As I learned from Marjorie later, the slit extended for only a few feet. Then the roof sloped up again. Marjorie found herself in a narrow passage with the fresh breeze blowing on her face. In fact, the draught was so great that the candle went out directly and she had to put on her shoes and grope her way forward in pitch darkness.
Her great fear was that the passage might lead to others and that before she knew it, she would be involved in a maze of subterranean galleries and, if the worst came to the worst, not even be able to rejoin me. She tried to maintain her direction by keeping always close to the right-hand wall and by counting her steps. But the gallery was so dark and it twisted so frequently that she soon lost count. At last she went blindly along, stopping at intervals to satisfy herself that she still felt the wind on her cheek.
She had halted irresolute and was thinking about turning back when, out of the darkness in front of her, a little glow appeared. At first a mere suggestion of light, it grew to a steady yellow radiance that lit up, though but dimly, the rocky roof of the corridor. The light itself appeared to be concealed by a bend in the gallery.
Marjorie remained perfectly still, her heart beating fast. Foot-steps were approaching; then the murmur of voices reached her ear. Her first instinct was to turn tail and flee; but then the foot-steps stopped and the light stood still.
"Four and twenty hours already are they away," said a deep rumbling voice in German, "and not back yet! Der Stelze is too confident, Herr Leutnant...."
"Yet the doctor described exactly where he tied up the launch," answered another voice, hard and metallic, with a more refined enunciation. "Do you know what I think, Schröder? This English nobleman and his orderly have seized the launch——"
"Aber nein, Herr Leutnant?"
"And gone off to fetch their yacht back. She only went to Alcedo, at least so the doctor told us...."
"Then the yacht may be back quite soon, Herr Leutnant?"
"Certainly! That's my conviction. And to think that Grundt had this cursedEngländerin his power and let him go!"
"Bah!" said Schröder, "he grows old,der Stelze! Here three days are gone and not a trace of the treasure. In a little while, who knows? these damnedEngländerwill be here and our chance of making our fortunes will be gone for ever...."
"You speak true, Schröder! If only I had any support I would depose Grundt and take charge myself. But with these filthy Spanish monkeys...."
"Speak softly, Herr Leutnant...."
Intent as she was upon this conversation, Marjorie did not notice the light advancing until it was too late. Round the bend in the passage came a big, yellow-bearded German sailor swinging a ship's lantern, the blonde young German officer, Ferdinand von Hagel, at his heels. In an instant they were on her and gripping her by the wrists dragged her down the gallery in the direction from which they had come. In silence they hustled her along for some hundred paces, then stopped at a bend.
"Wait here!" whispered the officer to Schröder, an evil smile on his face, "I go to reconnoitre. This will be a pleasant surprise for our comrades...."
He tip-toed away. Suddenly, from without, a harsh voice cried loudly:—
"You idle rascals, the launch must be there!"
There was a confused murmur and the voice spoke again:—
"Then the English yacht may be back at any time now...."
Von Hagel appeared in the gallery.
"Bring her along!" he ordered softly, beckoning with his hand.
The harsh voice shouted:—
"Well, we shall have to fight for it yet!"
"No, Herr Doktor!" said von Hagel at the mouth of the gallery, "No! There need be no fight!"
They had emerged into a rocky hollow, flooded with brilliant sunshine which almost blinded Marjorie coming from the dank, dark recesses of the cliff. An arm of vivid green tree hung across the opening of the passage and beyond it there was a glimpse of gorgeous-hued bushes, over which the painted butterflies hovered, of bright blue sky and, in the distance, sparkling green sea. And across the scene the keen sea-breeze romped, blowing the hair about the girl's eyes, a breath of life after the clammy atmosphere of the cave.
His back to a tree, a ragged blanket cast across his knees, the Man with the Clubfoot lay. His face was pallid and his huge body shook with ague. Before him stood two uncouth figures, each with a rifle and blanket slung, poncho-fashion, across him, the centre of an excited, gesticulating group.
"Sir Garth," the German lieutenant added, bringing Marjorie forward, "will surely listen to reason when he hears that his charming daughter is the guest of Herr Dr. Grundt! And, maybe, even the spy, Okewood, will come to terms...."
"So, so!"
Clubfoot's thick lips bared his yellow teeth in a grim smile.
"Das ist ja hoechst interessant! Jawohl!"
He raised his eyes to the girl, dark eyes that burnt with fever beetling from under the enormously bushy eyebrows, eyes that gleamed hard and menacing.
But now the crowd, which had fallen back at von Hagel's dramatic interruption, surged about him and Marjorie, shouting and gesticulating. The hollow rang with German and Spanish.
"Where is the Englishman?" they yelled. "Grundt, what of the treasure you promised us? The girl knows! Make the girl tell!...."
