"Now," I said, "I agree with you that this seems not a proper place—at these hills—to make a start for anything like a gold mine. But is not that the very reason that Duran makes his landing here? Isn't it, for some reason or other, the most favorable for covering up his trail? And then, too, landing out there on the open beach, he can easily see whether anyone is following him."
"Yes," said Robert, "that must be it. He's just that shrewd. And then, when he sees his crew row back to theOrionand sail away, he knows none of his blacks are following him."
Darkness had soon spread over everything. And it must have been ten o'clock, when we heard Carlos' whistle. And then at our answer a boat's prow touched the sand of the beach. We had our packs and guns aboard in a minute, and Robert and I, each pulling an oar, we moved, paralleling the beach, to the east. The boat was as light as a canoe, almost, and our progress was rapid.
"I find my friend," said Carlos, telling of his visit to the city. "An' he wonder where I been so long. He say Duran have not come back. But he hear much talk among voodoo about devil-guns—shoot, make no noise. My friend help me find this boat. He buy it for me—eight dollar. The man glad to sell for much money."
In an hour the moon—now in the last quarter—came out of the sea in front of us. We rowed round the point, into the bay. We passed the narrow entrance to the little cove, and made for the east side of the bay, where a bight of the bay pushed in to within a mile and a half of the back of the Twin Hills, as our bit of chart showed us.
We carried our boat above the beach into the bushes, and so made our camp, at midnight.
When the sun rose we were abroad, and soon we had picked our way over to the Twin Hills. They lay some way apart, towered perhaps a hundred feet, and were grown over with brush. We climbed to the top of that nearest the beach. That vantage point gave us a splendid view of the beach and sea.
All that day some of us remained there on the lookout. TheOriondid not come. We all three made our beds there that night. Before morning a squall sent us scampering back to our boat, and we escaped a drenching by turning the little vessel bottom up and creeping under.
Another day passed on the hill-top, and noOrioncame.
"I wonder if he's fooled us again," said Robert.
"I don't think it," I answered.
"I think he come," encouraged Carlos.
I was sleeping soundly when an insistent hand on my shoulder brought me suddenly awake. It was Robert, whose watch was eleven to one.
"They're here," he said. "I heard a block rattle."
Carlos was now up. We could barely make out a dark mass well out from the beach; the night was very dark in spite of the brilliancy of the stars. We scrambled down the hill, and in a few minutes were in the bushes that fringed the beach.
Not many minutes more passed till we heard oars knocking in the tholes. And then a small boat touched the sand, and a figure stepped out.
That figure stood there many minutes, almost immobile, like a tree-stump. Then, when I saw that black mass of ship out on the sea begin to move, the figure stooped, took some bulky thing from the ground and started off inland.
We followed cautiously—ah, how cautiously! It was a ticklish period of our business. The rustling in the brush ahead, now and then, told us how he went.
Near two miles that figure led us thus. And then came a halt on the shore of Crow Bay. We could hear him in the water, into which he waded. And we crawled close, and made out he was tugging at something on the bottom.
In a little, he had dragged a canoe onto the shore, and with some labor he turned out the water. I could hear him mumbling to himself, and chuckling, as it seemed, while he took up his burden and set it in the canoe. That sound of his voice with its unpleasing quality settled his identity for me. It was Duran.
He sat himself in the little boat, and pushing with a paddle, moved off from shore.
"We've got to follow close," I whispered to my comrades. "Robert, you better stay, and Carlos and I will try swimming for it. If I send for you, leave a note on the top of the hill."
I removed my shoes while I talked, and Carlos and I waded in. The water was shallow, and we pushed along with some rapidity, digging our toes into the sandy bottom. We came, in time, to deeper water, and swam a short way, then touched bottom again. And presently we came up on a piece of beach and sprinted round a tongue of land. This brought our quarry within view again. So, though we lost sight of him when again we were obliged to enter the water and cross another broad bayou, a second and longer run on the beach, round a broader tongue of land, gave us his view once more.
One more swim for it, and we came up in time to see Duran paddling into an inlet, or bayou, in the south shore of Crow Bay. By this time the moon had risen. But its light served only to show us the extent of the marshy place we were in, among the tall reeds. Progress was impossible, except by way of the shallow water of the inlet, for there was no beach here.
Wading, we continued on the trail, though the canoe was beyond our view. We had gone thus, in the bayou, some little way, when we noted, in the dim moonlight, the place where the canoe had been dragged in among the reeds. And close by was the beginning of a path, and the ground was solid; and heavy, bushy growth replaced the grasses.
We now ran forward, hoping to sight Duran before he should come to some turning and be lost to us. We went thus, miles it seemed, and the path took us, in time, out of the open and into the forest. Here the feel of our bare feet on the path was our only guide. The forest ended, and we came out into a glade; still there was no sign of him we followed. Carlos stooped to the ground, pushing aside the grasses that lined the trail. With eyes and fingers employed together he sought for marks.
"Yes," he said at last, "he go here."
And so we pushed on, the trail soon taking us into another piece of forest growth. But our path came to an abrupt end at the bank of a stream. And here some rays of moonlight, coming in through interstices of the green canopy, showed fresh marks of some one having gone into the water. We hesitated but a few moments, and stepped into that cool stream, following up its course a hundred yards.
It was then we came, of necessity, to a final stand. Before us towered, for hundreds of feet, sheer cliffs of rock. The stream came pouring out of a hole at the foot. The waters, where they made their exit from the earth, were divided by a large rock. That part on the left rolled out in a smooth flood. On the right of the rock the water came over a ledge, to tumble down in a thin cascade of three feet in height.
The light of the moon came more and more into that space among the trees; and we examined the banks for marks of the way Duran had gone. Within two hours day broke; and, retracing our steps, we went back to where that trail entered the stream, and we carefully searched both banks all up and down for traces. But nowhere was there a mark of any kind to show where he we sought had left the water.
"Well," I said at last to Carlos, "he might soon be coming back this way; so we'll have to watch. If I stay here do you think that you and Robert can carry our boat across the neck of land into Crow Bay?"
"Yes," said Carlos, "that not so very hard. The boat light."
"Well, then," I said, "suppose you go back, and you and Robert get the boat into the bay, and hide it in the reeds somewhere near where Duran hid his canoe. But tell Robert to leave a note on the top of the hill, telling our friends on thePearlto wait there to hear from us."
"Yes," returned Carlos, "I do that."
But I got an hour's sleep before Carlos was started on the back trail, and then settled down in a nest of brush on the stream's bank, to watch for the possible return of Duran.
Over my head, and almost meeting the trees of the opposite bank of the stream, were the tree-tops, through which the rays of the morning sun were now creeping. The lianas hung all about; birds glided from limb to limb. And there, on my right, was that high wall of cliffs, and the water gushing out of the rocks. The splashing of the little cascade on the rocks overwhelmed other sounds, of insects and birds.
