the riddle in boxes appears in the image
“Well, I give it up!” declared Doris, after she had stared at it intently for several more silent moments. “It’s the strangest puzzle I ever saw. But, do you know, Sally, I’d like to take it home and study it out at my leisure. I always was crazy about puzzles, and I’d justenjoy working over this, even if I never made anything out of it. Do you think it would do any harm to remove it from here?”
“I don’t suppose it would,” Sally replied, “but somehow I don’t like to change anything here or take anything away even for a little while. But you can study it out all you wish, though, for I made a copy of it a good while ago, so’s I could study it myself. Here it is.” And Sally pulled from her pocket a duplicate of the strange design, made in her own handwriting.
At this point, Genevieve suddenly became restless and, clinging to Sally’s skirts, demanded to “go and play in the boat.”
“She doesn’t like to stay in here very long,” explained Sally.
“Well, I don’t wonder!” declared Doris. “It’s dark and dreary and weird. It makes me feel kind of curious and creepy myself. But, oh! it’s a glorious secret, Sally,—the strangest and most wonderful I ever heard of. Why, it’s a regularadventureto have found such a thing as this. But let’s go out and sitin the boat and let Genevieve paddle. Then we can talk it all over and puzzle this out.”
Sally returned the tin box and its contents to the hiding-place under the mattress. Then she blew out the candle, remarking as she did so that she’d brought a lot of candles and matches and always kept them there. In the pall of darkness that fell on them, she groped for the entrance, pushed it open and they all scrambled out into the daylight. After that she padlocked the opening and buried the key in the sand nearby and announced herself ready to return to the boat.
During the remainder of that sunny morning they sat together in the stern of the boat, golden head and auburn one bent in consultation over the strange combination of letters and figures, while Genevieve, barefooted, paddled in silent ecstasy in the shallow water rippling over the bar.
“Sally,” exclaimed Doris, at length, suddenly straightening and looking her companion in the eyes, “I believe you have some idea about all this that you haven’t told me yet!Several remarks you’ve dropped make me think so. Now, honestly, haven’t you? Whatdoyou believe is the secret of this cave and this queer jumble of letters and things, anyway?”
Sally, thus faced, could no longer deny the truth. “Yes,” she acknowledged, “thereissomething I’ve thought of, and the more I think of it, the surer I am. And something that’s happened since I knew you, has made me even surer yet.” She paused, and Doris, wild with impatience, demanded, “Well?”
“It’s pirates!” announced Sally, slowly and distinctly.
“What?” cried Doris, jumping to her feet. “Impossible! There’s no such thing, nowadays.”
“I didn’t say ‘nowadays,’ ” remarked Sally, calmly. “I think itwaspirates, then, if that suits you better.”
Doris sank down in her seat again in amazed silence. “A pirate cave!” she breathed at last. “I do believe you’re right, Sally. What elsecouldit be? But where’s the treasure, then?Pirates always had some around, didn’t they? And that cave would be the best kind of a place to keep it.”
“That’s what this tells,” answered Sally, pointing to the scrap of paper. “I believe it’s buried somewhere, and this is the secret plan that tells where it is. If we could only puzzle it out, we’d find the treasure.”
A great light suddenly dawned on Doris. “NowI know,” she cried, “why you were so crazy over ‘Treasure Island.’ It was all about pirates, and there was a secret map in it. You thought it might help you to puzzle out this. Wasn’t that it?”
“Yes,” said Sally, “that was it, of course. I was wondering if you’d guess it. I’ve got the book under the bow seat of the boat now. Let’s compare the things.” She lifted the seat, found the book, which fell open of its own accord, Doris noticed, at the well-known chart of that well-loved book. They laid their own riddle beside it.
“But this is entirely different,” declared Doris. “That one of ‘Treasure Island’ is amap or chart, with the hills and trees and everything written plainly on it. This is nothing but a jumble of letters and figures in little squares, and doesn’t make the slightest sense, no matter how you turn or twist it.”
“I don’t care,” insisted Sally. “I suppose all secret charts aren’t alike. I believe if we only knew how to work this one, it would certainly direct us straight to the place where that treasure is buried.”
So positive was she, that Doris could not help but be impressed. “But pirates lived a long time ago,” she objected, “and I don’t believe there were ever any pirates around this place, anyway. I thought they were mostly down around Cuba and the southern parts of this country.”
“Don’t you believe it!” cried Sally. “I’ve heard lots of the old fishermen about here tell how there used to be pirates right along this coast, and how they used to come in these little rivers once in a while and bury their stuff and then go out for more. Why there was one famous one they call ‘Captain Kidd,’ and theysay he buried things all about here, but mostly on the ocean beach. My father says there used to be an old man (he’s dead now) right in our village, and he was just sure he could find some buried treasure, and he was always digging around on the beach and in the woods near the ocean. Folks thought he was just kind of crazy. But once he really did find something, way down deep, that looked like it might have been the bones of a skeleton, and a few queer coins and things all mixed up with them. And then every one went wild and began digging for dear life, too, for a while, but they never found anything more, so gradually they left off and forgot it.”
Doris was visibly stirred by this curious story. After all, why should it not be so? Why, perhaps could nottheybe on the right track of the buried treasure of pirate legend? The more she thought it over, the more possible it became. And the fascination of such a possibility held her spellbound.
“Yes,” she agreed, “I do believe you’re right, Sally. And now that I look it over,these letters and numbers might easily be the key to it all, if we can only work it out. Oh, I never heard of anything so wonderful happening to two girls like ourselves before! Thank you, a million times, Sally, for sharing this perfectly marvelous secret with me.”
“I do believe I’m enjoying it a great deal better myself, now that I’ve told you,” answered Sally. “I didn’t think it could be so before I did. And if we ever discover what it all means——”
“Why, precious!” interrupted Doris, turning to Genevieve, who all unnoticed had come to lean disconsolately against the side of the boat, her thumb tucked pathetically in her mouth, her eyes half tearful. “What’s the matter?”
“I’m hung’y and s’eepy!” moaned Genevieve. With a guilty start, Doris gazed at her wrist watch. It was nearly one o’clock.
“Merciful goodness! Mother will be frantic!” she exclaimed. “It’s lunch-time now, and we’re way up here. And just see the way I look!” She was indeed a scratched, grimyand tattered object. “Whatever will I tell her?” They scrambled to their oars and were out in the river before Sally answered this question.
“Can’t you tell her you were exploring up on Slipper Point?”
“Yes,” agreed Doris. “That is the real truth. And she never minds if I get mussed and dirty, as long as I’ve enjoyed myself in some way that’s all right. But I hope I haven’t worried her by being so late.”
They rowed on in mad, breathless haste, passed the wagon-bridge, and came at last in sight of the hotel. But as they beached the boat, and Doris scrambled out, she said in parting:
“I’ve been thinking, all the way down, about that secret map, or whatever it is, and I have a new idea about it. I’ll tell you tomorrow morning. This afternoon I’ve promised to go for a drive with Mother.”