Grundt raised a great hand and, for the moment, the hubbub was stilled.
"Old Clubfoot is not at the end of his resources.Kinder, we have a hostage, a hostage we mean to keep. Let the yacht return; as long as the gnädiges Fräulein is our guest, we shall have no trouble from the stupid Englishmen. And as for our clever young friend, Okewood.... Herr Leutnant!"
"Herr Doktor?"
"TheEngländerwas last seen in company with the girl. Take two men and search the gallery!"
Von Hagel coloured up at the brusqueness of Grundt's tone.
"Schröder here," he said without a shred of respect in his manner, "has explored the gallery. It leads to a small air-hole through which he believes the girl crawled. No man, he says, could possibly get through...."
"Then," said Clubfoot, "theEngländerwill be in one of the caves on the topmost terrace. Unless he has escaped?....
And he shot a quick glance at the officer.
"Impossible," replied the other. "There is only the one practicable descent and it is guarded...."
Clubfoot nodded. Then he raised his hand.
"Go now," he said, "and leave me with the girl!"
On that von Hagel bent down and spoke softly in his ear. He seemed to be urging something with great insistence. Suddenly one of the Spaniards—a short man with a fat grey face covered with blue stubble and little pig eyes—danced to the front of the group. He burst into a torrent of voluble Spanish, shaking his fist repeatedly at Clubfoot. The latter did not move a muscle but looked at the speaker with contempt in every line of his face.
It was not until some of the Germans broke in, that Marjorie could understand what the scene was about.
"We're sick of being fooled," cried the big seaman they called Schröder. "The Kaiser's deposed, d'ye hear, and we're all equal! You've bungled things long enough, Grundt. You let the cursed English spy slip through your fingers with the hiding-place of the treasure in his head! You're past your work, Grundt! You've botched our business long enough!"
"Ganz recht!" ejaculated another German. "And poor Neque got a bullet in the guts for saying as much to you in the woods yesterday!"
This explained the single shot we had heard in the forest when we were on the rock.
"And the doctor murdered by thisverdammt Engländer!" shouted a voice from the rear.
"Three days we've waited here and not a sign of the treasure," said von Hagel, looking round the group. "What have you to say to that, Grundt?"
Clubfoot, who had remained impassive under all this abuse, now staggered to his feet. No man lent a hand to help him. He stood and faced them, towering above them all. Ill though he was, his personality dominated every man in that place. A flame of colour mounted in his haggard face; two veins stood out like knots in his temples and his eyes blazed. His two hands, crossed on the crutch of his stick shook.
"Are you a candidate for my succession, Herr Leutnant?"
He addressed himself to von Hagel alone and his voice was calm and steady. But then his feelings seemed to overcome him and with a roar he shouted:—
"You insubordinate rascal! I can afford to let these curs yelp but when the whipper-in joins them, it's time for the master to use the lash!"
With that he raised his heavy stick and struck the other full across the face. With a scarlet weal barring his pink-and-white cheek von Hagel sprang at his aggressor, but a big automatic which Grundt had plucked from his pocket brought him up short.
"I used only one bullet on Neque," Clubfoot warned him in a quiet, grim voice. "There's one left for you, Herr Leutnant, aye, and more to spare for other mutinous blackguards like you...."
Von Hagel stepped back, broken, cowed. And Clubfoot cried:—
"While this puppy wastes our time, the man we want, the man who can lead us to the five hundred thousand dollars in gold, is skulking trapped in a cave not a thousand yards away. Fools that you are, don't you understand that you have but to let him know that the English girl is in our hands and he will throw up the sponge? Otherwise...."
He paused deliberately and looked at Marjorie from under his heavy brows. The crowd shouted back at him in German the word on which he had rested.
"Sonst?"
"Otherwise he must know that I shall hand this delicate English lady to the tender mercies of any of our brave companions who has fallen a victim to her beauty—Black Pablo, for instance, or our handsome steward, Pizarro...."
At that the crowd roared approval. Black Pablo, his guitar slung across his back, a squat, toad-like creature, obese and disgusting, slouched over to the girl. He contrived to summon up from the depths of his single dull and fish-like eye an expression which made her shrink back in horror. Then, amid a burst of laughter, "handsome" Pizarro, the stunted mulatto cook, was pushed out of the grass. He shambled towards Marjorie, his eyeballs flashing white in his yellow pock-marked face.
"Go, children!" cried Clubfoot. "Drag this spy from his hole and bring him to me. This time he shall speak, by God!—or we shall finish with it once and for all!"
Again he looked at Marjorie. The gold in his teeth flashed as he smiled with cruel malice. Then, as though overcome by the demand he had made on his strength, he dropped back on his blankets once more.
