later, I knew, but I was inclined to put it off as long as possible.
Once in the cave I built a little fire of chips and dry bracken that had somehow escaped the rain. That done I turned with a clear conscience to the task of making tea. Moira, however, had forestalled me; the billy was already full, and she but awaited me to adjust the tripod of sticks that held it in its place over the fire. It was while I was bending over doing this that she must have noticed the bloodstains on my sleeve. At any rate, when I straightened up, she looked at me with accusation in her eyes.
"Why didn't you tell me before that it was as bad as that?" she asked.
"Because it isn't," I answered with cheerful paradox. But she would have none of my jesting, and if I hadn't allowed her to wash and bind it up right away I'm afraid I wouldn't have got any tea that night. When she finished she placed her hands upon my shoulders and kissed me full on the lips.
"My dear," she said brokenly, "you would die for me, I know, and yet I so little deserve your love."
I had tact enough to suppress the banality that was trembling on my lips.
"I wonder what could have happened to Mr. Cumshaw?" she remarked about an hour later. "You'd have thought he'd have been here long ago if he was all right."
"Maybe," I said, bending my head over the fire so she would not see my tell-tale face, "maybe he's not satisfied that this is our party."
There was an interval of silence and, though I did not look up, I knew that she was regarding me steadfastly. I could feel her eyes boring into my head like twin gimlets.
"Jim," she said suddenly and sharply, "what are you hiding from me? What has happened to Mr. Cumshaw? I know something has gone wrong by the way you're acting."
I raised my eyes to meet hers; it was impossible to hide it any longer. "The very worst that could happen," I said frozenly, and I dropped my head once more.
When I looked up again she was crying very softly to herself. I could understand her sorrow, and for once her regard for the man caused me no stab of pain; one cannot be jealous of the dead.
The grey light of the early dawn found me wide awake and alert. I felt much fatigued after my exertions of the previous night, and would dearly have liked to have slept an hour or so longer, but there was that to be done which would admit of no delay. Further out in the Valley lay three dead men, and I felt I must get them out of sight before Moira awoke. Accordingly I scribbled a short note of explanation on a leaf torn from my pocket-book, placed it in a conspicuous position, and, taking with me the light spade we had brought with us, I slipped noiselessly out of the cave. I found the bodies of our two enemies without any trouble, but, to my great surprise, there was no trace of Cumshaw. He had disappeared as utterly as if the earth had opened up and swallowed him. True, there were broken branches and snapped twigs galore, but of signs that would show me where the body had been taken or what had happened after I had left, there was absolutely none. For the moment I wondered if it had all been but a vivid dream, but the sight of the torn and scarred ground and the memory of the other two bodies told me that it was only too real. Obviously then the corpse had been moved, but where or by whom I could not say.
I spent the next half-hour in scouring the valley from end to end, yet when I had finished I was compelled to admit that I was no nearer to a solution than before. All the time, of course, there was a perfectly simple explanation staring me in the face, but it was so infernally obvious that I missed it.
As my search had not led me any further forward, I shut the matter out of my mind for the present and turned to the less engrossing though certainly more pressing task of burying the bodies that remained. The spot I chose for the grave seemed rather familiar to me, but for the moment I could not say just what it brought to my mind. I pegged away with the spade, and had already dug a fair-sized hole when, unexpectedly, the further side of the grave caved in. I swore under my breath at this brilliant result of my efforts, and, with the intention of clearing away the rubble, thrust my spade deep into the loose earth. It met with a solid obstruction, something that seemed to me like the root of a tree, or——At that I stopped dead. Could it be possible that I had struck the foundation of the hut?
The morning we entered the valley Moira had tripped over one of the loose logs that had once been part of the building, and at the time I had attached peculiar significance to the discovery; but now it appeared that I had actually gone one better. Without more ado I made the dirt fly, and in less time than it takes to tell I had shot away the covering earth and brought to light the object that had at first drawn my attention. I saw then, with a gasp of relief, that it was indeed the eastern foundation of the hut that I had unearthed. Whoever had built the place had built well, for the thick cross-piece still remained tightly nailed to the stout posts that had supported the foundation. The fire that had swept the neighbourhood had somehow failed to consume it, though subsequent developments had buried it under piles of bracken and dead brushwood. It was an amazing discovery, and under the circumstances the luckiest one imaginable. At the very least it enabled me to place one of the fixed points that were vital to the discovery of the plunder. At the same time it showed me how I might be able, with a little extra luck, to locate the sight of the burnt tree.
I went on with my digging.
Half an hour later I finished my self-imposed task, swung the spade over my shoulder, and prepared to return to the cave. I could see Moira in the distance moving towards me, and I guessed that my prolonged absence had made her feel somewhat uneasy.
"Where have you been all the time, Jim?" was her greeting. "I was just beginning to fear that something had happened to you."