I thought long on the curious disappearance of Duran, leaving no trace to point the way he had gone. I looked at that rock wall and wondered if perhaps he could have had a rope ladder hanging there, up which he had gone, pulling it after him. I had read of such things. But the cliff was too high, and there was no landing-place on that sheer wall that would have given foothold even to a mountain goat. It was very certain that he could not have climbed from the water out on the bank anywhere above that spot where his path went into the stream, without leaving unmistakable marks on the ground. So that the only surmise left me was that he had waded down the stream, and climbed out on the opposite bank. When Carlos and Robert should come we would see. But it was chagrining to have followed Duran so far, and then to have lost him just when we had reason to believe we were coming near to the hidden mine.
The sun's rays were coming down almost perpendicularly through the interstices in that green canopy over my head, when Robert and Carlos appeared, wading in the stream.
"Did you get the boat over?" I asked.
"Yes," said Robert, "and it's hid in the high grass not far from that canoe."
"And you left a note on the top of the hill?"
"Yes," he answered. "I told them to wait for us."
I explained the situation to Robert, showing him where we had lost the trail of Duran. And while we made a meal on food brought by the two, we discussed our situation and determined our movements.
"Well, then, Bob," I concluded, "if you'll stay here and watch, Carlos and I will have a look down stream, and then, maybe, along the cliff."
We two had soon got to the other bank, and in a few minutes had passed a point opposite the spot where the path entered the water. We kept to the water as we scrutinized the soft dirt banks. The brook soon widened, and it became more shallow, till finally—some mile or more toward the bay—it emerged from the forest and spread out to diffuse itself into a number of bayous, taking slow movement among the grasses and reeds.
Nowhere along that course were there any signs of anyone having climbed out over the banks. So now Carlos and I retraced our steps, and picked our way through the forest till we came to the foot of those high cliffs. For above two miles we searched for a break in that great wall, and the forest continuing all that way. Then we went back to where Robert kept watch by the stream. We stopped to report our failure, and again set off, this time skirting the cliffs to the west.
We must have covered three miles this way, when the cliffs melted into more sloping ground, till finally we came to where it should be possible to climb to the heights. But nowhere did we see any path, or any mark to show that others had trod the region before us. The afternoon now was nearly gone, and I turned to Carlos.
"Well, Carlos," I said, "the only thing left for us is to camp back there where we lost Duran's trail and wait for thePearl."
"Yes," returned Carlos. "Duran he sure to come back sometime—maybe one week—maybe little more."
Night was nearly on us when we had joined Robert again.
"Isn't it about time for thePearl?" asked Robert.
"The moon will be up about half-past-two," I answered. "Then two of us might go and have a lookout for her."
Taking two-hour watches turn about, we slept till morning. Then Robert and I started, leaving Carlos to keep the watch for Duran. Crossing the west end of Crow Bay, we made landing at the end of the trail that led from the sea side, and by half-past-four of the morning came to Twin Hills.
On the peak of that hill which stood nearest the beach, we came upon a figure stretched on the ground, sleeping peacefully. It was Ray Reid. It was good to see the dear lad.
I shook him gently.
"Don't, Wayne," he said. "You'll shake the gas out of the balloon. We've got to make the other side of the mountain—that's where the gold mine is."
He was either dreaming or pretending. I lifted him by the shoulders. "Ray! We're here," I said.
"Not yet," he returned. "It's not—" And then he opened his eyes.
"What the Sam—" he began. And he gazed on Robert and myself, wonderingly.
"Say!" he continued. "You spoiled the most scrumptious dream I ever had. I was sailing through the clouds—that soft and nice—on the way to the gold mine. But I suppose you kids have got your pockets full of gold; let's see the color of it; what have you done with Duran and the rest of those voodoos? Do you know I came up on top of this hill so's to get a good running start if that polecat (as Norris calls him) got after me; well, what have you been up to—why don't you say something?"
"Say something!" I mocked. I guess my smile nettled him.
"Say," he began again, "if I talked as much as you don't, Wayne, my tongue would soon grow callouses on it. But back to business," he continued. "What have you done with that Duran? I haven't seen him for a coon's age. I've got so I'm not happy if I don't see him around."
"Take us to thePearl," I answered, "and I'll tell you all there is to tell."
We descended the hill, and Ray led us to that bay, a mile and a half west, even past the spot where Robert, Carlos, and I had first pulled up our little boat. A half mile more, and we came upon thePearl, looking pretty in the moonlight, resting just within a deep water inlet, and hidden behind the tall cocoanut palms. A low whistle brought the small boat to shore for us.
It was again a happy reunion, and there came the exchange of tales. That of thePearl'sadventures was simple; they had mended those augur-bored leaks with little difficulty. But they were delayed thirty-odd hours, waiting for a spring tide, enough to float them off. The voyage round the upper end of the island had been without unusual happenings. Captain Marat had seen fit to pass the city after dark; and his chart had guided him to the present berth of thePearl, the markings on the map showing water a plenty; and it seemed a likely hiding place, one Duran and his voodoos were not apt to visit, if Carlos' account of their usual practice had any value.
"I mightily would like to have a look at that place where you lost that skunk's trail," observed Norris. "That gold mine can't be very far away from there, and we'll find it whether or no."
"And where did they go with theOrion, do you think?" asked Julian.
"They sail her on down thee coast, to draw us away from here, w'en we come," said Captain Marat.
"It's a wonder they didn't go into Crow Bay," said Norris. "It's a fine hiding place, according to the chart."
"And yet Duran might have considered it too near the place he's wanting to hide from us," I offered.
"Well, now, when are we going to get up there where Carlos is?" said Norris, impatient to be doing.
"Say, Wayne," said Ray. "Norris has pretty nigh worn out the deck, tramping up and down; and over there on shore his clod-hoppers have flattened out all the grass for a mile around. For heaven's sake sick him after that 'polecat' before he starts an earthquake."
Julian volunteered to remain behind with Rufe and the sailors to guard the schooner. Captain Marat, Norris, Ray, Robert, and myself, set off to rejoin Carlos. The little boat was well laden with the five of us in her, but it was quiet water we moved on.
It was broad day, which suited us illy, since we did not wish to be seen in the region by anyone who might get the news to Duran. But in the crossing of Crow Bay, only Robert and I showed our faces above the gunwale; and the visible portions of our skins, it will be remembered, were stained black.
We concealed the rowboat again among the reeds, not far from where lay that canoe of Duran's, and it was not long till we had joined Carlos.
"Duran—no one—come," reported Carlos.
"Well, it's up to us to find out where he's gone," said Grant Norris.
"Well, here's the chance you've been steaming for," said Ray. "Here's the end of the trail, where it goes into the water; only I'll bet he took to a balloon right here. You know, too, I dreamed of a balloon last night, and if Wayne hadn't waked me just when he did, I'd be at that gold mine right now."
"Yes," returned Norris, "and you'd have to go to sleep to dream yourself back again."