The hollow was all astir as the men set out. They had camped at the foot of the terraced rock on the high ground overlooking the clearing with the grave, beyond it the broad sweep of Horseshoe Bay between the curved arms of land enclosing the lagoon.
"Take ropes!" counselled Clubfoot from his bed beneath the tree. "You may have to descend into the caves...."
The seaman, Schröder, brought out some lengths of rope and hurried after the string of men, who, in Indian file, streamed out of the hollow, talking and laughing like a pack of schoolboys. Not a man remained behind. Even Pizarro, the coloured cook, went along. Black Pablo, the leader of the party, who was the last to go, wanted to leave a guard over Marjorie. But Clubfoot would not hear of it.
"Amigo mio," he said. "El Cojo is not so old as that young jackanapes would make out. I cannot climb while this cursed fever is on me. But I can look after myself—and anybody else who does me the honour of spending this pleasant afternoon in company...."
Black Pablo laughed stridently. They heard his feet ring sharply on the rocky ground. The next moment he was gone, and the peace of a summer afternoon descended upon the hollow, the soothing quiet of droning insects, of a little breeze stirring gently in the thick foliage, the distant drumming of the sea.
Clubfoot began to speak to Marjorie.
"An unpleasant scene of violence, mein liebes Fräulein," he remarked, dabbing his forehead with a red handkerchief, "which might so easily have been avoided. But, when men take passion instead of reason for guide—was wollen Sie? The war destroyed logical thinking. To-day it is rare to find anyone capable of taking a perfectly dispassionate view of life.Jawohl!...."
Marjorie wondered vaguely what he meant. His manner was ingratiating; but she was conscious that he was watching her closely to mark the effect of his words.
"We Germans lost the war. Therefore, a man like your friend Okewood believes that everywhere and in all circumstances, the German must be in a state of inferiority. How short-sighted, meine Gnädige! And what a blemish this want of logic signifies in an otherwise remarkable character! To go no farther a-field in search of an illustration than this delightful island;—war or no war, the fact remains that the strength of my little party puts the Herr Major in an inferiority of thirteen to one. How much wiser on his part it would have been to have recognised this fact yesterday! Let us hope that you will not be so ill-advised as to ignore it! You take my meaning? How quick you are!...."
For a minute his thick fingers drummed on the blanket thrown across him.
"Your Herr father has gone to fetch the yacht,nicht wahr?"
"It is no use asking me," replied Marjorie. "I have not seen my father since I landed on the island...."
"So, so!" placidly observed Grundt, "another question for friend Okewood presently. But perhaps you can tell me what has become of Herr Okewood? Where exactly did you leave him?"
Marjorie was thinking desperately. It was merely a matter of time, probably of minutes now, she reflected, before I should be captured and dragged out of the cave. But some instinct prompted her, as she told me afterwards, to give no information about me until she had actually seen me once more in Grundt's power. So she simply shrugged her shoulders.
"I trust that this gesture does not imply," said Clubfoot, "that you do not know where you left Major Okewood, for that would be acting a lie. And lying, meine Gnädige, would do you no good in your present predicament. You must not take advantage of our good nature,o, nein! Do not forget that on a desert island man is apt to sink back into his primitive state...."
His voice was gentle and caressing; but the implication in his words was horrible.
"You come to us unbidden. You throw yourself upon our chivalry.Ja!that is all very well. But have you made sure that the conventions of civilised life obtain in this little island republic of which I am president?Hein, hein, had you thought of that? But won't you please sit down?"
"I prefer to stand," replied the girl shortly.
"You make me do discredit to our old German courtesy, liebes Fräulein. I cannot sit while you remain standing, and in this hot sun ....bitte!"
With his spade-like hand he smoothed out a place on the grass under the shade of his tree. Dully, almost against her will, Marjorie sank down.
A gleam awoke in the cripple's eyes as he pawed the girl's bare arm.
"Listen!" he said, lowering his voice confidentially and leaning towards her. "The Spaniards of my party come without exception from the lowest scum of the Central American sea-board. Their table-talk is enlivened with anecdotes of their—shall we say conquests?—which fill even me with disgust and dismay. And my Germans, yes,—I, a good German, must admit it—they, too, have forgotten something of the conventions of civilised life. For five years or more they have been outlaws, dirty Boches, the rejected of mankind—they who are of that race,"—his voice rang out triumphant but then trembled and broke—"Gott!that is the salt of the earth!"
For an instant he seemed to be genuinely moved. Bitter memories kindled a spark of anger in his fierce, dark eyes. But the mood passed swiftly and his voice was gentle, his manner sleek as before when he resumed.
"You make it difficult, very difficult for me. You come here, a delicate, fair young maid and you expect to live unscathed in a camp of rough men; for I do not conceal from you the fact, Miss Garth, that unless your father is reasonable you may be with us for many days...."
