As It Was in the Beginning Part 33

CHAPTER XXIX

AN INTERRUPTED DIVERSION

Not only had Grenville to a small extent succeeded in smudging the outside terminal of the pa.s.sage discovered through the rock, but also Elaine had discovered the smoke so strangely ascending in the air.

She had been thoroughly mystified by the singular sight, but had crept about the place inquiringly, expecting perhaps a volcano to begin some destructive demonstration. She had likewise fancied that rumbling sounds proceeded from somewhere in the "mountain." The entire phenomenon had finally ceased, however, greatly to her relief.

On a narrow ledge, some four feet down from the terrace-level, and directly beneath the extensive crack that had once been formed in the ma.s.sive upheaval of tufa, the broken fragments that blocked the subterranean hallway were wedged to their places in the wall. The place was sunk in a shallow niche that was screened by the trees of the jungle.

This ledge Grenville not only promptly rendered accessible, but, after the opening had once been cleared, he fashioned a door of the lightest construction, that still resembled solid rock, with which to conceal it again.

His door was of wattle, plastered with clay, which he then thrust full of tufa fragments. These, when the substance presently hardened, were found to be substantially cemented to the framework. The clay itself dried yellowish gray and could hardly be distinguished from the rock.

He was thus enabled to plaster over all the c.h.i.n.ks and other ragged openings which the door could not completely cover. When the job was done, not the faintest suspicion of anything unusual about the niche could the keenest eye have discovered. Grenville was none the less glad, however, that the tallest foliage of the near-by growth still further concealed the spot.

He was toiling no less feverishly than before, thankful each day that the tidal wailing still continued and anxiously watching the round of the purple horizon for the cut of a rakish sail.

Despite the fact that several days had pa.s.sed since the pa.s.sage was discovered, he had made no effort to return to the treasure crypt below. The communicating gallery was too important to be neglected.

He had spent long hours in its upper reaches, clearing the rock from underfoot, to make its use entirely practical for Elaine and himself in all conditions, either with or without some needed burden.

He had managed to widen the narrowest squeeze by chipping the rock with his chisel. He had carefully rearranged the broken fragments down where the corridor entered, or branched from, the cavern, and there provided a second of his wattle doors, considerably heavier than the first and more artfully studded with stone. This he had made to be adjusted from without or within the pa.s.sage it concealed. From within it could also be barred in place with a heavy billet of the toughest wood his brazen tools would shape.

This late afternoon, when the last of his jugs had been taken down and concealed by the spring, all ready for filling and carrying back the moment occasion should arise, Grenville felt that, save for a meat supply, he had made nearly every possible provision against attack and siege.

The day was practically spent. He glanced at the sun. Undecided between an hour of hunting with his bow and a quick excursion down to the crypt of treasure, he remembered certain ornaments Elaine might wear and decided to go for the gold and gleaming jewels. They had meat for dinner, already being roasted in a sandpit with several newly gathered yams.

Elaine, with a basket of tempting fruits, returned to the terrace from the thicket before he was ready for his trip. The fact that he bore a torch and basket aroused no query in her mind, so frequently had he made his underground excursions.

He left the door at the gallery entrance open and made an easy descent.

Glad to be independent of both the tide and his raft, he paused when he came to the main cave's ragged opening, for a moment thoroughly startled.

The weird tidal wail had just commenced, so close at hand it echoed all through the place. It had never before occurred while he was actually in the cavern. Immediately rendered curious to see whence and how it was produced, he hastened down the outside ledge, completely baffled by the intermingled reverberations.

He had barely concentrated his attention on a certain hole in the rock, below the tidal level, when the last uncanny moan seemed choked to a horrible gurgle which could not be renewed.

The thing had never before been so brief or so abruptly ended. Its brevity jarred upon him no less unpleasantly than its prolongation had done when he and Elaine first arrived upon the island. As if the occurrence sounded a warning not to be mistaken, he proceeded at once within the cave.

His mind was filled with thoughts of native visitors, who might only be waiting for this natural phenomenon to cease before they came swarming across the sea, perhaps to search and loot this very cavern. He reflected they might have searched it before, and had either been baffled by the water it formerly contained or had missed the niche his accidental interest had discovered.

Though he thought that less than half the wall he had previously a.s.saulted could now remain in the arch of the treasure cavern, yet fully a half-hour's labor was essential before he could worm his way inside where the gold and the stones dully glittered. He cleared out a few more stones to admit his carrying basket.

A thrill went through him as he laid his hands upon the priceless treasures disposed in the tomblike place. Notwithstanding the fact the cave had been scaled, almost hermetically, a coating of thin, impalpable dust veiled everything he touched. The things had undoubtedly been here years on years, till perhaps tradition only still affirmed their existence, while old fanatics might, for generations, have persisted in tattooing that "map" on some victim's breast for the cavern's living concealment and the faithful preservation of its contents.