BUTDoris did not have an opportunity to communicate her idea on the following morning, nor for several days after that. A violent three or four days’ northeaster had set in, and for forty-eight hours after their expedition to Slipper Point, the river was swept by terrific gales and downpouring sheets of rain. Doris called up Sally by telephone from the hotel, on the second day, for she knew that Sally would very likely be at the Landing, where there was a telephone connection.
“Can’t you get well wrapped up and come up here to see me a while?” she begged. “I’d go to you, but Mother won’t let me stir out in this awful downpour.”
“I could, I s’pose, but, honestly, I’d rather not,” replied Sally, doubtfully. “I don’t much like to come up to the hotel. I guess you know why.” Doris did know.
“But you can come up to my room, and we’ll be alone there,” she suggested. “I’ve so much I want to talk to you about. I’ve thought of something else,—a dandy scheme.” The plan sorely tempted Sally, but a new thought caused her to refuse once more.
“I’d have to bring Genevieve,” she reminded Doris, “and she mightn’t behave, and—well, I really guess I’d better not.”
“Perhaps tomorrow will be nice again,” ended Doris, hopefully, as she hung up the receiver.
But the morrow was not at all “nice.” On the contrary, it was, if anything, worse than ever. After the morning mail had come, however, Doris excitedly called up Sally again.
“You simply must come up here, if it’s only for a few minutes!” she told her. “I’ve something awfully important that I just must talk to you about and show you.” The “show you” was what convinced Sally.
“All right,” she replied. “I’ll come up forhalf an hour. I’ll leave Genevieve with Mother. But I can’t stay any longer.”
She came, not very long after, and Doris rushed to meet her from the back porch, for she had walked up the road. Removing her dripping umbrella and mackintosh, Doris led her up to her room, whispering excitedly:
“I don’t know what you’ll think of what I’ve done, Sally, but one thing I’m certain of. It can’t do any harm and it may do some good.”
“What in the world is it?” questioned Sally, wonderingly.
Doris drew her into her own room and shut the door. The communicating door to her mother’s room was also shut, so they were quite alone. When Sally was seated, Doris laid a bulky bundle in her lap.
“What is it?” queried Sally, wide-eyed, wondering what all this could have to do with their mystery.
“I’ll tell you,” said Doris. “If it hadn’t been for this awful storm, I’d have told you and asked you about it next morning, but I didn’t want to over the ’phone. So I justtook things in my own hands, and here’s the result.” Sally was more bewildered than ever.
“What’s the result?”
“Why, just this,” went on Doris. “That night, after we’d been to Slipper Point, I lay awake again the longest time, thinking and thinking. And suddenly a bright idea occurred to me. You know, whenever I’m worried or troubled or puzzled, I always go to Father and ask his advice. I can go to Mother too, but she’s so often ill and miserable, and I’ve got into the habit of not bothering her with things. But Father’s always ready, and he’s never failed me yet. So I got to wondering how I could get some help from him in this affair without, of course, his suspecting anything about the secret part of it. And then, all of a sudden, I thought of—books! There must besomebooks that would help us,—books that would give us some kind of information that might lead to a clue.
“So next morning, very first thing, I sent a special delivery letter to Father asking him to send me downat onceany books he couldfind aboutpiratesand such things. And, bless his heart, he sent me down a whole bundle of them that just got here this morning!”
Sally eyed them in a sort of daze. “But—but won’t your father guess just what we’re up to?” she ventured, dubiously. “He will ask you what you want them for, won’t he?”
“No, indeed,” cried Doris. “That’s just the beauty of Father. He’d never ask mewhyI want them in a hundred years. If I choose to explain to him, all right, and if I don’t he knows that’s all right too, for he trusts me absolutely, not to do anything wrong. So, when he comes down, as I expect he will in a week or so, he’ll probably say, ‘Pirates all right, daughter?’ and that’s all there’ll be to it.” Sally was at last convinced, though she marvelled inwardly at this quite wonderful species of father.
“But now, let’s look at the books,” went on Doris. “I’m perfectly certain we’ll find something in them that’s going to give us a lift.” She unwrapped the bundle and produced three volumes. One, a very large one,was called “The Book of Buried Treasure.” Another, “Pirates and Buccaneers of Our Own Coasts,” and, last but not least, “The Life of Captain Kidd.” Sally’s eyes fairly sparkled, especially at the last, and they hurriedly consulted together as to who should take which books first. At length it was decided that Sally take the “Buried Treasure Book,” as it was very bulky, and Doris would go over the other two. Then they would exchange. This ought to keep them fully occupied till fair weather set in again, after which, armed with so much valuable information, they would again tackle their problem on its own ground—at Slipper Point.
It was two days later when they met again. There had not been an opportunity to exchange the books, but on the first fair morning Sally and Genevieve rowed up in “45,” and Doris leaped in exclaiming:
“Let’s go right up to Slipper Point. I believe I’ve got on the track of something—at last! What have you discovered, Sally?”
“Nothing at all,—just nothing,” declared Sally rather discouragingly. “It was an awfully interesting book, though. I just devoured it. But it didn’t tell a thing that would help us out. And I’ve made up my mind, since reading it, that we might as well give up any idea of Captain Kidd having buried anything around here. That book said he never buried a thing, except one place on Long Island, and that was all raked up long ago. All the rest about him is just silly nonsense and talk. He neverwasmuch of a pirate, anyway!”
“Yes, I discovered the same thing in the book I had about him,” agreed Doris. “We’ll have to give up Captain Kidd, but there were some pirates who did bury somewhere, and one I discovered about did a lot of work right around these shores.”
“Hedid?” cried Sally, almost losing her oars in her excitement. “Who was he? Tell me—quick!”
“His name was Richard Worley,” answeredDoris. “He was a pirate about the year 1718, the same time that Blackbeard and Stede Bonnet were ‘pirating’ too.”
“Yes, I know about them,” commented Sally. “I read of them in that book. But it didn’t say anything about Worley.”
“Well, he was only a pirate for six weeks before he was captured,” went on Doris, “but in that time he managed to do a lot, and it was all along the coast of New Jersey here. Now why isn’t it quite possible that he sailed in here with his loot and made that nice little cave and buried his treasure, intending to come back some time. He was captured finally down off the coast of the Carolinas, but he might easily have disposed of his booty here before that.”
Sally was filled with elated certainty. “It surely must have been he!” she cried. “For there was some one,—that’s certain, or there wouldn’t have been so much talk about buried treasure. And he’s the likeliest person to have made that cave.”
“There’s just one drawback that I can see,” Doris reminded her. “It was an awfully longtime ago,—1718, nearly two hundred years. Do you think it would all have lasted so long? The wood and all, I mean?”
“That cedar wood lasts forever,” declared Sally. “He probably wrecked some vessel and then took the wood and built this cave with it. Probably he built it because he thought it would be a good place to hide in some time, if they got to chasing him. No one in all the world would ever find him there.”
