Dead Man's Rock Part 44

The morrow! Somehow my own horizon did not stretch as far: it was bounded by to-night. Before to-morrow one of us two should be a dead man; perhaps both. So best: the world with its loves and hatreds would end to-night. So westward we sped in the grey light beneath which the snowy fields gleamed unnaturally--westward while the sun above showed only as a crimson ball, an orb of blood, travelling westward too. At Bristol it glared through a murky veil of smoke, at Exeter and through the frozen pastures and leafless woodlands of Devon dropped swiftly towards my goal, beckoning with blood-stained hand across the sky. Past the angry sea we tore, and then again into the whitened fields now growing dim in the twilight. In the carriage the talk was unceasing--talk of home, of expectant friends, of Christmas meetings and festivities. Every station was thronged, and many a happy welcome I witnessed as I sat there with no friend but hate. Friends! What had I to do with such? I had a friend once, but he was dead. Friend, parents, love--all dead by one man's hand, and he--But a little while now; but a little while!

We reached Plymouth shortly after five--the train being late--and here the crowd in the carriages grew greater. It was dark, but the moon was not yet up--the full moon by which the treasure was to be sought. How slowly the train dragged through Cornwall! It would be eight before we reached Penryn, and low water was at half-past eleven. Should we be in time?

The snow had ceased to fall: a clear north-east wind had chased the clouds from heaven, and scarcely had we pa.s.sed Saltash before a silver rim came slowly rising above the black woods on the river's opposite bank. Clear into the frosty night it rose, and I fell to wondering savagely with what thoughts Colliver saluted it.

It was already half-past eight as we changed our train at Truro, and here again more time was wasted. Upon the platform I saw him again.

He was heavily cloaked and m.u.f.fled now, for it was freezing hard; but beneath the low brim of his hat I saw the deep, black eyes gleaming with impatience. So at last once more we started.

"Penryn!"

I looked at my watch. It was nine o'clock; more than an hour and a half late. By the light from the carriage window I saw him step out into the shadow of the platform. I followed. Here also was a large crowd bound for Helston, and the coach that waited outside was quickly thronged inside and out. Colliver was outside the station in a moment, and in another had jumped into a carriage waiting there with two horses, and was gone up the hill beneath the shadow of the bridge. In my folly I had forgotten that he might have telegraphed for horses to meet him. However, the coach was fast and I could post from Helston. I clambered up to the top, where for want of a better seat I propped myself up on a pile of luggage, and waited whilst box after box, amid vociferous cursing, was piled up beside me.

At length, just as I was beginning to despair of ever starting at all, with a few final curses directed at the bystanders generally, the driver mounted the box, shook his reins, and we were off.

The load was so heavy that at first five horses were used, but we left one with his postillion at the top of the hill and swung down at a canter into the level country. The snow lay fairly deep, and the horses' hoofs were soundless as we plunged through the crisp and tingling air. The wind raced past me as I sat perched on my rickety seat, swaying wildly with every lurch of the coach. With every gust I seemed to drink in fresh strength and felt the very motion and swiftness enter into my blood. Across the white waste we tore, up a stiff ascent and down across the moorland again--still westward; and now across the stretches of the moor I could catch the strong scent of the sea upon the wind. Along the level we sped, silent and swift beneath the moon. Here a white house by the roadside glimmered out and was gone; there a mine-chimney shot up against the sky and faded back again. We were going now at a gallop, and from my perch I could see the yellow light of the lamps on the sweating necks of the leaders.

There was a company of sailors with me on the coach-top--smoking, talking, and shouting. Once or twice one of them would address a word or two to me, but got scanty answers. I was looking intently along the road for a sign of Colliver's carriage. He must have ordered good horses, for I saw no sign of him as yet. Stay! As we swept round a sharp corner and swung on to the straight road again, I thought I spied far in front a black object moving on the universal white. Yes, it must be he: and again on the wings of the wind I heard the call, "To-night! to-night! Kill him! kill him! kill--"

Crash! With a heavy and sickening lurch sideways, the coach hung for an instant, tottered, and then plunged over on its side, flinging me clear of the luggage which pounded and rattled after. As I struggled to my feet, half dazed, I saw a confused medley of struggling horses, frightened pa.s.sengers and scattered boxes. Collecting my senses I rushed to help those inside the coach and then amid the moaning, cursing and general dismay, sought out my bundle, grasped it tightly and set off at a run down the heavy road. I could wait now for no man.

Panting, spent, my sore limbs weighted with snow, I gained the top of the hill and plunged down the steep street into Helston. There, at "the Angel" I got a post-chaise and pair, and set off once more.

At first, seeing my dress and wondering what a sailor could want with post-chaises at that hour, they demurred, but the money quickly persuaded them. They told me also that a gentleman had changed horses there about half an hour before and gone towards the Lizard, after borrowing a pickaxe and spade. Half an hour: should I yet be in time?