He broke off suggestively. The girl dared not look at him for fear of the thought unspoken she might read in his leering eyes.
"Would you be surprised to learn? it is always best to be frank,nicht wahr?—that it will require an armed guard to keep these men away from you at night?...."
At that Marjorie revolted. She sprang to her feet and walked away, sickened at the picture he had suggested to her by every word. Grundt made no attempt to follow her.
"I am sure you will be reasonable," he murmured.
A man burst turbulently into the hollow. It was von Hagel. He was smeared all over with grey dust and his heavy boots showed white gashes where the rocks had cut them. He was pale and the livid weal across his right cheek seemed to distort his features.
"Well?" said Grundt sternly.
The young man made a helpless gesture of the hands. Slowly Clubfoot sat up erect and a heavy scowl drew his eyebrows together. One could almost see the young German quake as he stood before his leader, dumb, confused, aimlessly moving his hands. At last he faltered out:—
"He is not there!"
A convulsion of anger seemed to shake the huge cripple. The close-shaven hair of his scalp moved, his heavy nostrils twitched as solidly, viciously, his great jowl set.
"Not there!" he ejaculated hoarsely, his voice strangling with anger. "What do you mean 'not there'? Black Pablo's orders were to bring him down to me. Why has he not done so? Himmelkreuzdonnerwetter!"—his hairy hands beat on his knee with rage—"why don't you answer me?"
"We.... we.... gained the top shelf unobserved," stammered out von Hagel. "It was deserted. There is only one cave.... with a clear drop down. The steps appear to have quite recently broken away. Pablo, Schröder and I went with torches—they let us down with ropes. We came to a lower chamber where some native dead are buried. At the end was the narrow air-slit through which the girl escaped...."
"And theEngländerwas not there, you say?"
"No!"
"Schafskopf! He was never there!"
"We saw him enter it. Besides, we found burnt matches on the ground and the ashes of his pipe...."
"Then he went out by the air-hole...."
"It is too narrow. Ramon, who is slightly built, could not get through...."
"And there is no other cave?"
"No!"
"Evidently he left by the way he entered, and escaped under the noses of your sentries...."
"Impossible, Herr Doktor! By the way he went in, without ropes, both ascent and descent are out of the question! And since early morning the path, which is the only means of access to the cliff, has been guarded...."
Shaking with ague, Clubfoot was struggling to regain his self-control.
"Erlauben Sie!" he said in a voice half-suffocated with rage, "let us get this right. I do not admit miracles. We know that theEngländerand the girl took refuge in this cave.Gut! The girl, we know, came out through the air-hole. Where is then the man?"
Von Hagel looked at Marjorie.
"Why not ask the girl?" he suggested.
"You've heard what he said," screamed Clubfoot, whipping round and shaking his finger at Marjorie. "Where did you leave this man?"
Then Marjorie told them she had left me in the cave.
"Sehen Sie?" roared Clubfoot. "He's escaped under your very snouts,schweinhundethat you are! He's in that cave yet! Get out of my sight, you dog! And send Black Pablo here! Tell him he has to reckon with me now! And by God if I have to go to him myself——"
Von Hagel had turned and fled. The cripple had risen to his knees. The perspiration poured off his face as, with trembling limbs, he vainly strove to overcome the weakness that mastered him, while he mouthed and mumbled a stream of threats.
Then from the sea a gun spoke, a single report that broke the brooding silence of the island and went echoing and clanging among the tall, grave rocks. Clubfoot's babble ceased on the instant. He desisted from his attempt to rise to his feet and remained immobile save for the trembling of his great torso. Slowly he turned his head and looked at Marjorie who, transfixed with fear, was watching him.
Thus I found them as, a moment later, I stepped into the hollow.
"Sit down, Grundt!" I said.
Racked with fever though he was, his presence of mind did not forsake him. In a flash his whistle was at his lips and three shrill blasts rang piercingly among the rocks. With the other hand he snatched up his automatic.
It was done with such lightning speed that he had me at a disadvantage. Though I had my pistol in my hand when I challenged Grundt, I was completely thrown off my balance by the glimpse I had of Marjorie who, with the blood drained from her face, stood swaying against a boulder as if about to faint. For a fraction of a second I took my eyes off the cripple and in that instant he had me covered.
"Move and you're dead!" he snarled at me. "Drop that gun! Drop it, d'ye hear?"
"You're welcome to it," I said as I pitched it on a tussock between us. "I've come to capitulate, Grundt! You win!"
"Very clever! Oh, very clever, indeed!" he sneered. "You imagine, I suppose, that Clubfoot, the stupid old Boche, did not hear that gun from the sea just now? Your friends may have arrived back, Herr Major. But little good they'll do you. I am going to kill you!"