“That’s a good idea!” commented Doris. “I’d been wondering why a pirate should take such trouble to fix up a place like that. They usually just dug a hole and put in the treasure and then killed one of their own number and buried his body on top of it. I hope to goodness that Mr. Richard Worley didn’t do that pleasant little trick! When we find the treasure, we don’t want any skeletons mixed up with it.”
They both laughed heartily over the conceit, and rowed with increased vigor as Slipper Point came in sight.
“You said you had an idea about that queerpaper we found, too,” Sally reminded her. “What was it?”
“Oh, I don’t know whether it amounts to much, and I’ll try to explain it later. The first thing to do is to try to discover, if we can, some idea of a date, or something connected with this cave, so that we can see if we are on the right track. I’ve been thinking that if that wood was from an old, wrecked vessel, we might perhaps find something on it somewhere that would give us a clue.”
“That’s so,” said Sally. “I hadn’t thought of that before.”
With this in mind, they entered the cave, lit the candle, seated Genevieve on the chair with a bag of candy in her lap for solace, and proceeded to their task.
“The only way to find anything is just to scrape off all we can of this mold,” announced Sally. “You take one side, and I’ll take the other and we’ll use these sticks. It won’t be an easy job.”
It was not. For over an hour they both dug away, scraping off what they could of the mossand fungus that covered the cedar planks. Doris made so little progress that she finally procured the ancient knife from the table and worked more easily with that implement. Not a vestige nor a trace of any writing was visible anywhere.
When the arms of both girls had begun to ache cruelly, and Genevieve had grown restless and was demanding to “go out,” Sally suggested that they give it up for the day. But just at that moment, working in a far corner, Doris had stumbled upon a clue. The rusty knife had struck a curious knobby break in the wood, which, on further scraping, developed the shape of a raised letter “T.” At her exultant cry, Sally rushed over and frantically assisted in the quest. Scraping and digging for another fifteen minutes revealed at last a name, raised on the thick planking, which had evidently been the stern name-plate of the vessel. When it all stood revealed, the writing ran:
The Anne ArundelEngland1843.
The two stood gazing at it a moment in puzzled silence. Then Doris threw down her knife.
“It’s all off with the pirate theory, Sally!” she exclaimed.
“Why so?” demanded her companion, mystified for the moment.
“Just because,” answered Doris, “if Richard Worley lived in 1718, he couldn’t possibly have built a cave with the remains of a vessel dated 1843, and neither could any other pirate, for there weren’t any more pirates as late as 1843. Don’t you see?”
Sally did see and her countenance fell.
“Then what in the worldisthe mystery?” she cried.
“That we’ve got to find the answer to in some other way,” replied Doris, “for we’re as much in the dark as ever!”
ITwas a discouraged pair that rowed home from Slipper Point that morning. Sally was depressed beyond words by their recent discovery, for she had counted many long months on her “pirate theory” and the ultimate unearthing of buried treasure. Doris, however, was not so much depressed as she was baffled by this curious turn of the morning’s investigation. Thinking hard, she suddenly shipped her oars and turned about to face Sally with an exultant little exclamation.
“Do you realize that we’ve made a very valuable find this morning, after all, Sally?” she cried.
“Why, no, I don’t. Everything’s just spoiled!” retorted Sally dubiously. “If it isn’t pirates, it isn’t anything that’sworthanything, is it?”
“I don’t know yet how much it’s worth,” retorted Doris, “but I do know that we’ve unearthed enough to start us on a new hunt.”
“Well, what is it?” demanded Sally, still incredulous.
“Can’t you guess? Thenameof this vessel that the lumber came from,—and thedate. Whatever happened that cave couldn’t have been made before 1843, anyhow, and that isn’t so terribly long ago. There might even be persons alive here today who could remember as far back as that date, if not further. And if thisAnne Arundelwas wrecked somewhere about here, perhaps there’s some one who will remember that, and—”
But here Sally interrupted her with an excited cry. “My grandfather!—He surely would know. He was born in 1830, ’cause he’s eighty-seven now, and he ought to remember if there was a wreck on this beach when he was thirteen years old or older. He remembers lots about wrecks. I’ll ask him.”
Doris recalled the hearty old sea-captain, Sally’s grandfather, whom she had often seensitting on Sally’s own front porch, or down at the Landing. That he could remember many tales of wrecks and storms she did not doubt, and her spirits rose with Sally’s.
“But you must go about it carefully,” she warned. “Don’t let him know, at first that you know much about theAnne Arundel, or he’ll begin to suspect something and ask questions. I don’t see quite how youaregoing to find out about it without asking him anyway.”
“You leave that to me!” declared Sally. “Grandfather’s great on spinning yarns when he gets going. And he grows so interested about it generally that he doesn’t realize afterward whether he’s told you a thing or you’ve asked him about it, ’cause he has so much to tell and gets so excited about it. Oh, I’ll find out about theAnne Arundel, all right—if there’s anythingtofind out!”
They parted that morning filled anew with the spirit of adventure and mystery, stopping no longer to consider the dashed hopes of the earlier day.
“I probably shan’t get a chance to talk to Grandfather alone before evening,” said Sally in parting, “though I’m going to be around most of the afternoon where he is. But I’ll surely talk to him tonight when he’s smoking on our porch and Mother and Dad are away at the Landing. Then I’ll find out what he knows, and let you know tomorrow morning.”
It was a breathless and excited Sally that rowed up to the hotel at an early hour next day.
“Did he say anything?” demanded Doris breathlessly, flying down to the sand to meet her.
“Come out in the boat,” answered Sally, “and I’ll tell you all about it. He certainlydidsay something!”
Doris clambered into the boat, and they headed as usual for Slipper Point.
“Well?” queried Doris, impatiently, when they were in midstream.
“Grandfather was good and ready to talkwrecks with me last night,” began Sally, “for there was no one else about to talk to. You know, the pavilion opened for dancing the first time this season, and every one made a bee-line for that. Grandfather never goes down to the Landing at night, so he was left stranded for some one to talk to and was right glad to have me. I began by asking him to tell me something about when he was a young man and how things were around here and how he came to go to sea. It always pleases him to pieces to be asked to tell about those times, so he sailed in and I didn’t do a thing but sit and listen, though I’ve heard most of all that before.
“But after a while he got to talking about how he’d been shipwrecked and along about there I saw how it would be easy to switch him off to the shipwrecks that happened around here. When I did that he had plenty to tell me and it was rather interesting too. By and by I said, just quietly, as if I wasn’t awfully interested:
“ ‘Grandfather, I’ve heard tell of a shipcalled theAnne Arundelthat was wrecked about here once. Do you know anything of her?’ And he said he just guessed hedid. She came ashore one winter night, along about 1850, in the worst storm they’d ever had on this coast. He was a young man of twenty then and he helped to rescue some of the sailors and passengers. She was a five-masted schooner, an English ship, and she just drove right up on the shore and went to pieces. They didn’t get many of her crew off alive, as most of them had been swept overboard in the heavy seas.