"Well," shot back Ray, "why not? Maybe the gold mine is all a dream, after all."
"Ah, no," declared Carlos, "it no dream. I see the gold—my father show me."
We made up three parties for the search. Norris and Carlos went east; Captain Jean Marat and I west; Robert and Ray remained to watch by the stream.
Captain Marat and I picked our way through the forest to the west for the three miles, to the place where the sloping ground permitted an ascent to the heights backing the cliffs.
The climb was a stiff one, and there was no path or way cleared of the brush, and so were our difficulties increased. When we had gained a sufficient height we moved toward the east, intending to explore the region that looked down on the stream where were Robert and Ray. But we encountered cliffs again, above those other cliffs, that kept us off some miles to the back of that region we hoped to penetrate.
After a short stop at noon, for a bite of food out of our pockets, we continued moving eastward through the cedars that ornamented this new line of cliffs, towering so many hundreds of feet above those lying between us and Crow Bay. Now and then we got unobstructed views of that region below, all forest-clad, and there seemed to be pits and basins there; but nowhere a slope permitting a descent. We got a view of the little bay where thePearllay, but the distance (some seven or eight miles) was too great to permit us to distinguish the masts among the palms, even with the glasses that Captain Marat carried.
The afternoon was not far gone when we met Grant Norris and Carlos, who, by their report, had encountered practically the same conditions as we. Except only that they had come upon a brook that disappeared into the hillside, a thing that Carlos declared was common enough in these mountains. But the direction of the stream was such as to suggest that it was the same rivulet that made its exit from the rocks right where Ray and Robert kept watch. Norris and Carlos had ascended this mountain brook above a mile, on the chance that it might bring them to some trail to the haunt of Duran. But they had met with no signs, and had at last taken to the heights.
"Now, I'll tell you, fellows," observed Norris, "I propose to follow up that creek some miles farther, tomorrow. I've been in more than one gold country, and that creek looks darned likely to me. I dug down at the edge with my hand, in a couple of places, and found black sand. If there isn't gold somewhere up that stream I miss my guess."
"Well, the sun soon be getting low," said Captain Marat. "It is time we go back."
The way Norris and Carlos had come was considered the shorter way back, so we took up the march, moving eastward. I was ahead with Carlos, and we hadn't taken many steps on our way, when I was startled by the sight of some furry object scampering up a cedar just below. Norris saw it too, and raised his rifle. It was then I got another view of the being, and reached out to stop Norris whose finger was on the trigger.
"Wait!" I cried. "It's a monkey."
Carlos, too, was surprised at the spectacle. He declared that he had never heard of monkeys inhabiting the island.
"It must be tame monkey," he said.
The animal swung from a branch of the tree to that of the next, and soon disappeared over the edge of the cliff.
"Well then," declared Norris, "if he's tame, he's either got loose in town and wandered a long way off, or there are other people beside ourselves about here."
No one had anything to add to Norris' observations, and we continued our return journey, little thinking that we were destined to see that monkey again.
We presently came to where descent was possible; and when the brook finally came in our way, I found much interest in the spot where the waters flowed into the hole in the rocks.
"It seems a queer freak," I told Norris, "that it should make its way through the hill like that."
"It isn't the first time I have seen nature doing such stunts," he returned. "I guess volcanic action has had most to do with it."
We had barely got ourselves back to where Ray and Robert lay awaiting us, when night came. They had everything ready for the cooking of a meal, so that our bearish appetites had not long to suffer.
Our non-success did not sit heavily on us, and it was with some cheer we gathered round the fire, that was made in the midst of the underbrush, far enough from the stream to be invisible from any part of Duran's trail. Robert remained over there alone on watch.
"Now, I'll tell you," said Ray, addressing Grant Norris, "if you're going to find that gold mine, you'll just have to rig up a balloon, and fly all over these mountains—like I did in my dream."
"Well," returned Norris, plucking the bones from his fish, "I'm thinking there'll be no lack of gas for it while you're awake. When you're not awake—well, you'll dream enough hot air to—"
"Just what I was going to say," broke in Ray. "It delights me to see you've come round to my dream idea. You're awake at last. Not that you're to blame for having golden dreams; even I, in my younger days—"
"Not on your life!" interrupted Norris, "I—"
"Even Wayne, here, has dreams," continued Ray. "He follows that nightmare, Duran, and suddenly he vanishes into nothing—all dreams."
"Not on your life!" declared Norris, taking Ray half in earnest. "There's gold somewhere in that creek we were on today, and I'll show you before we get through with it."
"Maybe Duran has already cleaned it out," I suggested.
"Don't you believe it!" said the optimistic Norris. "He hasn't got away with it at any rate, or what is he doing back here?"
We crawled under our mosquito bars early, leaving Ray on watch by the stream. I fell asleep to the music of the little cascade, whose continual plash kept from my ears the harassing song of the mosquitoes, who with voodoo thirst sought flaws in my citadel.
I was awakened at last by an insistent hand on my shoulder and Robert's voice in my ear.
"I think Duran or somebody just went by," he said.
He had detected a sound of plashing in the water, like someone wading, though he heard it imperfectly, confused as as it was with the noise of the little waterfall. He had peered hard into that inky darkness, and it seemed to him that a shape crept along the bank of the creek.
We aroused the others, who began at once to gather our traps together, while Robert and I, with utmost caution, sought the path, and with more or less difficulty followed its course toward the bay.
It was about two o'clock when we started, and when we came to the inlet, there showed in the east signs of the moon coming, topping the horizon. That was half-past-three; so that we were an hour and a half covering those three or four miles.
I crept to the spot where we had seen Duran's canoe concealed in the tall grass.
"It's gone!" I told Robert. "Let's hurry the others."
A few hundred yards back Robert came upon them. And now not a minute was lost in setting our little boat in the water. The moon lay a timid light on the bay by the time we had come out of the inlet.
"There!" cried Robert, pointing to the east.
Barely a half mile away we made out an object on the water.
"He's going down the bay," I observed, "not across to the Twin Hills."
"Well, let's keep him in sight," said Norris, "now that we've got our peepers on him at last."
"He'll see us if we go too fast," cautioned Robert.
A camouflage for our boat was suggested. So we hurried to the shore, and six pairs of hands quickly harvested an abundance of reeds and grasses. With this we wove a screen, as for duck-stalking. And with the shore for a background, it would have taken a sharper eye than a human's to distinguish us. Fortunately, the moon, being but a thin, fading crescent, gave a rather imperfect light.
Now we moved at a swift pace down the shore, Norris and Marat at the oars. And so we gained on Duran, who was out nearer the middle of the bay, little thinking that his plans weregaun agley, with his enemies hanging on his tail in spite of all his devices.
Nearly every eye was on that canoe and its paddler, and barely a word spoken till we had navigated almost a mile of the bay.
"Now where is that skunk making for, I wonder?" said Norris, resting on his oar and peering through the screen.
"He go to the island, there, I theenk," offered Jean Marat.