"Something has," I answered, "but not in the way you mean. I've located the exact position of the hut. That piece of wood you tripped over must have been only a log that escaped being fully consumed. We're well on the way towards finding the treasure now."
She eyed me keenly before she spoke again, and I knew what she was going to ask me almost before she put her thoughts into words.
"Was that all you went to do?" she asked.
"No," I said, "I came out mainly to bury the dead."
She gave a little shudder at that, but her voice was steady enough as she said, "And you did? All of them?"
I shook my head. "Not him," I said ungrammatically.
"Why?" she demanded, with Heaven knows what idea at the back of the question.
"Because," I said distinctly, "because he wasn't there."
"Jim, whatever do you mean?" she cried.
"I can't say any more than I've just said," I told her. "When I went to look I found he wasn't where I'd left him last night, and, though I searched the valley from end to end, I couldn't find sign or sight of him."
"It's impossible," she asserted. "You can't make a dead man fade into thin air like that. If he's not in the valley, he's been taken out of it."
"And who's taken him out?" I countered. "There's only two ways out. Nobody's passed us during the night, and anyone that went out through the wattles would leave a trail like an elephant."
"That's true enough," she admitted crestfallenly. And then she turned on me swiftly. "Jim," she cried, "it's possible.... He might...."
The idea jumped into my mind at almost the same moment, but it seemed too preposterous for belief.
"No," I interrupted. "It isn't. He couldn't. Moira, I tell you he was as dead as a door-nail when I reached him."
She made a little gesture of despair as she realised to the full the bitter futility of attempting to solve the puzzle, yet I had a feeling that she had not quite given up hope. She did not make any further remark on the way back to the cave, and she certainly wasn't as much thrilled by my discovery of the ruins of the hut as I had expected her to be. I let her be; it's never safe to divert the current of a woman's thoughts.
I stepped into the cave ahead of her, and no sooner had I passed from the light outside into the interior darkness than a crisp voice snapped at me.
"Hands up!" it said tersely.
I shot my hands into the air more as a measure of precaution than anything else, for I recognised the voice—the voice that I thought had been silenced for ever.
"Cumshaw!" I ejaculated.
I could not see him since he was lurking right in the interior shadows, but some electric quality in the air convinced me that his astonishment was as great as mine. Nevertheless he answered me in tones that were as calm as could be.
"So it's yourself, Carstairs," he said. "I'll have to apologise for being a little previous with you, but you must remember that you are standing in your own light and I can only see your outline. And——Ah! here is Miss Drummond too."
He came towards us at that, a dark figure looming out of the gloom. And the next instant we had him one by each hand and pelted him with questions.
"I thought you were dead," I said. "How did you come alive again?"
"What happened?" Moira asked.
"How did you get here and what were you doing all night?"
"One question at a time," he said laughingly. "It seems pretty obvious that I'm not dead, doesn't it?"
"It does," I admitted. "But you were dead, or you appeared to be, when I left you last night."
"I don't quite understand," he said. "What do you mean?"
I told him then how I had stumbled across his body on my return the previous evening, how I had identified him, and, satisfied that he was dead, had left him to attend to more pressing business. I related how I had scoured the valley that very morning and failed to find the least trace of him. What was the explanation of the seeming miracle? I asked.
"There's nothing miraculous about it," he said. "Last night I must have been creased, sort of stunned, you know. The bullet didn't go near any vital part. It just ploughed along the back of my neck and knocked me unconscious. I suppose I would seem pretty dead to anyone who stumbled across me. It's not always so easy for a layman to tell whether a man is really dead or not. However, I remember coming-to just on daylight, and hearing someone crashing through the bushes. It struck me then that I didn't know how things had panned out, so I'd better take cover until I made sure. So when you were hunting for me I was running away from you, keeping a couple of jumps ahead all the time. I gradually edged round towards the cave, and was just in time to see a dim figure slip out into the bushes. I wasn't close enough to see more clearly. Miss Drummond, you say. Yes, I suppose so; but I didn't know that then. However, as the cave seemed deserted after that I took possession with the intention of turning the tables. And then——But you know the rest yourself. How much further have we got?"
"Lots," I said. "The others are dead and buried, and I have found the original site of the hut. Once we locate the lone tree we're right."
"That should be easy enough," said Moira with a woman's airy assurance.
Cumshaw watched us both with a queer smile flickering about his lips.
"What do you think of it, Carstairs?" he said at length.
"I don't fancy there'll be much difficulty in that," I answered. "It should be plain sailing from now onwards."
"It strikes me," he said, "that we're just entering upon the toughest stretch of the lot. However, the sooner we get to work the better. I vote we start right away."
"But, Mr. Cumshaw," Moira protested, "do you think you feel well enough?"
"Miss Drummond," he answered, "I've got pains all down my neck, and my head's humming like a hive of bees, and I've got incipient rheumatics in every joint in my body from lying all night on the damp ground. It's bad enough to have all that wrong with me, without being compelled to spend another day in idleness. No, if I get to work at once I'll feel much better. Work, you know, is a good soporific."