“But, listen to this. He said that the queer part of it all was that, though her hulk and wreckage lay on the beach for a couple of months or so, and nobody gave it any attention, suddenly, in one week, it all disappeared as clean as if another hurricane had hit it and carried it off. But this wasn’t the case, because there had been fine weather for a long stretch. Everybody wondered and wondered what had become of theAnne Arundelbut nobodyever found out. It seemed particularly strange because no one, not even beach-combers, would be likely to carry off a whole wreck, bodily, like that.”
“And he never had a suspicion,” cried Doris, “that some one had taken it to build that little cave up the river? How perfectly wonderful, Sally!”
“No, but there’s something about it that puzzles me a lot,” replied Sally. “They took it to fix up that cave, sure enough. But, do you realize, Doris, that it only took a small part of a big vessel like that, to build the cave. What became of all the rest of it? Why was it all taken, when so little of it was needed? What was it used for?”
This was as much a puzzle to Doris as to Sally. “I’m sure I can’t imagine,” she replied. “But one thing’s certain. We’ve got to find out who took it and why, if it takes all summer. By the way! I’ve got a new idea about why that cave was built. I believe it was for some one who wanted to hide away,—a prisoner escaped from jail, for instance, or some one who was afraid of being put in prison because he’d done something wrong, or it was thought that he had. How about that?”
“Then what about the queer piece of writing we found?” demanded Sally. Doris had to admit she could not see where that entered into things.
“Well,” declared Sally, at length, “I’ve got a brand new idea about it too. It came from something else Grandfather was telling me last night. If it wasn’t pirates it was—smugglers!”
“Mercy!” cried Doris. “What makes you think so?”
“Because Grandfather was telling me of a lot of smugglers who worked a little farther down the coast. They used to run in to one of the rivers with a small schooner they cruised in, and hide lots of stuff that they’d have to pay duty on if they brought it in the proper way. They hid it in an old deserted house near the shore and after a while would sell what they had and bring in some more. Byand by the government officers got after them and caught them all.
“It just set me to thinking that this might be another hiding place that was never discovered, and this bit of paper the secret plan to show where or how they hid the stuff. Perhaps they were all captured at some time, and never got back here to find the rest of their things. I tell you, we may find some treasure yet, though it probably won’t be like what the pirates would have hidden.”
Doris was decidedly fired by the new idea. “It sounds quite possible to me,” she acknowledged, “and what we want to do now is to try and work out the meaning of that queer bit of paper.”
“Yes, and by the way, you said quite a while ago that you had an idea about that,” Sally reminded her. “What was it?”
“Oh, I don’t know as it amounts to much,” said Doris. “So many things have happened since, that I’ve half forgotten about it. But if we’re going up to Slipper Point, I can show you better when we get there. Do you know,Sally, I believe I’m just as much interested if that’s a smuggler’s cave as if it had been a pirate’s. It’s actually thrilling!”
And without further words, they bent their energies toward reaching their destination.
ATSlipper Point, they established Genevieve, as usual, on the old chair in the cave, to examine by candle-light the new picture-book that Doris had brought for her. This was calculated to keep her quiet for a long while, as she was inordinately fond of “picters,” as she called them.
“Now,” cried Sally, “what about that paper?”
“Oh, I don’t know that it amounts to very much,” explained Doris. “It just occurred to me, in looking it over, that possibly the fact of its being square and the little cave also being square might have something to do with things. Suppose the floor of the cave were divided into squares just as this paper is. Now do you notice one thing? Read the letters in their order up from the extreme left hand cornerdiagonally. It reads r-i-g-h-t-s and the last square is blank. Now why couldn’t that mean ‘right’ and the ‘s’ stand for square,—the ‘right square’ being that blank one in the extreme corner?”
“Goody!” cried Sally. “That’s awfully clever of you. I never thought of such a thing as reading it that way, in all the time I had it. And do you think that perhaps the treasure is buried under there?”
“Well, of course, that’s all wecanthink it means. It might be well to investigate in that corner.”
But another thought had occurred to Sally. “If that’s so,” she inquired dubiously, “what’s the use of all the rest of those letters and numbers. They must be there forsomething.”
“They may be just a ‘blind,’ and mean nothing at all,” answered Doris. “You see they’d have to fill up the spaces somehow, or else, if I’m right, they’d have more than one vacant square. And one was all they wanted. So they filled up the rest with a lot of letters and figures just to puzzle any one that got hold ofit. But there’s something else I’ve thought of about it. You notice that the two outside lines of squares that lead up to the empty squares are just numbers,—not letters at all. Now I’ve added each line together and find that the sum of each side is exactlytwenty-one. Why wouldn’t it be possible that it means the sides of this empty square are twenty-one—something—in length. It can’t possibly mean twenty-onefeetbecause the whole cave is only about nine feet square. It must mean twenty-one inches.”
Sally was quite overcome with amazement at this elaborate system of reasoning it out. “You certainly are a wonder!” she exclaimed. “I never would have thought of it in the world.”
“Why, it was simple,” declared Doris, “for just as soon as I’d hit upon that first idea, the rest all followed like clockwork. But now, if all this is right, and the treasure lies somewhere under the vacant square, our business is to find it.”
Suddenly an awful thought occurred to Sally. “But how are you going to knowwhichcorner that square is in? It might be any of the four, mightn’t it?”
For a moment Doris was stumped. How, indeed, were they going to tell? Then one solution dawned on her. “Wouldn’t they have been most likely to consider the square of the floor as it faces you, coming in at the door, to be the way that corresponds to the plan on the paper? In that case, the extreme right-hand corner from the door, for the space of twenty-one inches, is the spot.”
It certainly seemed the most logical conclusion. They rushed over to the spot and examined it, robbing Genevieve of her candle in order to have the most light on the dark corner. It exhibited, however, no signs of anything the least unusual about it. The rough planks of the flooring joined quite closely to those of the wall, and there was no evidence of its having ever been used as a place of concealment. At this discouraging revelation, their faces fell.
“Let’s examine the other corners,” suggested Doris. “Perhaps we’re not right about this being the one.”
The others, however, revealed no difference in their appearance, and the girls restored her candle to Genevieve at the table, and stood gazing at each other in disconcerted silence.
“But, after all,” suggested Doris shortly, “would you expect to see any real sign of the boards being movable or having been moved at some time? That would only give their secret away, when you come to think of it. No, if thereissome way of opening one of those corners, it’s pretty carefully concealed, and I don’t see anything for it but for us to bring some tools up here,—a hammer and saw and chisel, perhaps,—and go to work prying those boards up.” The plan appealed to Sally.
“I’ll get some of Dad’s,” she declared. “He’s got a lot of tools in the boathouse, and he’d never miss a few of the older ones. We’ll bring them up tomorrow and begin. And I think your first idea about the corner was the best. We’ll start over there.”
“I’s cold,” Genevieve began to whimper, at this point. “I don’tlikeit in here. I want to go out.”
The two girls laughed. “She isn’t much of a treasure-hunter, is she!” said Doris. “Bless her heart. We’ll go out right away and sit down under the pine trees.”