"Yes," added Carlos. "He go right for thee island."
I had noted the island when we were on the cliffs. It was triangular, and on Marat's chart it measured a half mile in its greatest dimension.
"What's on it?" queried Norris, again resuming his rowing.
Carlos said he had been there many years ago, and then there were palms and brush, and in the midst, a hut and garden.
"There! He's going to land," spoke Robert.
Captain Marat trained his glasses on the island, now barely more than a half mile away.
"Yes," he said, "he land. He is on thee shore now, an' he pull out thee canoe, I theenk."
We set our boat in toward the south shore of the bay and here we found the mouth of a stream. A few rods up this creek we made our landing, and in a little we had got boat and all out of the water and into a sheltered place under the palms, for day would soon be breaking.
"You're the darndest bunch!" said Ray, rubbing his eyes. "You'd think I hadn't paid for my lodging."
He had fallen asleep in the boat, and didn't awaken till Norris had almost rolled him out into the water.
"It's that cannibal-priest-voodoo-skunk again I suppose," continued Ray. "Where have you got him now?"
"We've got him cornered, surrounded on Crusoe's island," returned Norris.
"Surrounded," sniffed Ray, "like a gay porpoise, with water. And I'll bet when you catch him, you'll find he's only Crusoe's man, Friday."
This suggestion, although made in sport, startled us. Perhaps after all, the occupant of the canoe had not been Duran. It might have been only one of his numerous blacks, one more in his confidence than any of those on his schooner.
When day came, and that was but an hour after our landing, I began anxiously to scan that island through Marat's glasses. It was not long till I saw a rowboat put off from the island and move toward the south shore far down the bay. Unmistakably, it was a black in the boat, and alone, apparently, and his bulk was much too portly for the figure of Duran. And before the morning was half gone another figure appeared, coming out of the palms on the island. And my heart thumped with excitement as I strained my eyes at the glasses.
The figure (black of face) stood on the shore, looking out across the bay to the west. Was it Duran? I asked myself. Surely the form was not unlike his, but there were many real blacks in his employ who, at that distance would have looked much the same.
And then occurred a thing that settled the matter, and I thrilled all over. The man's hand went up to the side of his head, and the fingers toyed with the ear in that characteristic manner of Duran's, when he was in deep thought. There could be no doubt, I saw the hand moving up and down with the stroking. It was Duran!
I turned to my friends and gave them my news.
"Well, anyway," pouted Ray, "his man Friday was there; he went off in a boat."
"And now, what do you suppose he's doing on that island then?" asked Norris.
"He's burying his gold, of course," said Ray.
"Or maybe he's just after provisions," I suggested.
"And he sent that old fellow in the boat on his errands," offered Robert.
Carlos, appealed to, avowed that this explanation was not unlikely, since there was a bit of a hamlet far down the bay.
When the hot tropic sun had mounted to the zenith, Norris' restlessness seemed to be approaching a climax. It was with some difficulty we dissuaded him from a notion that had taken him, to make a trip back into the hills in search of that golden creek of his. And it was then there came a wet squall out of the west that drove us under the shelter of our over-turned boat till it went by. The monotony of that wait, too, was a bit relieved by the return to the island of that boat that had gone down the bay in the morning.
Before dark came I got Jean Marat aside and communicated to him an idea that had grown in my head that afternoon.
"Captain Marat," I began, "it is going to be very dark nearly all of tonight, and it will be hard to see, at that distance, when Duran leaves the island—if he does."
"Yes," returned Marat, "I have think of that."
"Well," I continued, "even in the dark it won't be safe to row over to the island. Duran might happen to be on the shore and so see us."
"Yes, jus' so," agreed Marat.
"I want to swim over," I said. "It's only half a mile."
"Ah!" said Jean Marat. "Thad might be. Yes—yes." (He pondered the thing.) "Yes, I swim too, with you."
It was the very thing I had in mind, this idea of his accompanying me, though I hesitated to include him in my suggestion.
"And then," Marat continued, "maybe we hear some theengs thad will help us."
Here, too, was some of my thought, remembering that night when he and I had rowed over to theOrion, in the harbor, and heard Duran say things that had enlightened us very much. Though some of the things he had said had not been at all clear, else Ray and I had been spared that period of captivity.
We were not long in giving our plan to the others. Norris, eager for activity, would like to be one of the party, but he himself found objections the moment his wish was expressed.
"It won't do to have too many," he said; "and then I can't understand theparley voolike Captain Marat."
"Besides," put in Ray, "there'd be an awful hulaboloo among the fish. They'd think it was a—" Norris had him in his grasp. "—A mermaid," finished Ray.
We did not wait long after night had settled over the bay. Jean Marat and I kicked off our clothes and, entering the water, headed for the island. It was chalked out that the others should hold everything in readiness, and if they should hear a signal, they would immediately row out and pick us up, to take up the trail of Duran again.
It was no great feat to swim that half mile of smooth water. And then it was with great caution that we crawled across that island beach. I must have been a curious spectacle for Jean Marat—black of face and arms and feet, the rest of me all white. The curly wig, of course, I had left with my clothing.
We passed in among the cocoanut palms, traversed a belt of hammock, and came to a piece of clearing. A light shone from a window of the hut. There were some bushes near the wall; these we got amongst.
Keeping our faces in the shadow, we contrived to look in. And it was somewhat a startling spectacle presented to us there. Duran's features—though stained like myself and Robert—were not so hard to distinguish in the light of the lamp. There was but one other occupant, a negro, old and portly of body. Duran's head bore a red kerchief, wound turban-wise, and his body was clad in a red robe—much like I had seen him wearing that night in the forest. He stood by the table, and in his hands he clutched a fowl, just beheaded, for the blood was running from the raw stump of the neck into a bowl.
When the dripping had almost ceased, Duran gave the chicken into the hands of the negro, who laid it aside. And then Duran poured rum from a jug into cups, and mixed in blood from the bowl; and now the two drank. And there showed that horrid, excited hankering of an old toper, in Duran's face when he brought the cup to his lips. Whether it was the rum he craved, or the blood, or the combination, or if he was really taken with a religious fanaticism, I have never been able to fathom. But that his emotion was real I could have no doubt.
A number of drinks round, and the black set himself to plucking the feathers from the fowl; and then it was not long till he had the bird in a kettle on the stove. Duran, after a time, inclined his head to a little box on the table, and presently it occurred to me that they must have the voodoo snake there as well. It was evidently a voodoo ceremony they were enacting, and I knew it could not be complete—if bonafide—without the snake.
Through it all, there was more or less talk between those two, and to that Marat was giving his ear. At times he moved over and put his head to the boards, the better to hear.
When at last the fowl was cooked, those two feasted on it, and ate little else. And then, in time, they dropped off to sleep; the portly negro seeking the floor, Duran slumbering in his chair, head and arms on the table.