I leant back in the chaise and pondered. I knew by heart the shortest cuts across the downs. When I reached them I would stop the carriage and take to my feet once more. The fresh horses were travelling fast, and as we drew near the sea I dimly noted a hundred familiar landmarks, and in each a fresh memory of Tom.

How affectionately we had taken leave of them, one by one, on our journey to London! Now each seemed to cry, "What have you done with your friend?" This was my home-coming.

At the beginning of the downs I stopped the carriage, paid and dismissed the astonished post-boy and started off alone at a swinging trot across the snow. Southward hung the white moon, now high in heaven. It must be almost time. Along the old track I ran, still clutching my bundle, over the frozen ruts, stumbling, slipping, but with set teeth and straining muscles, skirted the hill above Polkimbra with just a glimpse of the cottage roofs shining in the hollow below, and raced along the cliffs towards Lantrig. I guessed that Colliver would come across Polkimbra Beach, so had determined to approach the rock from the northern side, over Ready-Money Cove.

Lantrig, my old home, was merrily lit up this Christmas Eve, and the sight of it gave me one swift, sharp pang of anguish as I stole cautiously downwards to the sands. At the cliff's foot I paused and looked across the Cove.

Sable and gloomy as ever, Dead Man's Rock soared up against the moon, the grim reality of that dark shadow which had lain upon all my life. From it had my hate started; to it was I now at the last returning. There it stood, the stern warder of that treasure for which my grandfather had sold his soul, my father had given his life, and I had lost all that made both life and soul worth having.

"Blood shall be their inheritance, and Fire their portion for ever."

The curse had lain upon us all.

Creeping along the shadow, I crossed the little Cove and peered through the archway on to Polkimbra Sands, now sparkling in the moonlight.

Not a soul in sight! As far as eye could see the beach was utterly deserted and peaceful. I stepped down to a small pool, left by the receding tide in the rock's shadow, removed my false hair and beard, and carefully washed away all traces of paint from my face.

This done, I slipped off my shoes and holding them with the bundle in my right hand, began softly and carefully to ascend the rock.

I gained the first ledge; crept out along it as far as the ring mentioned on the clasp, and then began to climb again. This needed care, for the ascent on the north side was harder at first than on the other, and I could use but one hand with ease. Slowly, however, and with effort I pulled myself up and then stole out towards the face until I could command a view of Polkimbra Beach. Still I could see n.o.body, only the lights of the little church-town twinkling across the beach and, far beyond, the shadowy cliffs of Kynance.

I pulled out my watch. It was close on half-past eleven, the hour of dead low water.

As I looked up again I thought I saw a speck approaching over the sands. Yes, I was not mistaken. I set my teeth and crouched down nearer to the rock. Over the sands, beneath the shadow of the cliffs he came, and as he drew nearer, I saw that he carried something on his shoulder, doubtless the spade and pickaxe. A moment more and he turned to see that no one was following. As he did so, the moon shone full in his face, and I saw, stripped now of all disguises, the features of my enemy.

I opened the tin box and took out my knife. I had caused the thin sharp blade, found in my dead father's heart, to be fitted to a horn handle into which it shut with an ordinary spring-clasp. As I opened it, the moonlight glittered down the steel and lit up the letters "Ricordati."

Still in the shadow, he crept down by the rock, and once more looked about him. No single soul was abroad at that hour to see; none but the witness crouching there above. I gripped the knife tighter as he disappeared beneath the ledge on which I hung.

A low curse or two, and then silence. I held my breath and waited.

Presently he reappeared, with compa.s.s in one hand and measuring-tape in the other, and stood there for a moment looking about him.

Still I waited.

About forty feet from the breakers now crisply splashing on the sand, Dead Man's Rock suddenly ended on the southern side in a thin black ridge that broke off with a drop of some ten feet. This ridge was, of course, covered at high water, and upon it the _Belle Fortune_ had doubtless struck before she reeled back and settled in deep water.

This was the "south point" mentioned on the clasp. Fixing his compa.s.s carefully, he drew out the tape, and slowly began to measure towards the north-west. "End South Point, 27 feet," I remembered that the clasp said. He measured it out to the end, and then, digging with his heel a small hole in the sand, began to walk back towards the rock, this time to the north side. And still I waited.

Again I could hear him searching for the mark--an old iron ring, once used for mooring boats--and cursing because he could not find it.

After a minute or two, however, he came into sight again, drawing his line now straight out from the cliff, due west. He was very slow, and every now and then, as he bent over his task, would look swiftly about him with a hunted air, and then set to work again. Still there was no sight but the round moon overhead, the sparkling stretch of sand, and the gleam of the waves as they broke in curving lines of silver: no sound but the sigh of the night breeze.