They emerged into the sunlight, and Sally carefully closed and concealed the entrance to their secret lair. After the chill of the underground, the warm sunlight was very welcome and they lay lazily basking in its heat and inhaling the odor of the pine-needles. Far above their heads the fish-hawks swooped with their high-pitched piping cry, and two wrens scolded each other in the branches above their heads. Sally sat tailor-fashion, her chin cupped in her two hands, thinking in silence, while Doris, propped against a tree, was explaining the pictures in her new book to Genevieve. In the intervals, while Genevieve stared absorbedly at one of them, Doris would look about her curiously and speculatively. Suddenly she thrust the book aside and sprang to her feet.
“Do you realize, Sally,” she exclaimed, “that I’ve never yet explored a bit of this regionabove groundwith you? I’ve never seena thing except this bit right about the cave. Why not take me all round here for a way. It might be quite interesting.”
Sally looked both surprised and scornful. “There’s nothing at all to see around here that’s a bit interesting,” she declared. “There’s just this pine grove and the underbrush, and back there,—quite a way back, is an old country road. It isn’t even worth getting all hot and tired going to see.”
“Well, I don’t care, I want to see it!” insisted Doris. “I somehow have a feeling that it would be worth while. And if you are too tired to come with me, I’ll go by myself. You and Genevieve can rest here.”
“No, I want to go wis Dowis!” declared Genevieve, scrambling to her feet as she scented a new diversion.
“Well, I’ll go too,” laughed Sally. “I’m not as lazy as all that, but I warn you, you won’t find anything worth the trouble.”
They set off together, scrambling through the scrub-oak and bay-bushes, stopping now and then to pick and devour wild strawberries,or gather a great handful of sassafras to chew. All the while Doris gazed about her curiously, asking every now and then a seemingly irrelevant question of Sally.
Presently they emerged from the pine woods and crossed a field covered only with wild blackberry vines still bearing their white blossoms. At the farther edge of this field they came upon a sandy road. It wound away in a hot ribbon till a turn hid it from sight, and the heat of the morning tempted them no further to explore it.
“This is the road I told you of,” explained Sally with an “I-told-you-so” expression. “You see it isn’t anything at all, only an old back road leading to Manituck. Nobody much comes this way if they can help it,—it’s so sandy.”
“But what’s that old house there?” demanded Doris, pointing to an ancient, tumbledown structure not far away. “And isn’t it the queerest-looking place, one part so gone to pieces and unkempt, and that other little wing all nicely fixed up and neat and comfortable!”
It was indeed an odd combination. The structure was a large old-fashioned farmhouse, evidently of a period dating well back in the nineteenth century. The main part had fallen into disuse, as was quite evident from the closed and shuttered windows, the peeling, blistered paint, the unkempt air of being not inhabited. But a tiny “L” at one side bore an aspect as different from the main building as could well be imagined. It had lately received a coat of fresh white paint. Its windows were wide open and daintily curtained with some pretty but inexpensive material. The little patch of flower-garden in front was as trim and orderly.
“I don’t understand it,” went on Doris. “What place is it?”
“Oh, that’s only Roundtree’s,” answered Sally indifferently. “That’s old Miss Roundtree now, coming from the back. She lives there all alone.”
As she was speaking, the person in question came into view from around the back of the house, a basket of vegetables in her hand.Plainly she had just been picking them in the vegetable-garden, a portion of which was visible at the side of the house. She sat down presently on her tiny front porch, removed her large sun-bonnet and began to sort them over. From their vantage-point behind some tall bushes at the roadside, the girls could watch her unobserved.
“I like her looks,” whispered Doris after a moment. “Who is she and why does she live in this queer little place?”
“I told you her name was Roundtree,—Miss Camilla Roundtree,” replied Sally. “Most folks call her ‘old Miss Camilla’ around here. She’s awfully poor, though they say her folks were quite rich at one time, and she’s quite deaf too. That big old place was her father’s, and I s’pose is hers now, but she can’t afford to keep it up, she has so little money. So she just lives in that small part, and she knits for a living,—caps and sweaters and things like that. She does knit beautifully and gets quite a good many orders, especially in summer, but even so it hardly brings her in enough to liveon. She’s kind of queer too, folks think. But I don’t see why you’re so interested in her.”
“I like her looks,” answered Doris. “She has a fine face. Somehow she seems to me like a lady,—areallady!”
“Well, she sort of puts on airs, folks think, and she doesn’t care to associate with everybody,” admitted Sally. “But she’s awfully good and kind, too. Goes and nurses people when they’re sick or have any trouble, and never charges for it, and all that sort of thing. But, same time, she always seems to want to be by herself. She reads lots, too, and has no end of old books. They say they were her father’s. Once she lent me one or two when I went to get her to make a sweater for Genevieve.”
“Oh, do you know her?” cried Doris. “How interesting!”
“Why, yes, of course I know her. Everyone does around here. But I don’t see anything very interesting about it.” To tell the truth, Sally was quite puzzled by Doris’s absorptionin the subject. It was Genevieve who broke the spell.
“I’s sirsty!” she moaned. “I want a djink. I want Mis Camilla to gi’ me a djink!”
“Come on!” cried Doris to Sally. “If you know her, we can easily go over and ask her for a drink. I’m crazy to meet her.”
Still wondering, Sally led the way over to the tiny garden and the three proceeded up the path toward Miss Roundtree.
“Why, good morning!” exclaimed that lady, looking up. Her voice was very soft, and a little toneless, as is often the case with the deaf.
“Good morning!” answered Sally in a rather loud tone, and a trifle awkwardly presented Doris. But there was no awkwardness in the manner with which Miss Camilla acknowledged the new acquaintance. Indeed it was suggestive of an old-time courtesy, now growing somewhat obsolete. And Doris had a chance to gaze, at closer range, on the fine, high-bred face framed in its neatly parted gray hair.
“Might Genevieve have a drink?” asked Doris at length. “She seems to be very thirsty.”
“Why, assuredly!” exclaimed Miss Camilla. “Come inside, all of you, and rest in the shade.” So they trooped indoors, into Miss Camilla’s tiny sitting-room, while she herself disappeared into the still tinier kitchen at the back. While she was gone, Doris gazed about with a new wonder and admiration in her eyes.
The room was speckless in its cleanliness, and full of many obviously home-made contrivances and makeshifts. Yet there were two or three beautiful pieces of old mahogany furniture, of a satiny finish and ancient date. And on the mantel stood one marvelous little piece of pottery that, even to Doris’s untrained eye, gave evidence of being a rare and costly bit. But Miss Camilla was now coming back, bearing a tray on which stood three glasses of water and a plate of cookies and three little dishes of delicious strawberries.
“You children must be hungry after yourlong morning’s excursion,” she said. “Try these strawberries of mine. They have just come from the garden.”
Doris thought she had never tasted anything more delightful than that impromptu little repast. And when it was over, she asked Miss Camilla a question, for she had been chatting with her all along, in decided contrast to the rather embarrassed silence of Sally.