Captain Marat and I now seated ourselves on the ground, a little away from that window to wait while those two within should sleep off their debauch. Marat told me something of the talk of Duran and the other. But there was nothing of new interest in it, since it referred almost solely to matters on which they were then engaged. Duran, however, had found occasion to descant on a purpose he professed he had, to bestow great riches on the black, how he would be required to remain faithful to Duran's service but a few days more, and he should be literally over-burdened with the gold that should be his.
Maybe two hours of waiting had passed, with occasional peeps in at that window, when Duran raised himself from his slumbers. He forthwith aroused the black, and divesting himself of the red gown, he addressed himself to the negro, who began putting together certain parcels of supplies in a pack. Duran took up a paddle, and the two moved out of the door, talking as they went.
Captain Marat and I crouched in the shadows, till they had gone toward the beach. Then we followed, moving from bush to bush. And we saw Duran embark in his canoe, going back the way he had come the night before.
So soon as the black had moved toward the hut, Marat and I entered the water and started for the shore of the mainland, where our friends awaited us. When we deemed it safe, I gave the whistle signal, and our friends came off in the boat and took us in.
"TheeOrionweel be here in thees bay before a week is gone," said Captain Marat. "Duran expect then to sail away, pay off hees crew, an' come back with new crew who know nothing about thee gold. And then he will take on gold cargo. And then for Europe. He tell that black man he take him with, and he will make him ver' rich."
"But he didn't tell that black where he was going to get his gold cargo?" ventured Ray.
Marat said no to that. But Duran had promised the negro that he should go with him, in two boats, and they two should transport all the gold aboard the vessel; and the new crew were to be told that it was all specimens of coral and other stones, for a museum in Europe. "And so," Marat continued, "Duran tell him if any strangers come round, he must not know anyone by name Duran, or Mordaunt, or anyone like that. And Duran tell him, too, thad when theOrioncome, if anyone on the schooner come to the little island, he tell them Duran gives order thad no one of them is allowed on thee island; they must stay on the schooner."
"And why," began Norris, "do you suppose he don't want his own sailors on that little island?"
"Ask Wayne," said Ray.
"Now, Mr. Norris," I said, "you're just wanting to hear somebody echo the thought that's in your mind. Suppose you tell us what it is."
"Well," said Norris, "Ray said it last night. He's been burying some of the gold on the isle. And now he's afraid that if his men set their feet on the place, they'll get to looking for it."
"That's the way with people," said Ray. "If they hide something, they suspect that everybody that comes around can smell it."
"Ease on your oars," Marat admonished.
Norris and Robert were rowing. Intent on our discussion, they had forgotten caution, and were sending the boat forward at a rate. The night was quite dark in spite of the stars, and we might easily drive ourselves within hearing of Duran without realizing it. The night breeze rippled the bay, so that the canoe on the surface would not be visible till one should be almost on it.
"It's a mighty good thing," observed Robert, "that he doesn't make his trips in daylight. He couldn't help seeing that a good many besides himself have been tramping on that trail."
"He'd think a whole army was after him," said Ray.
When at last we came to the inlet, it was with some difficulty we found our way, so dark was it. It was Carlos who at last made out Duran's canoe, amongst the reeds.
"Well, he's got a good deal the start of us," said Norris, when at last we had got our boat in hiding and were ready for the trail.
"Perhaps it's just as well we're not too close," I offered, falling in behind Carlos, to whom we gave the lead.
"You don't believe he'd give us another chase in the schooner?" queried Robert.
"No," I admitted, "but he might pick a new trail, and throw us clear off again."
Single file, we moved forward. We were soon in the wood, where night birds and insects gave us their music. Out again in the glade; again into the forest. And at last, we came to where the trail dipped into the stream.
There was nothing to do but remake our camp in the old place, a little way to the west of the creek. There came renewed conjectures seeking solution of this mystery.
"Well, you'll find out my balloon is the only explanation," bantered Ray. "He carries one in his vest pocket, all neatly folded; he takes it out, blows it full of voodoo rum stuff, and—whiff—up he goes."
"Maybe there's some one of those lianas hanging from the trees that he swings out of the water on," offered Robert.
"That's so!" cried Norris. "A fellow might swing a big long jump that way without touching his foot to the ground. I'm going to have another good look there first thing in the morning."
Captain Marat had been taking stock of our supply of food.
"Someone have to go for more provision, if we stay much longer," he said. "We have hardly enough for one day."
So that after some hours of sleep Robert and Marat set off to return to thePearlfor fresh supplies. They planned to row across the end of Crow Bay before day should come, for there was no certainty that Duran's black on the isle might not have an eye out. It would not do to risk another daylight crossing.
Day had no sooner shot its earliest rays into the recesses of our forest, than Norris was over to the creek investigating the big vines that hung like so many ropes from the branches above. He finally came back to his breakfast, his face giving no signs of success.
"Never mind, Norris," said Ray. "If you're going to make that Duran out a monkey, you can hardly expect to find tracks—monkeys don't leave any."
"Well, anyway," insisted Norris, "that's the way he went, and we'll find that gold mine up on my creek—see if we don't."
For some unaccountable reason, I was not any more impressed by Norris' conclusions than by Ray's playful explications, and I was taken with a desire to be alone with the problem. So I urged the others to go and explore Norris' creek, and I would remain on watch at this place of Duran's strange disappearance.
When the three had gone, moving eastward along the foot of that towering stone wall, I began where the water came tumbling out of that hole in the cliff, and carefully examined the banks of the creek again, up and down, for half a mile or so. I reasoned that if he waded into the stream he must certainly have waded out of it again. Unless, as Norris had conjectured, he had swung himself over the bank by the means of some liana. I therefore imitated Norris and searched both sides for evidence of any such means; and with a negative result. Nowhere, so far as the forest followed the stream, was there a loose liana near the bank on either side.
And then it came to me that perhaps Duran had gone into the water at the end of the path, only to retrace his steps and leave the path some way on the back trail, thus to deceive any who should chance to come so far on his track. And so I scrutinized every foot of the path back to the edge of the forest, and some way across the glade. I even went off the trail, and fought my way through the growth as I went back, paralleling the path, and looking for signs.
But I got back to the creek bank and the music of the little cascade, no nearer the solution than when I had started. Hours had been consumed in my search. It must have been past ten when I squatted on the stream's bank, looking into the clear water, puzzling over this thing.
A beam of sun shone down through the water and illumined the creek's bottom. A round bit of rock or coral lay there, almost white in that liquid light. For a long time I stared on that spot, as if the solution were to be found there. I never before had felt so baffled.
And then I was startled! I could no longer see that stone—nor any part of the creek's bed. The water had in that moment become turbid. Something had muddied it. I leaped to my feet and hurried up to the fountain in the cliff. The water was coming out of the rock in that muddied condition. Now what could it all mean? I asked myself. And I set my wits to the thing as I continued to stare at the phenomenon. Presently the water cleared a bit. And then in a little it came as muddy as ever again.