Even as he spoke, into the turquoise horseshoe of sea at his back theNaomicame steaming, the sun flaming here and there on her polished brass-work, a glittering white ship as snowy as the spume that creamed in her wake. So clear was the atmosphere that I could see the white-clad figures running about her decks. I strained my ears to catch if I might the clang of her engine-room telegraph ringing her down to "slow." But the wind was off the land and no sound came from theNaomi. She might have been a phantom ship, such a spectre as, they say, visits a man in the hour of death.
And, in truth, it seemed as though for me the hour of death were at hand. Grundt's evil eyes and grim mouth set above the gleaming blue barrel of the great automatic were ample evidence that his words were no idle threat. He shifted his grip to get a better aim and I looked away, away from that sinister face, away from theNaomiand her promise of home, away from the glistening sea and the swaying green palms, to Marjorie. She stood like a white marble statue. Only her eyes seemed yet to live and they were wide with terror.
Again Clubfoot's whistle rang out. I turned to see his forehead puckered in a questioning frown. I shrugged my shoulders.
"What chance has theNaomiagainst you and your men, Grundt?" I asked. "A pleasure yacht is not equipped to send off cutting-out expeditions, you know! You are fully armed and well-entrenched in the island! It seems to me that your fears are exaggerated!...."
"Fine words, fine words!" he muttered. "Nevertheless in a minute you are going to die!...."
He took out his watch and laid it on the blanket before him.
"When I told you I had come to capitulate," I rejoined. "I spoke the truth. I have found the treasure. And there is proof!"
I opened my left hand and flung at his feet a handful of gold. Twenty-mark pieces, they dropped softly on the blankets and lay there gleaming in the sunshine, the Kaiser's head and the Imperial Eagle plain for him to see.
I had shaken him. I knew it at a glance. He looked down at the gold, his eyes narrowing with suspicion.
"Also doch!" he murmured—that conveniently elastic German phrase which means "By Jove, he's done it!" or, "Well, I never!" or "I'd never have thought it!" or anything, more or less along these lines, you care to fit to it.
"Let Miss Garth and me go free to rejoin the yacht," I said, "and I'll tell you where the treasure's hid!"
He stiffened up at once.
"It is not for you to dictate to me, you scum," he cried. "Unconditional surrender is the only kind of surrender I understand. Say what you have to say and I will then decide what I shall do with you...."
I glanced seaward. And my heart stood still. TheNaomihad vanished. Had it been but a vision after all?
"Come on!" urged Grundt, scowling. "I have given you a respite. But I now grow impatient...."
I noticed that the ague had taken him again and that, do what he might, he was trembling violently all over.
"If you will allow me to put my left hand in my jacket pocket," I said, "I can show you something that will explain everything."
"Bitte sehr! But remember that I can stretch you dead before you will have time to shoot, even through your pocket...."
From my jacket I produced the little mirror. The sun caught its polished surface as I brought it out and it flashed and flashed again.
Between the curving arms of Horseshoe Bay the launch of theNaomicame flying. I could see the white spray thrown up in two curving sheets as her bows cut the green water. To my ears stole faintly the quick chug-chug of her propeller. I wondered if Grundt had heard it. But he was staring fixedly at the little mirror which I kept turning over in my hands so that it flashed and flashed....
"This was wired to the grave, Grundt," said I. "It was what failed you to read the cipher. You remember the line 'Flimmer', flimmer' viel'? That was the indication to throw a spot-light thus!"—I caught the sun's rays in the glass and flashed it seaward to the bay——"from the mirror set at an angle of 85 degrees; 'the garrison of Kiel,' 'die Fünf-und-Achtziger', you know, Herr Doktor! Incidentally it was you yourself who were good enough to recall the allusion to my mind!...."
And I reminded him of our talk in the ravine in the forest.
Savagely he bit his lip.
"So that was what made you willing to hand me the message," he commented. "I wondered what it was. But continue! We waste valuable time!...."
"The compass bearing indicated by 'the Feast of Orders' was, of course, 27, from January 27th, the date of the celebration, as you probably guessed for yourself. The spotlight thrown along this line fell upon a peculiar pillar in the topmost terrace which your men are now searching. From this pillar, between two crags, the Sugar Loaf and the Lorelei, both quite easily identified. I saw the great image indicated by 'Püppchen' in the message. I don't know whether you know the song 'Püppchen, Du bist mein Augenstern?'
"Augenstern—star of my eyes—refers to the idol. It has one eye hollow. By mounting from the hill-side at the back you can look through the eye and see the little cairn of stones which Ulrich von Hagel, with the hand of death upon him, built to mark the hiding place of the gold. At the foot of the image the treasure lies buried. From a box at the surface I took this handful of gold. I could not move the rest for I had neither pick nor spade and the ground is hard and rocky. And that, I think, is all!"