“What is that beautiful little vase you have there, Miss Roundtree, may I ask? I’ve been admiring it a lot.” A wonderful light shone suddenly in Miss Camilla’s eyes. Here, it was plain, was her hobby.
“That’s a Louis XV Sèvres,” she explained, patting it lovingly. “Itismarvelous, isn’t it, and all I have left of a very pretty collection. It was my passion once, this pottery, and I had the means to indulge it. But they are all gone now, all but this one. I shall never part with this.” The light died out of her eyes as she placed the precious piece back on the mantel.
“Good-bye. Come again!” she called afterthem, as they took their departure. “I always enjoy talking to you children.”
When they had retraced their way to the boat and pushed off and were making all speed for the hotel, Sally suddenly turned to Doris and demanded:
“Why in the world are you so interested in Miss Camilla? I’ve known her all my life, and I never talked so much to her in all that time as you did this morning.”
“Well, to begin with,” replied Doris, shipping her oars and facing her friend for a moment, “I think she’s a lovely and interesting person. But there’s something else besides.” She stopped abruptly, and Sally, filled with curiosity, demanded impatiently,
“Well?”
Doris’s reply almost caused her to lose her oars in her astonishment.
“I think she knows all about that cave!”
“WELL, for gracious sake!” was all Sally could reply to this astonishing remark. And a moment later, “How on earth do you know?”
“I don’tknow. I’m only guessing at it,” replied Doris. “But I have one or two good reasons for thinking we’ve been on the wrong track right along. And if I’d known aboutherbefore, I’d have thought so long ago.”
“But whatisit?” cried Sally again, bursting with impatience and curiosity.
“Sally,” said Doris soberly, “I’m going to ask you not to make me explain it all just yet. I would if I had it all clear in my mind, but the whole idea is just as hazy as can be at present. And you know a thing is very hard to explain when it’s hazy like that. It sounds silly if you put it into words. So won’t you just let it be till I get it better thought out?”
“Why, yes, of course,” replied Sally with an assumed heartiness that she was far from feeling. Truth to tell, she was not only badly disappointed but filled with an almost uncontrollable curiosity to know what Doris had discovered about her secret that she herself did not know.
“And I’m going to ask you another thing,” went on Doris. “Do you suppose any one around here knows much about the history of Miss Camilla and her family? Would your grandfather be likely to know?”
“Why, yes, I guess so,” replied Sally. “If anybody knows I’m sure it would be he, because he’s the oldest person around here.”
“Then,” said Doris, “I want you to let me talk to your grandfather about it. We’ll both seem to be talking to him together, but I want to ask him some questions very specially myself. But I don’t want him to suspect that we have any special interest in the thing, so you try and make him talk the way you did that night when he told you all about the wrecks, and theAnne Arundel. Will you?”
“Oh, yes,” agreed Sally. “That’s easy. When shall we do it? This afternoon? I think he’ll be down at the Landing, and we won’t have any trouble getting him to talk to us. There aren’t many around the Landing yet, ’cause the season is so early, and I’ll steer him over into a corner where we can be by ourselves.”
“That’s fine!” cried Doris. “I knew you could manage it.”
“But tell me—just one thing,” begged Sally, “What made you first think that Miss Camilla had anything to do with this? You can tell me justthat, can’t you?”
“It was the little Sèvres vase on the mantel,” explained Doris, “and the way she spoke of it, I know a little,—just a tiny bit about old china and porcelains, because my grandfather is awfully interested in them and has collected quite a lot. But it was the way shespokeof it that made me think.”
Not another word would she say on the subject. And though Sally racked her brains over the matter for the rest of the day, shecould find no point where Miss Camilla and her remarks had the slightest bearing on that secret of theirs.
It was about two o’clock that afternoon, and the pavilion at the Landing was almost deserted. Later it would be peopled by a throng, young and old, hiring boats, crabbing from the long dock, drinking soda-water or merely watching the river life, idly. But, during the two or three hot hours directly after noon, it was deserted. On this occasion, however, not for long. Old Captain Carter, corn-cob pipe in mouth, and stumping loudly on his wooden leg, was approaching down the road from the village. At this hour he seldom failed to take his seat in a corner of the pavilion and wait patiently for the afternoon crowd to appear. His main diversion for the day consisted in his chats with the throngs who haunted the Landing.
He had not been settled in his corner three minutes, his wooden leg propped on another chair, when up the wide stairs from the beachappeared his two granddaughters, accompanied by another girl. Truth to tell, they had been waiting below exactly half an hour for this very event. Doris, who had met him before, went over and exchanged the greetings of the day, then casually settled herself in an adjacent chair, fanning herself frantically and exclaiming over the heat. Sally and Genevieve next strolled up and perched on a bench close by. For several minutes the two girls exchanged some rather desultory conversation. Then, what appeared to be a chance remark of Doris’s but was in reality carefully planned, drew the old sea-captain into their talk.
“I wonder why some people around here keep a part of their houses nicely fixed and live in that part and let the rest get all run down and go to waste?” she inquired with elaborate indifference. Captain Carter pricked up his ears.
“Whodo that, I’d like to know?” he snorted. “I hain’t seen many of ’em!”
“Well, I passed a place this morning and itlooked that way,” Doris went on. “I thought maybe it was customary in these parts.”
“Where was it?” demanded the Captain, on the defensive for his native region.
“Way up the river,” she answered, indicating the direction of Slipper Point.
“Oh,that!” he exclaimed in patent relief. “That’s only Miss Roundtree’s, and I guess you won’t see another like it in a month of Sundays.”
“Who is she and why does she do it?” asked Doris with a great (and this time real) show of interest. And thus, finding what his soul delighted in, a willing and interested listener, Captain Carter launched into a history and description of Miss Camilla Roundtree. He had told all that Sally had already imparted, when Doris broke in with some skilfully directed questions.
“How do you suppose she lost all her money?”
“Blest if I know, or any one else!” he grunted. “And what’s more, I don’t believeshelost it all, either. I think it was her father and her brother before her that did the trick. They were great folks around here,—high and mighty, we called ’em. Nobody among us down at the village was good enough for ’em. This here Miss Camilla,—her mother died when she was a baby—she used to spend most of her time in New York with a wealthy aunt. Some swell, she was!—used to go with her aunt pretty nigh every year to Europe and we didn’t set eyes on her once in a blue moon. Her father and brother had a fine farm and were making money, but she didn’t care for this here life.
“Well, one time she come back from Europe and things didn’t seem to be going right down here at her place. I don’t know what it was, but there were queer things whispered about the two men folks and all the money seemed to be gone suddenly, too. I was away at the time on a three-years’ cruise, so I didn’t hear nothin’ about it till long after. But they say the brother he disappeared and never came back, and the father died suddenly of apoplexyor something, and Miss Camilla was left to shift for herself, on a farm mortgaged pretty nigh up to the hilt.