My thoughts flew. In a moment more I thrilled with an idea. Then I dashed into the water and got myself up to the little waterfall, made, as I have said, by a portion of the water coming round a rock and flowing over the edge of a flat shelf of rock.
I tried to look through that thin veil of liquid, failing which, I braved a shower and put my head through. In another moment I had my whole body behind that little cascade. I crouched, sputtering, under the rocky shelf. Then for eight or ten feet I crawled forward in the darkness. Directly, the passage made a little turn to the right, and the ground under my hands sloped upward. It may have been fifty feet, it may have been a hundred and fifty feet, that I had penetrated that cliff—my excitement had taken no measure of the distance—when I found that I could no longer feel the wall on either side. I was in a cavern of unknown dimensions.
I could hear the rushing of water, below and to my left. A feeling of exultation filled me almost to bursting; I had at last discovered Duran's secret. I came to a stop, fearing to lose my exit. How I wished for my flashlight! I had come away leaving it aboard thePearl.
I do not know how long I had tarried in that spot, when a beam of light struck down from above on my right. And then came sounds of some being up there, and the light approached.
I retreated into the narrow passage by which I had come, ready to scramble out if there should be need. But soon the slant of the light beams showed me that the lamp had passed to the left, and I ventured forward again, and peeked around a projection of rock.
There was Duran's blackened face in the light of a lantern, which he was in the act of hanging on some form of hook in the cavern wall. The vault, I saw, was high, and at least fifty feet wide. It was down near the water that Duran was; and I saw him stoop and put his hand into the stream; and he fished out some sort of packet which he laid on the cavern floor. Time after time he reached down into the rushing water, and took out a packet each dive, till he had a pile on the floor that would measure a peck.
At last Duran sat himself on the cavern's floor, and he busied himself with untying knots and separating the objects he dealt with in two piles. And next he rose to his feet and set to transporting one of his piles to some niche that was out of the field of my eye.
Duran's next procedure was to gather the other pile into a sack. And this he took in hand and forthwith began to move back toward my part of the cavern.
I wormed my way down in my passage again, and when I had got a little way from the cascade, I waited and listened. But he must have gone back the way he had come. I ventured in again.
When I poked my head out of the passage into the cavern, there was no sign of Duran. But the lantern still hung where he had fixed it, throwing its light about that space.
I now ventured down to the scene of Duran's labors. There, completely spanning the stream, and reaching down to its bed, was a network of some sort of tough fibre, reinforced with slender bamboo. Near at hand, in a niche, lay, in a pile near a foot high, short sections of bamboo as thick as my arm. I took up one in my hand. Even prepared as I was for the discovery, its weight nevertheless startled me; it might have been solid brass.
"At last this smells of the gold mine!" I thought to myself. He would hardly miss one of these. And after hefting in my hand a half-dozen more, to satisfy myself that all were loaded, I retained that first bamboo cylinder and hurried to my exit.
As I passed out on all fours through that little waterfall, I got a fresh drenching. I waded on down the stream, and presently I heard a voice. It was Ray's; and he was over in our little camp.
It came into my mind to even up for some of the tricks Ray had played me. So I trilled out a low whistle, and when I heard them coming, I ducked myself in the creek. I held my breath for as long a space as I could manage, and then rose out of the water and made for the path, pretending not to see those petrified forms pedestaled on the creek bank. I went up the path and moved toward the camp, and when they hurried forward—"Hello!" I said. "Are you folks back already?"
"Say, now!" began Ray. "What in Sam Hill! Are you playing alligator, or mermaid, or—"
"Playing!" I said. "I've had no time for play." With one hand I was nursing the heavy cylinder that I now carried under my shirt.
"And what have you been doing?" demanded Norris, eyes big with perplexity.
And Carlos appeared no less mystified.
"I've been visiting the gold mine," I said simply.
Even Ray could not resist a look over to that spot in the stream where I had appeared to them out of the water.
"I thought I heard you whistle," he said.
"Dreaming some more," I suggested.
Norris got a long stick and began poking in the bottom of of the creek.
"Oh, not that way," I told him. "You have to say 'Open Sesame.'"
"Now look here, open up!" pressed Norris, dropping his pole.
"All right," I returned. And I produced the cylinder of bamboo.
"Well I'll—!" began Norris, hefting the thing. "Say, there's sure something heavy in that thing. Where'd you—?" And again his eyes turned quizzically toward the water.
"You know what I told you this morning," broke in Ray, taking the section of bamboo in his turn of scrutiny.
"Yes," assented Norris, "you said Wayne would have it all figured out—what became of Duran—by the time we came back. And that's one reason why I was ready to come back as soon as I found those two little colors."
And Norris showed me two little flakes of gold he'd washed out of the black sand in the creek-bed.
"But open up now, Wayne," he continued. "Tell us."
"Well you see," I began, "you, Norris, would have it that Duran had gone through the woods by the lianas; and you, Ray, insisted on it that he went through the air. Now none of us had thought of his going through the water—"
Instinctively we all looked into the creek, and there I discovered that the water had gone muddy again.
"Look there, see that!" I pointed. "You know how clear that water has always been. And now see how riled it is."
They looked intently as if expecting to see Duran appear out of the stream as I had seemed to do.
"Aw, say now, what are you giving us?" said Ray.
Norris and Carlos were already moving up toward the spot where the water poured out of the cliff. But before they were half the way, the stream cleared again.
And then I went on to tell them how I had discovered the hole behind the little cascade. And they were open-mouthed till I had completed my narration of Duran's activities in that cavern in the cliff.
"Well now, and to think—" began Norris. "Anyway that proves that the gold mine is on a continuation of the creek where I found the colors. That creek goes into the rocks up there and comes out into some kind of a basin, and then goes into the cliffs again and comes out here, like a train going through two tunnels."
"Brava!" cried Ray. "Now you ought to have told us that yesterday, and saved all that trouble."
Norris had to penetrate the little cascade and see the beginning of the passage into the cliff. When he came out, it was decided to wait for night and the coming of Captain Marat and Robert, with the lantern, before going into the cavern. For, since Duran was working by day he would doubtless sleep at night.
"Well," said Ray, when we got to the camp. "I want to see what makes that thing so heavy."
The cylinder of bamboo was plugged at the one end with a section of wood, the edges being sealed with raw pitch. We heated the thing at the fire, and then pried out the plug of wood.
"Hooray!" cried Norris and Ray together, as I poured the contents into a tin.
There was fine dust of gold mixed with many small nuggets.
"How many of those things did you say you saw in there?" asked Ray.
"I didn't count them," I returned. But I showed with my hands the dimensions of that space that was filled with them.
"And that's only the beginning," said Norris. "Say, Carlos, we've found your gold mine," he continued, seizing that black by the shoulder.
"Yes, we find him now," grinned Carlos. "Maybe I find where my father buried." And his face went serious again with the sadness I saw there, something that was doubtless hatred of Duran, his father's murderer, showed too. And I wondered—and conjectured—what was in Carlos' mind, and shuddered.