For the first time Grundt relaxed his forbidding expression.
"Your story sounds plausible, Herr Major," he said. "This time, I believe, you are telling the truth...."
I gazed out into the bay. The launch had disappeared. She must have gone in under the cliffs out of sight.
"In any case," Clubfoot was saying, "I propose to risk it. Being a practical man you will realise that I cannot afford to chance the valuable information you have acquired falling into the possession of your friends. Furthermore, I bear you a grudge, Okewood. It has been the rule of my life that no man shall beat me and live. Therefore, I am going to shoot you now...."
A little cry and even as I turned Marjorie pitched forward and fell prone on the grass between Grundt and me.
"Bah!" said Clubfoot, "let her lie! She will...."
He never finished the sentence. Quick as thought the girl half raised herself, two deafening reports rang out all but simultaneously, then, with a snarling cry, Grundt snatched at his wrist.
The next moment Garth and Lawless burst into the hollow. But I was staring at Marjorie who had fallen motionless on her face.
For me in that moment the world seemed to end. I had plucked this girl from a placid, unruffled existence and plunged her into a vortex of adventure. Was she to leave her life, laid down for mine, in this desolate island while I, the author of all the mischief, was to escape unharmed?
Lawless was at Clubfoot's throat, worrying him like a terrier with a rat. Then, of a sudden, Carstairs and Mackay were there, twisting together with a leathern thong those great hairy wrists, one of which dripped blood. I stood helpless, watching, as in a dream, Garth raise up his daughter and rock her still form in his arms. In her right hand she still clasped my automatic with which she had saved my life.
There was a shrill cry from the entrance of the hollow. With skirts flying Yvonne, Marjorie's French maid, darted in. "O, ma chérie! Ma chérie!" she moaned as with tears rolling down her face, she dropped to her knees by the girl's side. Now Garth was holding a flask to his daughter's lips. Presently to my unspeakable relief, she stirred slightly, then opened her eyes.
"I'm all right," she murmured, "quite all right really! Ah! Yvonne!"
And she closed her eyes again.
Garth stood up, a tall and commanding figure of a man in his spotless white drill, and looked at me, tatterdermalion that I was, with a four days' growth of beard and unkempt hair, my clothes torn and stained, my boots gashed almost to ribbons by those cruel rocks.
"Is she.... is she.... wounded?" I faltered.
The baronet shook his head and gulped.
"She's only fainted," he replied. "My poor, poor lass...."
Then, swallowing his feelings, he demanded fiercely:
"Where is this man Custrin?"
"Dead," I answered. "I shot him...."
What had happened in the forest had seemed natural enough. But, with theNaomi, civilisation had returned to Cock Island and my admission sounded horribly cold-blooded in my ears. As briefly as might be, but without concealing any salient fact, I told Garth the story of what had supervened after his departure with Carstairs. With ill-concealed impatience and with reddening cheeks he listened to my tale; but he grew too angry to hear me to the end. When I told him how I had come upon Marjorie in the room behind the galley he burst out in fury.
"So this is the end of your wild-goose chase! My little girl, alone and unprotected, in the hands of these savages! By God, Major Okewood, if any harm has come to her through your doing...."
"When I asked your help to get to Cock Island, Sir Alexander," I answered, "I had no means of knowing where this adventure would lead us. Nor had I any suspicion that I would, that I could, be followed. Otherwise I should never...."
He cut me short with an angry gesture of the hand.
"I don't want to hear any more. It is no thanks to you that my poor girl has not lost her life through your reckless folly. I had my doubts all along as to how far I could trust myself to your judgment. If I had any idea that you and that blackguardly doctor between you would have dragged my little girl into it...."
This was too much even from a distraught parent.
"It was none of my doing that Miss Garth came ashore," I retorted hotly. "And as for Custrin, it was you who unhesitatingly accepted him at face value. You even suggested that he should join our expedition...."
"But for you, Custrin would never have come on board. You'll not contest that, I suppose? I wish to Heaven theNaomihad never seen you...."
"I can only say how very deeply I regret the terrible experience Miss Garth had to undergo," I began.
But he only snorted.
"I don't want to hear any more from you!" he retorted and walked away.
I was keenly aware of the hostile atmosphere he radiated and it added to my utter sense of forlornness. But Lawless was speaking to me, as I stood dumbfounded, clapping me on the back, asking if I were all right.
"The gang's hooked it," he chuckled. "With the report of theNaomi'sgun they must have just bolted off to their launch in Sturt Bay, way across the island, leaving their skipper to his fate. A dangerous man, that, major! We saw the launch.... it's a sea-going submarine chaser.... crossing the bar and making for the open sea. Sir Alexander was all for my going after 'em. But I told him it was no good with their start...."