Apparently his measurements were successful, for the tape led him once more to the hole he had marked in the sand. He paused for a moment or two, drew out the clasp, which shot out a sudden gleam as he turned it in his hand, and consulted it carefully. Presumably satisfied, he walked back to the rock to fetch his tools. And still I crouched, waiting, with knife in hand.

Arrived once more at the point where the two lines met, he threw a hasty glance around, and began to dig rapidly. He faced the sea now, and had his back turned to me, so that I could straighten myself up, and watch at greater ease. He dug rapidly, and the pit, as his spade threw out heap after heap of soft sand, grew quickly bigger.

If treasure really lay there, it would soon be disclosed.

Presently I heard his spade strike against something hard. Surely he had not yet dug deeply enough. The clasp had said "four feet six inches," and the pit could not yet be more than three feet in depth.

Colliver bent down and drew something out, then examined it intently.

As I strained forward to look, he half turned, and I saw between his hands--a human skull. Whose? Doubtless, some victim's of those many that went down in the _Belle Fortune_; or perhaps the skull of John Railton, sunk here above the treasure to gain which he had taken the lives of other men and lost in the end his own. It was a grisly thought, but apparently troubled Colliver little, for with a jerk of his arm he sent it bowling down the sands towards the breakers.

A bound or two, a splash, and it was swallowed up once more by the insatiate sea.

With this he fell to digging anew, and I to watching. For a full twenty minutes he laboured, flinging out the sand to right and left, and every now and then stopping for a moment to measure his progress.

By this time, I judged, he must have dug below the depth pointed out upon the clasp, for once or twice he drew it out and paused in his work to consult it.

He was just resuming, after one of these rests, when his spade grated against something. He bent low to examine it, and then began to shovel out the sand with inconceivable rapidity.

The treasure was found!

Like a madman he worked: so that even from where I stood I could hear his breath coming hard and fast. At length, with one last glance around, he knelt down and disappeared from my view. My time was come.

Knife in hand, I softly clambered down the south side of the rock, and dropped upon the sand.

The pit lay rather to the north, so that by creeping behind the ridge on the south side I could get close up to him un.o.bserved, even should he look. But he was absorbed now in his prize, so that I stole noiselessly out across the strip of sand between us until within about ten feet of him; then, on hands and knees, I crawled and pulled myself to the trench's lip and peered over.

There, below me, within grasp, he sat, his back still turned towards me. The moon was full in front, so that it cast no shadow of me across him. There he sat, and in front of him lay, imbedded in the sand, a huge iron chest, bound round with a broad band of iron, and secured with an enormous padlock. On the rusty top I could even trace the rudely-cut initials A. T.

I held my breath as he drew from his pocket my grandfather's key and inserted it in the lock, after first carefully clearing away the sand. The stubborn lock creaked heavily as at last and with difficulty he managed to turn the key. And still I knelt above him, knife in hand.

Then, with a long, shuddering sigh, he lifted and threw back the groaning lid. We both gazed, and as we gazed were well-nigh blinded.

For this is what we saw:--

At first, only a blaze of darting rays that beneath the moon gleamed, sparkled and shot out a myriad scintillations of colour--red, violet, orange, green and deepest crimson. Then by degrees I saw that all these flashing hues came from one jumbled heap of gems--some large, some small, but together in value beyond a king's ransom.

I caught my breath and looked again. Diamonds, rubies, sapphires, amethysts, opals, emeralds, turquoises, and innumerable other stones lay thus roughly heaped together and glittering as though for joy to see the light of heaven once more. Some polished, some uncut, some strung on necklaces and chains, others gleaming in rings and bracelets and barbaric ornaments; there they lay--wealth beyond the hope of man, the dreams of princes.

The chest measured some five feet by three, and these jewels evidently lay in a kind of sunken drawer, or tray, of iron. In the corner of this was a small s.p.a.ce of about four inches square, covered with an iron lid. As we gazed with straining eyes, Colliver drew one more long sigh of satisfied avarice, and lifted this smaller lid.

Instantly a full rich flood of crimson light welled up, serene and glorious, with luminous shafts of splendour, that, as we looked, met and concentred in one glowing heart of flame--met in one translucent, ineffable depth of purple-red. Calm and radiant it lay there, as though no curse lay in its deep hollows, no pa.s.sion had ever fed its flames with blood; stronger than the centuries, imperishably and triumphantly cruel--the Great Ruby of Ceylon!

With a short gasp of delight, Colliver was stretching out his hand towards it, when I laid mine heavily on his shoulder, then sprang to my feet. My waiting was over.

He gave one start of uttermost terror, leapt to his feet, and in an instant was facing me. Already his knife was half out of his waist-band; already he had taken half a leap forwards, when he saw me standing there above him.