Marat and Robert came at last, in the dark, and they marvelled at the tale of success we had to tell them.
"But, Bob," said Ray, in the midst of the tale, "to think that Wayne would play a trick like that on me!—who nursed him through measles, mumps, chicken pox, cholera morbus, and a stubbed toe, and even fed him up, dozens of times, on all-day suckers!—to pop out of the water like that, and bow, and tell me he had been playing Jonah, and that the whale had just stopped behind to wipe his feet on the mat and would be in directly."
Everything, Captain Marat told us, was going well on thePearl; and Julian, good lad, was content to wait indefinitely, while we searched for the mine.
Fortunately, Robert and Marat had brought the lantern, and Robert had thought to bring along the electric flashlights; and most of us were supplied with matches, protected from the damp in tightly corked vials. We were soon at the little cascade, and crawling, one after the other, pushed through the curtain of water.
"I say," began Ray, sputtering, "I feel fit to enter the holy temple now."
The lantern was set alight, and I led the way up into the interior of the cliff. My comrades feasted their eyes on the accumulation of gold-laden bamboo cylinders; and then they must investigate that net in the stream.
"Now I'll say that's a clever stunt that skunk played here," declared Norris. "Instead of toting that gold around some difficult path, he makes the creek carry it straight down here near the outlet. And he ties pieces of some buoyant stuff to each of the cylinders to make it float."
"Here's what he used," said Robert, who had picked up a small block of cork that he thrust into the lantern light.
"Sure, that's it," said Norris, taking it into his fingers. "He got his cork out of a life-belt, and he makes his little cork bricks do duty time after time. There's no telling how much gold they've floated down here."
"And what do you suppose he does with it when he takes it out of here?" asked Ray.
"He take eet to thad little islan' down in Crow Bay," offered Captain Marat.
"He's planning to take over there all that he's got mined," added Robert, looking to me for confirmation of his surmise.
"Yes," I assented. "And then he'll likely clear out, and keep away from this region till we've all had time to forget him, and the coast is clear again."
"That's it," agreed Norris. "But now we're on his trail again, let's see the place it leads to." And he turned up that incline, within the cavern, down which I had seen Duran come during the day.
The climb was rather arduous, as the ascent was somewhat sudden, though it was smooth going under foot. We went single file, all following Norris, who was in the van, carrying the lantern.
When we had climbed to a height of perhaps a hundred feet, we came to an exit of the cavern. We could hear the rustling of the leaves of trees in the night breeze, and stars showed above. The path continued on up, apparently on a ledge; and we must finally have attained a height of three hundred feet, when something like a plateau presented to the left. We took the path of least resistance, picking our way carefully among rocks and scattered growth of trees. There was but the one way sufficiently free of obstacles, and on this road we moved without hitch or hindrance, till we finally brought up sharp at the edge of a precipice. Further progress appeared impossible, wanting wings, or some mechanical means of descent. It was a black abyss of unknown dimensions that lay at our feet.
"It's down yonder somewhere we'll find our gold mine," said Grant Norris. "And how to get down, that's——"
"It's no trick to get down," interrupted Ray, "but I'm thinking you'll be all out of the notion for the gold mine when you land there."
My mind full of the notion to discover a stone stairway, or some other medium for descent used by Duran, I moved to the right, where a clump of cedars showed, outlined against the starry sky. It was here my spirit of enterprise nearly cost me my life, and did deprive me of the use of my limb and the companionship of my comrades for the span of a day. I got in among the cedars, and threw a gleam from my flashlight about the ground, an impulse prompting me to risk the chance that it might be seen by Duran somewhere below.
In that flash of light my eyes got on a small rope, hanging from the limbs above me, the other end gone somewhere down the cliff below. I got my hand on the rope and gave a gentle pull. It was fast above. I made a bolder pull. It gave several feet; and that unexpected and sudden release lost me my balance, and I toppled off the brow of the precipice, clutching the rope for dear life. Wildly I sought to wind a leg about the rope, for it burned and tore my fingers beyond endurance. I must have fallen forty or fifty feet, when I struck a bit of a ledge; but my fall was broken by brush and vines, and it was these vines saved my life, for they held me in some of their tangle till I finally brought up with a thump at the bottom.
I was a good deal shocked, but strange though it seems, throughout that fall I had not experienced a moment's fear for my life. There was a sharp ache in my right ankle. I wiggled my toes, and satisfied myself that there were no bones broken, but a step or two convinced me I was to be a lame brother for a greater or less period.
With crawling, I managed to get myself away from the foot of the cliff a piece, and I found I was in a space of open ground. And I then began to think how I was to publish my predicament to my friends on the top of the cliff, some hundred, or perhaps two hundred feet above. I felt in my pocket for my flash-lamp, and it gave me much comfort, on pushing the slide, to discover that it had not been put out of commission by the fall.
At once I began to send flash after flash up there. Almost directly, I saw answering flashes aloft. And then I spelled out, in code, a brief story of my adventure; and I asked that they throw me some grub, and then to stay away till the next night, when they were to return for news of some route by which they might join me.
I waited perhaps three-quarters of an hour, when a flash of light showed above. I answered with my light. And thus came Ray's signal. "Here it comes," it said. And then in a little, something umbrella-like appeared, gently oscillating between me and the stars; in the next moment quietly collapsing on the ground, near by. I took it up; it was a parachute, made of four handkerchiefs hastily sewed together. To the strings was made fast a packet of provisions; biscuit, cheese, and a cloth bag holding a mess of codfish cooked with vegetables. And there was a note from Ray. I read:
"That was a smelly trick—toditchus like that. If you only knew what a nasty time of it we've been having to keep Norris from sliding down there after you! He said if you could do it he could, and so on. Now don't go poking your nose in any alligator's private affairs. Andwireussoon, and give usallthe news of thathades, down there."
"That was a smelly trick—toditchus like that. If you only knew what a nasty time of it we've been having to keep Norris from sliding down there after you! He said if you could do it he could, and so on. Now don't go poking your nose in any alligator's private affairs. Andwireussoon, and give usallthe news of thathades, down there."
It always irked Grant Norris to know that anyone was before him in any adventure, and I began to fear that in his impetuosity he might make a try for a descent, in which event he hadn't one chance in ten to come off with as little damage as I suffered. So I signalled, then, to make no move toward seeking a way down till I gave the word, and I gave a terse hint of the great danger in such an attempt.
It was a matter of course that my friends would keep someone on watch up there; and it would be Ray and Robert, turn about; for they two, only, knew the code sufficiently well to take my signals.
I now took up the packet of grub they'd thrown down to me, and began to crawl farther from the cliff. I thus came into a wood, and it was with great labor, and great stabs of pain in my foot, that I traversed some hundreds of yards of the forest, at last to come upon the bank of the rivulet. It could be no other than that stream that tumbled through the cavern to gush out of the rock to make the little cascade.