Then he told me of the immense surprise which the appearance of theNaomi'slaunch had occasioned on board the yacht as she lay off Alcedo Rock.
"When the old man found that I had let Miss Garth ashore with the doctor," the captain continued, "I thought he was going out of his mind. He raged like a wild man. Whew! but it was hot work for a bit. He called me every name he could lay his tongue to and I'm damned if I know whether I'm in his service yet or know. I've been carpeted once or twice in my time and talked to rough but I never did see such a dido as Sir Alexander raised! And he's fighting mad with you, too....."
"I have the same impression myself!" I answered.
"We put about at once," Lawless resumed, "and ran for the island. Jock Mackay crammed on every ounce of steam he could raise. He had nightmare every night thinking of the coal-bill! We dropped anchor off the bar and took the launch ashore at once. As we came in through the lagoon, I caught through my glasses the flash of your heliograph from the cliffs in the centre of the island. So directly we landed we made for the high ground...."
"I hadn't a notion how to let you know where we were," said I, "until I thought of the mirror. It was rather a forlorn hope because, as you saw, things were getting a bit pressing when you arrived...."
Someone touched my elbow. Mackay stood there.
"Yon great Gairman is asking to speak with you!"
They had stretched Clubfoot out on his blankets beneath the tree. I hate to see a man trussed up anyway, and a queer sort of misguided pity stole into my heart as I looked down on Grundt, whom I had feared so greatly, strapped hand and foot.
At my approach he opened his eyes. They were still grim and fearless.
"If my men had come," he said truculently, "you would never have escaped. But they ran and left me,—von Hagel, a German officer, with the rest. Truly, I begin to think the sun has set on my unfortunate country!"
He checked and seemed to think.
"Young man, young man, that you had known me in my prime! But the foundations of my life have been knocked away. Okewood, I am getting old!"
The perspiration was damp on his brow. I could see the sweat glisten on the bristles of his iron-grey hair.
"In my day, in the years of Germany's greatness, I was all-puissant! I had but one master—the Emperor himself! No one—no one, do you understand?—not the Imperial Chancellor nor even the head of the Civil Cabinet, who was a greater man than he—dare give me—der Stelze, orders! Yet I had no official position! My name was in noRang-Listeand I held no decorations.Der Stelzewas not to be bought by those glittering crosses and stars with which so many of my fellow-countrymen loved to hang themselves! No, I was the secret power of the throne, the instrument of His Majesty. And, with this one exception, the highest in the land trembled at my name...."
His voice sounded tired; and it seemed to me that, of a sudden, he had, in truth, become an old man. His figure had relaxed; he appeared to have grown grosser of body than of yore; the flesh of his face was sagging and his cheeks had fallen in.
"This was to have been the last adventure," he resumed and stared at me defiantly, "the last of how many? Friends of my master told me of this hoard and delegated me to proceed to Central America to track it down. What they would have given me for my pains would have sufficed to enable me to realise my dream of settling down on a little property I have in Baden, and of passing the evening of my days in peace...."
"And what did your friends want the money for?" I asked.
"That," retorted Grundt proudly, "is the business of my master!"
His words gave me my answer; for I knew of the existence of secret funds destined to bring the Hohenzollerns back to the throne which they had so shamefully abandoned.
"You matched yourself against me, Okewood," Grundt said suddenly, "at a time when already the axe was laid at the roots of the German oak. In the long seclusion which followed my wound—they found it necessary, as you know, to give out that I was dead—I used sometimes to think that our duel was a miniature reproduction of the struggle between Germany and England. And in neither case am I quite clear as to why theEngländerwon!"
"Perhaps it was a case of conscience, Herr Doktor?"
The German looked up at me in surprise.
"Conscience!" he exclaimed. "But that is not a means of warfare!"
Lawless at my side uttered a loud exclamation. He was bending down over the blankets.
"The treasure!" he exclaimed, "by gum, you've found it!"
And he held up a shining piece of gold.
Funny, I had forgotten all about it.
"On those blankets, captain," said I, "you'll find all the treasure we're ever likely to get out of Cock Island. I located the hiding-place all right. But the treasure's gone. There are fifteen gold-pieces there—I counted them. That's all that's left of it...."
Then Grundt spoke.
"So you were bluffing to the end!" he said and was silent.
"Then that was why the gang was in such a hurry to be off!" cried Lawless.
I shook my head.
"They didn't find the treasure either," I replied. "Somewhere scattered among the rocky ravines and valleys of this island, a hundred thousand pounds in American eagles and German twenty-mark pieces are lying. Old Man Destiny had it in for us, captain. He sent a volcanic eruption which blew the treasure sky-high!"