“She was a bright woman as ever was made, though, I’ll say that for her, and she kept her head in the air and took to teaching school. She taught right good, too, for a number of years and got the mortgages off the farm. And then, all of a sudden, she began to get deaf-like, and couldn’t go on teaching. Then she took to selling off a lot of their land lying round, and got through somehow on that, for a while. But times got harder and living higher priced, and finally she had to give up trying to keep the whole thing decent and just scrooged herself into those little quarters in the ‘L.’ She’s made a good fight, but she never would come down off her high horse or ask for any help or let any one into what happened to her folks.”
“How long ago was all that?” asked Doris.
“Oh, about forty or fifty years, I should think,” he replied, after a moment’s thought. “Yes, fifty or more, at the least.”
“You say they owned a lot of land around their farm?” interrogated Doris, casually.
“Surest thing! One time old Caleb Roundtree owned pretty nigh the whole side of the river up that way, but he’d sold off a lot of it himself before he died. She owned a good patch for a while, though, several hundred acres, I guess. But she hain’t got nothin’ but what lies right around the house, now.”
“Didn’t you ever hear what happened to the brother?” demanded Doris.
“Never a thing. He dropped out of life here as neatly and completely as if he’d suddenly been dropped into the sea. And by the time I’d got back from my voyage the nine-days’ wonder about it all was over, and I never could find out any more on the subject. Never was particularly interested to, either. Miss Camilla hain’t nothin’ to me. She’s always kept to herself and so most folks have almost forgotten who she is.”
As the Captain had evidently reached the end of his information on the subject, Dorisrose to take her leave and Sally followed her eagerly.
“Well, did you find out what you wanted?” she cried, as soon as they were once more out on the river in old “45.”
“I found out enough,” answered Doris very seriously, “to make me feel pretty sure I’m right. Of course, I can only guess at lots of it, butonething I’m certain of: that cave had nothing to do with smugglers or pirates—or anything of that sort!”
Sally dropped her oars with a smothered cry of utmost disappointment.
“I can’t believe it!” she cried. “I just can’t. I’ve counted on itsolong—finding treasure or something like that, I mean. I just can’t believe it isn’t so.”
“It may be something far more interesting,” Doris replied soothingly. “But there’s just one trouble about it. If it’s what I think it is, and concerns Miss Camilla, I’ve begun to feel that we haven’t any business meddling with it now. We oughtn’t even to go into it.”
Sally uttered a moan of absolute despair. “I thought it would be that way,” she muttered, half to herself, “if I shared the secret. Iknewthey’d take it away from me!” She shipped her oars and buried her face in her hands. After a moment she raised her head defiantly. “Why, I don’t even know why you say so. You haven’t told me yet a single thing of what it’s all about. WhyshouldI stay away from that place?”
“Listen, Sally,” said Doris, also shipping her oars and laying an appealing hand on her arm, “I ought to tell you now, and I will. Perhaps you won’t feel the same about it as I do. We can talk that over afterward. But don’t feel so badly about it. Just hear what I have to say first.
“I think there has been some trouble in Miss Camilla’s life,—something she couldn’t tell any one about, and probably connected with that cave. What your grandfather said about her father and brother makes me all the more sure of it. I believe one or the other of them did something wrong,—something connectedwith money, perhaps, embezzled it or forged checks or something of that kind. And perhaps whoever it was had to hide away and be kept so for a long time, and so that cave was made and he hid there. Don’t you remember, your grandfather said the brother disappeared suddenly and never came back? It must have been he, then. And perhaps Miss Camilla had to sell most of her valuable things and make up what he had done. That would explain her having parted with all her lovely porcelains and china. And if so much of the land around the house once belonged to her, probably that part where the cave is did too.”
“But what about that bit of paper, then?” demanded Sally, who had been drinking in this explanation eagerly. “I don’t see what that would have to do with it.”
“Well, I don’t either,” confessed Doris. “Perhaps itisthe plan of the place where something is hidden, but I’m somehow beginning to think it isn’t. I’ll have to think that over later.
“But now, can’t you see that if what I’vesaid is right, it wouldn’t be the thing for us to do any more prying into poor Miss Camilla’s secret? It would really be a dreadful thing, especially if she ever suspected that we knew. She probably doesn’t dream that another soul in the world knows of it at all.”
Sally was decidedly impressed with this explanation and argument, but she had one more plea to put forward.
“What you say sounds very true, Doris, and I’ve almost got to believe it, whether I want to or not. But I’m going to ask just one thing. Let’s give our other idea just a trial, anyway. Let’s go there once more and see if that scheme about the floor and the place in the corner is any good. Itmightbe, you know. It sounded awfully good to me. And it won’t hurt a thing for us to try it out. If we don’t find anything, we’ll know there’s nothing in it. And if we do find anything that concerns Miss Camilla, we’ll let it alone and never go near the place again. What do you say?”
Doris thought it over gravely. The argument seemed quite sound, and yet some delicateinstinct in her still urged that they should meddle no further. But, after all, she considered, they were sure of nothing. It might have no concern with Miss Camilla at all. And, to crown it, the secret was Sally’s originally, when all was said and done. Who was she, Doris, to dictate what should or should not be done about it? She capitulated.
“All right, Sally,” she agreed. “I believe it can do no harm to try out our original scheme. We’ll get at it first thing tomorrow morning.”
THEYset out on the following morning. Elaborate preparations had been made for the undertaking and, so that they might have ample time undisturbed, Doris had begged her mother to allow her to picnic for the day with Sally, and not come back to the hotel for luncheon. As Mrs. Craig had come to have quite a high opinion of Sally, her judgment and knowledge of the river and vicinity, she felt no hesitation in trusting Doris to be safe with her.
Sally had provided the sandwiches and Doris was armed with fruit and candy and books to amuse Genevieve. In the bow of the boat Sally had stowed away a number of tools borrowed from her father’s boathouse. Altogether, the two girls felt as excited and mysteriousand adventurous as could well be imagined.
“I wish we could have left Genevieve at home,” whispered Sally as they were embarking. “But there’s no one to take care of her for all day, so of course it was impossible. But I’m afraid she’s going to get awfully tired and restless while we’re working.”
“Oh, never you fear!” Doris encouraged her. “I’ve brought a few new picture-books and we’ll manage to keep her amused somehow.”
Once established in the cave, having settled Genevieve with a book, the girls set to work in earnest.
“I’m glad I thought to bring a dozen more candles,” said Sally. “We were down to the end of the last one. Now shall we begin on that corner at the extreme right-hand away from the door? That’s the likeliest place. I’ll measure a space around it twenty-one inches square.”
She measured off the space on the floor carefully with a folding ruler, while Doris stood over her watching with critical eyes. Then,having drawn the lines with a piece of chalk, Sally proceeded to begin on the sawing operation with one of her father’s old and somewhat rusty saws.
It was a heartbreakingly slow operation. Turn and turn about they worked away, encouraging each other with cheering remarks. The planks of the oldAnne Arundelwere very thick and astonishingly tough. At the end of an hour they had but one side of the square sawed through, and Genevieve was beginning to grow fractious. Then they planned it that while one worked, the other should amuse the youngest member of the party by talking, singing, and showing pictures to her.