Soon now I was bathing my swelling foot in the cool water, and I did not take it out for above an hour, and then I bound the ankle with Ray's parachute; and I sat me beside the creek, my back to a palm, feeling less discomfort, and so was able to give clearer thought to our situation. There was, of course, not the least doubt that this sink I had fallen into, was that secret retreat of Duran, we'd been searching for, and the source of all his wealth. It was the very place discovered by Carlos' father, who in an evil hour had communicated his find to the perfidious Duran. I was equally convinced that this hidden vale was hedged in on the sides, and closed at the ends, by sheer cliffs; and that that rope which had both entrapped me and then helped to save me in my fall, was some part of Duran's means of ascent and descent. It should now be my first aim to discover the other component parts and the workings of that mechanism, to the end that I might put my friends in a safe way to join me.
To accomplish this it was only necessary that I have an eye on the place when Duran should find it in his way to go out of the place in daylight. And that was a thing he was altogether likely to do, if he were to have more business in the grotto.
My ankle was so much eased that I could have slept were it not for the myriad mosquitoes that attacked me, the while dinning their horrid song in my ear. As it was I got an occasional short snatch of rest with dozing till a dozen or more wee living stilettos got home in my flesh, and brought me awake and set me to thrashing about with my palm-fan again. And once or twice I jumped awake with a queer notion in my consciousness, and that was that one or more of those mosquitoes had learned to crow like a cock, for I seemed to have heard such music while my head nodded.
I was glad when the dawn broke and sent the greater part of my pests back to their lairs once more. I made a meal out of the packet of grub, getting my drink from the creek. And then I searched about in the wood, till I found a stick having a crotch to fit under my arm; and so I made me a wooden leg for my lame side. I hobbled over to the edge of the bit of forest, where I could command that place where I had suffered my fall.
I gazed to the cliff top and waved, hoping to attract any of my friends who should be on watch. But no living sign showed there. And then, finally, I set myself to watching for signs of the enemy.
It was a tedious wait, though one not so very long. Less than two hours had passed when I saw a figure come out of the brush back up the vale a piece. Though he was black of face, I saw it was Duran. I concealed myself more carefully in the undergrowth and watched his approach.
When he came opposite me, less than fifty yards away, I saw he carried a pack. It was doubtless no more nor less than another freight of the gold in bamboo. He passed on down the vale, looking neither to right nor left, never dreaming that any enemy eyes could win to a near view of any part of his retreat. As he disappeared, presently, round a portion of the wood, I had also a very good guess as to what was to be his employment down there, and had I had full use of both my nether limbs, I should have followed and witnessed his manœuvres. As it was I must content myself with picturing him in my mind's eye, at setting afloat in the little stream one richly-laden bamboo section after the other, and I could see them bobbing at the surface, as they moved in line to a hole in the rocky wall, and at last find lodgment against the reed net within the cavern.
My heart danced with anticipation, as I crouched there in the edge of the wood, awaiting the next scene of Duran's performance. And this, too, I knew as well as if I held a printed "synopsis" in my hand.
It was not without some tremor of apprehension, too, that I at last beheld the figure of Duran appear again on the back trail, for I was not at all sure that I had not left some traces of that violent entry of mine into this sunken pasture. And sure enough, when he arrived at the place, he came to a stand, and gazed on the torn vines and the rocky debris that had accompanied me down that cliff-side. His hand went up to his ear in that characteristic manner of his. And my breath came hard, in the more than half dread that he should discover my trail leading here to the wood.
It was the accident to my ankle that saved me, for having crawled away on hands and knees, I had left no tell-tale prints of shoes in the sod. He must have concluded that it was a bit of landslide had disturbed the growth, for he turned from his inspection finally with an air of unconcern.
Duran moved over to the left a piece, and then began to mount the cliff-side on a gently sloping ledge, which came to an end among the vines I had so violently disarranged. Here he got his hand on that little rope by which I had made a portion of my descent. For some time he carried on a species of struggle with the line. (Doubtless I had disarranged that thing too.) But at last things seemed to have come right; he began to pay out the line; and then I could see something unfold and drop down the cliff-side, which turned out to be some form of rope ladder. As I afterward learned, his halliard worked through a pulley bent on a limb of those cedars aloft, and was strung in and out among the rounds of the ladder, to be tied to the bottom round. When he was abroad, rope ladder, halliard and all was stowed up there; when he was home in this hidden vale, the ladder was pulled aloft, and the halliard made fast in hiding among the vines. The reason for this latter precaution I was yet to learn.
Directly, Duran was climbing above by his ladder, and then I saw his form disappear amongst those cedars on the cliff-top. And now he was gone to the cavern in the cliff to recover, and stow away, that new lading of gold. I caught myself wondering now what might be the employment of my friends, whether any of them might be in any part of Duran's path. And I hoped that they would be very careful not to allow him sight of them; for we were not yet ready to give him warning that we were so close on his trail. It was not merely to discover the concealed mine that we were putting ourselves to so much trouble, and danger as well, but we had a mind to unearth so much as might be possible of the golden product, which for so many years had been filched, piecemeal, from that deposit that belonged, by miner's right of discovery, to the Brill family. To give Duran notice of our presence would manifestly but serve to place obstacles in our way.
Five minutes after Duran had passed out of view, I hobbled on my crutch out a little into the open again, once more hoping to attract any one of my crowd who might be stationed up there on the cliff. And sure enough, I saw the head and hand of someone—it must be either Robert or Ray.
I forthwith began with my signalling. The facility shown in the responses, convinced me that it was Ray I conversed with. I told him of the rope ladder and the manner of its disposition, as near as I had been able to judge. Then I hinted the importance of some of our party following Duran, if he should go off with a burden of treasure this coming night. I ended the exchange with a caution to get back in hiding against the return of Duran, and discovery.
I crawled back into the cover of the wood again. When Duran finally came and had got down to the ledge, and with his hands on the halliard was hauling the ladder up to its nest in the firs, I saw the figure of Ray up there, doubtless watching the working of the rope mechanism. Duran went down that piece of sloping ledge, and marched off up the vale, the way he had come when I first set eyes on him that morning.
It was well past noon when he made his appearance again, and passed on down the vale with another burden on his back. He made a second trip with a second load before climbing up the cliff on his ladder. And I had another few words in code with Ray, while Duran was gone to the grotto.
For that day, it was the last journeying of Duran over that route, for when at last he went up the vale again, no more was seen of him in daylight. I hobbled along after, in time, keeping within the edge of the wood which flanked the stream. I had got myself some two hundred yards on the way, when the ground rose to accommodate a ridge of rock that went all the way across the vale, from the sheer and beetling crags of one side to those of the other. The stream broke, tumbling partly through, and partly over this ridge; and the country above was a bit more elevated than that part of this out of the world region with which I had already made some little acquaintance. The growth consisted of palms, live oaks, tree ferns, and other plants, tropical, for which I had no name.