"Jimini!" exclaimed Lawless in a hushed voice.
"It's an awfu' pity!" ejaculated Mackay mournfully.
Yvonne came. Marjorie was asking for me, she said. I found her sitting up, Garth at her side. The light was slowly mellowing and the sinking sun cast long shadows across the hollow. The sky was all marbled with red and gold flecks.
Rather shyly Marjorie thrust a slim white hand into mine. It may have been my fancy; but I think I saw Garth wince.
"So you did come out on top after all?" she said. "Sit down there beside Daddy and tell me all about it from the beginning. You found the treasure then?"
"I found where it had been hid," I replied. "But it had vanished...."
"Vanished?" cried Marjorie, and I swear there was dismay in her voice.
"Vanished?" echoed Garth.
"But the gold pieces you threw to Grundt," queried the girl. "I don't understand...."
"That was part of one box which had survived the volcanic eruption which scattered Ulrich von Hagel's horde to the four winds. You remember that wisp of smoke we saw rising from the hillside in front of the great image? Well, I discovered that it came from a deep fissure in the mountainside at the foot of the idol. From the little cairn of stones, which still stands on the edge of the cliff, it was clear that the treasure had been stored in a cave which appears to have been hollowed out of the rock in front of the idol.
"Where that cave was is now a yawning hole belching forth smoke and streams of lava. In fact, as far as I can judge, the treasure was blown clean out of the mountainside. That this surmise is correct is shown, I think, by my discovery of the remains of a wooden box in which were still a few gold pieces. Other fragments of charred wood were scattered around. For the rest the treasure is gone and will never be recovered!"
Marjorie's eyes rested mournfully on my face; but I could not meet her gaze.
"But how did you discover all this?"
"The passage by which I escaped from the burial-chamber brought me out within a hundred yards of the image. The sulphur fumes from the fresh cone of the volcano caught me by the throat directly I emerged into the open. My one idea was to find you. So I crammed the gold pieces in my pocket and made for Horseshoe Bay to see if the yacht had returned. Finding no sign of her or you I started to reconnoitre. I guessed that Clubfoot and his party would be watching somewhere near the terraced rock and sure enough, as I was prowling in the undergrowth near here, I saw the whole gang file out towards the rock. I watched where they had come from and creeping up saw you and Grundt in conversation. The only thing that mattered then was to get you out of Grundt's clutches. I saw no signs of any guards but I made sure that Clubfoot would have help within easy reach. As I was turning things over in my mind I heard theNaomi'sgun. So I decided to risk everything on a final bluff and I acted at once...."
"When they told me you were not in the cave," said Marjorie, "I couldn't believe my ears. How on earth did you manage to escape?"
"Well," I replied, "you remember that stone table on which the mummies lay? Under one of them I found, let in the table, a flat stone carved with a turtle. I don't know whether you realise the significance of that sign. The turtle was the mark of that celebrated buccaneer, Captain Roberts, who, in the old days, was a great man in these waters. The buccaneers are known to have used Cock Island for obtaining fresh meat and water—you can read about it in the 'Sailing Directions'—so the sign of the turtle set me thinking.
"I tried to get the stone up but it was firmly cemented in the table. However, in my pushing and thrusting I leant against the table edge and suddenly the whole top swung round outwards into the cave leaving a hole about five feet deep. The hole was the opening of a passage several hundred yards long which led into the open air——"
"But how did you manage to close the opening behind you?"
"Quite simply. I arranged the mummies as they were before, covering the turtle stone, then standing in the hole I drew the table-top back into place again. It is quite solid and does not ring hollow—the simplest and neatest device of its kind I ever saw. Roberts and his men must have used the burial-chamber for some sort of secret meetings, I imagine. Perhaps in their day Cock Island was inhabited...."
There was so much I had to ask, so much I would have said. But the presence of her father, dour and intractable, threw an invisible bar between us. I felt embarrassed and miserable—because I realised I suppose, that our island dream was at an end.
"It is getting dark," said Garth, standing up. "Come, Marjie, it's time we were back on board!"
He did not include me in the summons. Yet I should have to sail with him again. He could not maroon me there.
"You're coming with us?" said my dear Marjorie with her ready tact.
"Only as far as the beach," I replied. "We have to decide what's to be done with our friend yonder...."
In truth the problem of Grundt was beginning to obtrude itself in my mind.
"I'll come on board later," I said, "if Sir Alexander will allow me...."
"We must, of course, take Major Okewood back with us to Rodriguez," Garth observed stiffly.
At that Marjorie flared up.
"Daddy!" she cried indignantly.
We went down to the shore in silence. As we emerged from the woods, John Bard came striding up the beach.