This worked well for a time, and a second side at last was completed. By the time they reached the third, however, Genevieve flatly refused to remain in the cave another moment, so it was agreed that one of them should take her outside while the other remained within and sawed. This proved by far the best solution yet, as Genevieve very shortly fell asleep on the warm pine needles. They covered herwith a shawl they had brought, and then both went back to the undertaking, of which they were now, unconfessedly, very weary.
It was shortly after the noon hour when the saw made its way through the fourth side of the square. In a hush of breathless expectation, they lifted the piece of timber, prepared for—who could tell what wondrous secret beneath it?
The space it left was absolutely empty of the slightest suggestion of anything remarkable. It revealed the sandy soil of the embankment into which the cave was dug, and nothing else whatever. The disgusted silence that followed Doris was the first to break.
“Of course, something may be buried down here, but I doubt it awfully. I’m sure we would have seen some sign of it, if this had been the right corner. However, give me that trowel, Sally, and we’ll dig down a way.” She dug for almost a foot into the damp sand, and finally gave it up.
“How could any one go on digging down in the space of only twenty-one inches?” sheexclaimed in despair. “If one were to dig at all, the space ought to be much larger. No, this very plainly isn’t the right corner. Let’s go outside and eat our lunch, and then, if we have any courage left, we can come back and begin on another corner. Personally, I feel as if I should scream, if I had to put my hand to that old saw again!”
But a hearty luncheon and a half hour of idling in the sunlight above ground after it, served to restore their courage and determination. Sally was positive that the corner diagonally opposite was the one most likely to yield results, and Doris was inclined to agree with her. Genevieve, however, flatly refused to re-enter the cave so they were forced to adopt the scheme of the morning, one remaining always outdoors with her, as they did not dare let her roam around by herself. Sally volunteered to take the first shift at the sawing, and after they had measured off the twenty-one inch square in the opposite corner she set to work, while Doris stayed outside with Genevieve.
Seated with a picture-book open on her lap,and with Genevieve cuddled close by her side, she was suddenly startled by a muffled, excited cry from within the cave. Obviously, something had happened. Springing up, she hurried inside, Genevieve trailing after her. She beheld Sally standing in the middle of the cave, candle in hand, dishevelled and excited, pointing to the side of the cave near which she had been working.
“Look, look!” she cried. “What did I tell you?” Doris looked, expecting to see something about the floor in the corner to verify their surmises. The sight that met her eyes was as different as possible from that.
A part of the wall of the cave, three feet in width and reaching from top to bottom had opened and swung inward like a door on its hinges.
“Whatisit?” she breathed in a tone of real awe.
“It’s adoor, just as it looks,” explained Sally, “and we never even guessed it was there. I happened to be leaning against that part of the wall as I sawed, balancing myself againstit, and sometimes pushing pretty hard. All of a sudden it gave way, and swung out like that, and I almost tumbled in. I was so astonished I hardly knew what had happened!”
“But what’s behind it?” cried Doris, snatching the candle and hurrying forward to investigate. They peered together into the blackness back of the newly revealed door, the candle held high above their heads.
“Why, it’s atunnel!” exclaimed Sally. “A great, long tunnel, winding away. I can’t even see how far it goes. Did you ever?”
The two girls stood looking at each other and at the opening in a maze of incredulous speculation. Suddenly Sally uttered a satisfied cry.
“I know! I know, now! We never could think where all the rest of the wood from theAnne Arundelwent. It’s right here!” It was evidently true. The tunnel had been lined, top and bottom and often at the sides with the same planking that had lined the cave and at intervals there were stout posts supporting the roof of it. Well and solidly had it beenconstructed in that long ago period, else it would never have remained intact so many years.
“Doris,” said Sally presently, “where do you suppose this leads to?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea,” replied her friend, “except that it probably leads to the treasure or the secret, or whatever it is. That much I’m certain of now.”
“So am I,” agreed Sally, “but, here’s the important thing. Are we to go in there and find it?”
Doris shrank back an instant. “Oh, I don’t know!” she faltered. “I’m not sure whether I dare to—or whether Mother would allow me to—if she knew. It—itmightbe dangerous. Something might give way and bury us alive.”
“Well, I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” announced Sally courageously. “I’ll take a candle and go in a way by myself and see what it’s like. You stay here with Genevieve, and I’ll keep calling back to you, so you needn’t worry about me.” Before Doris could argue the question with her, she had lighted anothercandle and stepped bravely into the gloom.
Doris, at the opening, watched her progress nervously, till a turn in the tunnel hid her from sight.
“Oh, Sally, do come back!” she called. “I can’t stand this suspense!”
“I’m all right!” Sally shouted back. “After that turn it goes on straight for the longest way. I can’t see the end. But it’s perfectly safe. The planks are as strong as iron yet. There isn’t a sign of a cave-in. I’m coming back a moment.” She presently reappeared.
“Look here!” she demanded, facing her companion. “Are you game to come with me? We can bring Genevieve along. It’s perfectly safe. If you’re not, you can stay here with her and I’ll go by myself. I’m determined to see the end of this.” Her resolution fired Doris. After all, it could not be so very dangerous, since the tunnel seemed in such good repair. Forgetting all else in her enthusiasm, she hastily consented.
“We must take plenty of candles andmatches,” declared Sally. “We wouldn’t want to be left in the dark in there. It’s lucky I brought a lot today. Now, Genevieve, you behave yourself and come along like a good girl, and we’ll buy you some lolly-pops when we get back home!” Genevieve was plainly reluctant to add her presence to the undertaking, but, neither, on the other hand, did she wish to be left behind, so she followed disapprovingly.
Each with a candle lit, they stepped down from the floor of the cave and gingerly progressed along the narrow way. Doris determinedly turned her eyes from the slugs and snails and strange insects that could be seen on the ancient planking, and kept them fastened on Sally’s back as she led the way. On and on they went, silent, awe-stricken, and wondering. Genevieve whimpered and clung to Doris’s skirts, but no one paid any attention to her, so she was forced to follow on, willy-nilly.
So far did this strange, underground passage proceed that Doris half-whispered: “Is itnever going to end, Sally? Ought we to venture any further?”
“I’m going to the end!” announced Sally stubbornly. “You can go back if you like.” And they all went on again in silence.
At length it was evident that the end was in sight, for the way was suddenly blocked by a stone wall, apparently, directly across the passage. They all drew a long breath and approached to examine it more closely. It was unmistakably a wall of stones, cemented like the foundation of a house, and beyond it they could not proceed.
“What are we going to do now?” demanded Doris.
“The treasure must be here,” said Sally, “and I’ve found one thing that opened when you pushed against it. Maybe this is another. Let’s try. Perhaps it’s behind one of these stones. Look! The plaster seems to be loose around these in the middle.” She thrust the weight of her strong young arm against it, directing it at the middle stone of three large ones, but without avail. Theynever moved the fraction of an inch. Then she began to push all along the sides where the plaster seemed loose. At last she threw her whole weight against it—and was rewarded!