The gold was all wrought in ornaments--like anklets, bracelets, amulets, and girdles. It had all been crudely pounded into shape from virgin metal. There were pieces of odd, unfamiliar shape, the uses for which could hardly be conjectured. It was all of it heavy and ma.s.sive, many pieces crudely resembling c.u.mbrous seals with mystic devices stamped on either side.

Of the stones--comprising princ.i.p.ally diamonds, rubies, and sapphires--many were still uncut, while others, by the handful, were crudely mounted in hammered gold to form girdle after girdle. A crown, exhibiting nothing of the jeweler's modern or even ancient craft, was none the less of extraordinary intrinsic value for the heft of gold that formed its band and the huge stones thrust rudely through its substance.

Despite his impatience to collect the lot in his basket and depart the place, Grenville remained there inactively, absorbed in a study of this piece or that, to identify, if possible, the curious workmanship. That much, if not all, the gold work argued craftsmen of the African wilds he felt convinced. But the stones could have come from India only, he was sure, either through tribute or plundering, and the latter was by far the more likely method.

He had heard from one of his oldest friends, who was likewise the best informed of all his military acquaintances, that the West Coast Africans still conceal vast treasures of kings or chiefs deceased, such buried wealth to be utilized by former possessors in some life beyond the grave. That this h.o.a.rd, by some strange and unusual chance, had resulted from that barbaric practice he felt there could be no doubt.

The fact it was hundreds of miles from Africa argued nothing against the theory, since either by imitation or as a result of far excursions over sea the present collection could have landed here in this remarkably hidden and "spirit"-guarded cave, where even the hardiest, cleverest seeker of fortune would never be likely to search.

He was still engaged, like some merely scientific archeologist, in examining piece after piece of the metal, or one after another of the stones, which were cut as never he had seen them before, when he fancied some weird, faint echo called his name.

With pounds of the trinkets in his hands, he returned to the broken heap of stones he had lately overthrown. Out of the ringing silence of the larger cave came a distant wisp of sound----

He knew that Elaine was calling from somewhere in the pa.s.sage.

It was only the work of a moment to catch up his basket and place in its hold the small stone sarcophagi of jewels. Carelessly then, on top of these, he swept in the ornaments of gold. They fell, dully ringing, from the shelves, where perhaps they had lain for above a century--a heterogeneous collection which he was sorry to disturb till the various positions in which they had been disposed could be noted and remembered.

He was certain no less than a hundredweight of the treasure taxed his strength when he presently lifted his burden from the place and bore it across the larger chamber.

Elaine was calling again. Her voice was clearer in the pa.s.sage.

Grenville came there, panting from his effort, with his dusty and useless riches. He answered at once on entering the gallery, where he paused to close and secure his concealing door.

"Please come!" was the cry, in response to his shout, like an unreal voice from the blackness of a tomb. "They're here! They're close to the island!"

With a short but inarticulate e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n, Grenville once more took up his basket, blundered forward with it a few feet only, and set it down against the wall. Why he had paused to bother with it, for a moment he did not understand. With his torch flaring back, in his greater speed, he plunged along and up the pa.s.sage.

Around the first of the sharper angles he came upon Elaine. She had brought no torch, in her hurry to sound the alarm, but had groped her way downward through the Stygian blackness of the gallery, calling time after time as the gloom rendered up no reply.

Her eyes were dilated wildly, from her efforts to see in the dark. Her face seemed intensely white against the impenetrable ebon.

"Oh, I thought you'd never come!" she said, as Sidney approached with his light. "They were almost up to the island before I dreamed such a thing could be! The tree must have hidden the sail!"

Grenville placed the torch in her hand and urged her upward before him.

They presently emerged on the ledge.

He had no more than crept to the terrace-edge and studied the craft below on the sea than he came once more to Elaine.

"No use in striking our flag," he said. "They've seen it. We'll fly it till the end."

CHAPTER x.x.x

REVEALING AN INTENT

The native ship, that had sailed un.o.bserved within almost hailing distance of the headland, was not the one that had come to the island before. It was larger. Six men at least comprised its crew, a villainous-looking collection.

Grenville had seen them close at hand, as they pa.s.sed by the entrance to the cave. That they contemplated an immediate landing seemed probable, making as they were towards the crescent indentation along by the estuary's mouth.

Sidney had lost little time in vain regrets for the hour spent uselessly below. He had gone at once to the gallery and hidden its entrance with the door. He had caught up Elaine's well-finished nets and the pole for a yoke she had been working to complete when the visitors' sail was discovered and, only pausing to make certain he could not be seen, went at once to the spring for extra jugs of water.

The sun was already dipping redly in its bath when he brought his first burden to the terrace. He paused to observe the maneuvers of the ship, now coming about in the sunset breeze, just off the tiny inlet where his catamaran was moored.

The queer sharp sail was reefed while he was watching. He saw three men heave overboard an anchor, which promptly sounded the shallow depths where the strange craft presently swung.