"I suppose you know best," she conceded, a little doubtfully.
"I've been thinking things over," I remarked as we made our way back to the site of the hut, "and it's just struck me that something I once heard Bryce say might have some bearing on the matter. The night those chaps burgled us he said, 'They're up a gum-tree when they should be under one.' I'm not so sure of the exact words now, but that's the substance of them anyway."
"But," Cumshaw objected, "he didn't know as much about the Valley then as we do now."
"Quite so," I said. "I never thought he really meant anything by what he said, but that remark's been running through my head. It seems to me that everyone right through has been obsessed by the idea of the tree, and now that it's disappeared we're at a loose end. Everybody, from your father and Bradby down to Bryce and ourselves, has taken it for granted that a tree's vital to the solution."
"Isn't it?" Cumshaw queried quickly.
I shook my head. "Not in the least," I said. "If the tree was absolutely necessary it'd mean that we'd have to wait until 3rd or 4th of December, the day on which Bradby buried the treasure, and the only day of the year on which the sun, the tree and the threshold of the hut would be in an exact line. Bryce's idea of having to wait three months must have been conceived in the belief that the 3rd or 4th June would answer equally well. It might, but I'm not so sure about it. I guess there'd be a lot of difference in the declination of the sun. But now the tree's gone we're left without that seemingly necessary leading mark."
"What are we going to do about it?" Cumshaw demanded.
"We can't give up after having gone so far," said Moira.
"We're not," I told her. "There's a way out of it, and the simplest way on earth. It's so infernally simple that we've all overlooked it. It narrows down to a simple problem in geometry. Do you remember what the cypher said?"
"'When the Lone Tree, the hut door and the rising sun are in line measure seven feet east. Then face direct north, draw another line at right angles to the previous one, extending for twelve feet. Dig then.'" He rattled through the directions so rapidly that I knew he must have had them off by heart.
"That's it," I said, while the others listened in breathless interest. "Now this is the position to my mind: The line that runs through the doorway, the tree and the sun must go due east. The sun at that time of the year would be due east. Well, all we have to do is to cast our east line, carry it along for seven feet, and then turn so that we are facing direct north."
"And at right angles to the previous line," Moira reminded me.
"It's the same thing," I said. "Direct north runs at right angles to direct east, if you want to know. However, when we've got our north line we follow it for twelve feet, and after that we dig. Quite possibly Bradby made some slight variation—he wouldn't have the necessary instruments to make his figures absolutely exact—but, as I've said before, I don't see that we can go very far wrong. Whatever variation there is won't matter much once we start digging. If we allow a foot or so in all directions we'll be on the safe side. What do you think, Cumshaw?"
"Well," he said slowly, "it sounds feasible enough, and if it turns out as well in practice as it does in theory I'll have nothing to say against it."
"There's only one way of making sure," I said tentatively.
Moira turned on me. "What's that?" she asked with unfeigned interest.
"Trying and seeing for ourselves," I answered. "Here we are, right on the very spot, so why not put it to the test?"
Neither of them answered. A queer, speculative look crept into Moira's eyes and Cumshaw paled a little beneath his tan. It was the crucial moment of the expedition, and the mere adoption of my suggestion meant that in the next few minutes we would be face to face with either failure or success—none of us knew which. While we were in ignorance there was always room for hope, but the instant our investigation was concluded the matter would be settled for good or for evil.
"Well," I asked, "what about it?"
"I suppose we've got to do it some time," Cumshaw said slowly. "We might as well do it first as last. What do you say, Miss Drummond?"
"Ye-es," said Moira in a half-whisper. "Ye-es, I suppose we had better."
"And you, Carstairs?"
"Nothing venture, nothing win," I quoted gaily. "Anyway it's my suggestion, and I'm not going to fall down on it. I didn't bring the spade along just for the fun of carrying it."
"Go on then," Cumshaw said.
Then commenced the operation of locating the position of the treasure. As the one most used to such things I snapped open my pocket-compass, took a line from the mouldering ruin that had once been the threshold of the hut, and proceeded to calmly measure off the requisite distance. The others followed my movements with breathless interest; Cumshaw's cheeks were still pale, partly from the stress of emotion and partly, I fancy, because he feared that, even at the last, Fate would play a trick on us and bring the work of two generations to nothing. Two little red spots glowed in Moira's cheeks, and in her eyes was an opalescent glow that spoke of suppressed excitement. I wasn't so carried away by my feelings as the others were—I had been trained in a rough school, and my training had taught me at all times to keep an adequate control over my emotions—but the romance of the adventure and the excitement of the game had penetrated even my thick skin, and the mere fact that others hung breathlessly on my movements swayed me a little from the normal. That streak of vanity which is in all of us came to the surface, as it does with the best of men at the best of times.