Mr. Fortescue Part 39

"And the long boat?"

"We lost each other in the night, and, having no water, and only a tin of biscuits, Bill and me made straight for the coast, and landed in the little cove down below this morning. All we have is what we stand up in.

And we shall feel much obliged if you will kindly give us food and shelter until such time as we can get away."

On this I a.s.sured Mr. Kidd that I was sorry for their misfortune, and would gladly find them food and lodging, and whatever else they might require, but as for getting away, I did not see how that was possible, unless by sea, and in their own dinghy.

"We are very grateful for your kindness, sir; but I don't think we should much like to make another voyage in the dinghy."

"She ain't seaworthy," growled Yawl, "you've to bale all the time, and if it came on to blow she'd turn turtle in half a minute."

"May be some vessel will be touching here, sir," suggested Kidd.

"Vessels never do touch here, except to be dashed in pieces against the rocks."

"Well, I suppose we shall have to wait till a chance happens out. This seems a nice place, and we are in no hurry, if you aren't."

So the two castaways became my guests; and if they waited to be taken off by a pa.s.sing ship they were likely to remain my guests as long as they lived.

For a few days they rambled about the place with their hands in their pockets and cigars (with which I supplied them liberally) in their mouths.

But after a while time began to hang heavy on their hands, and one day they came to me with a proposal.

"We are tired of doing nothing, Mr. Fortescue," said Kidd.

"It is the hardest work I ever put my hand to, and not a grog-shop in the place," interposed Yawl.

"Hold your jaw, Bill, and let me say my say out. We are tired of doing nothing, and if you like we will build you a sloop."

"A sloop! To go away in, I suppose?"

"That is as you please, sir. Anyhow, a sloop, say of fifteen or twenty tons, would be very useful. You might take a sail with your lady now and again, and explore the coast. Yawl has been both ship's carpenter and bo'son--he'll boss the job; and I'm a very fair amateur cabinet-maker. If you want anything in that line doing at your house, sir, I shall be glad to do it for you."

The project pleased me; an occasional cruise would be an agreeable diversion, and I a.s.sented to Kidd's proposal without hesitation. There was as much wreckage lying on the cliff as would build a man-of-war, and a small cove at the foot of the oasis where the sloop could lie safely at anchor.

So the work was taken in hand, some of my own people helping, and after several months' labor the Angela, as I proposed to call her, was launched.

She had a comfortable little cabin and so soon as she was masted and rigged would be ready for sea.

In the mean time I asked Kidd to superintend some alterations I was making at Alta Vista, and among other things construct larger cabinets for my mineral and entomological specimens. He did the work quite to my satisfaction, but before it was well finished I made a portentous discovery--several of my diamonds were missing. There could be no doubt about it, for I knew the number to a nicety, and had counted them over and over again. Neither could there be any doubt that Kidd was the thief.

Besides my wife, myself, and one or two of our servants, no one else had been in the room; and our own people would not have taken the trouble to pick up a diamond from the ground, much less steal one from my house.

My first impulse was to accuse Kidd of the theft and have him searched.

And then I reflected that I was almost as much to blame as himself.

a.s.suming that he knew something of the value of precious stones, I had exposed him to temptation by leaving so many and of so great value in an open drawer. He might well suppose that I set no store by them, and that half a dozen or so would never be missed. So I decided to keep silence for the present and keep a watch on Mr. Kidd's movements. It might be that he and Yawl were thinking to steal a march on me and sail away secretly with the sloop, and perhaps something else. They had both struck up rather close friendships with native women.

But as I did not want to lose any more of my diamonds, and there was no place at Alta Vista where they would be safe so long as Kidd was on the premises, I put them in a bag in the inside pocket of a quilted vest which I always wore on my mountain excursions, my intention being to take them on the following day down to San Cristobal and bestow them in a secure hiding-place.

I little knew that I should never see San Cristobal again.

CHAPTER x.x.x.

THE QUENCHING OF QUIPAI.

The cottage at Alta Vista had expanded little by little into a long, single storied flat-roofed house, shaded by palm-trees and set in a fair garden, which looked all the brighter from its contrast with the brown and herbless hill-sides that uprose around it.

In the after part of the day on which I discovered the theft, Angela and myself were sitting under the veranda, which fronted the house and commanded a view of the great reservoir, the oasis and the ocean. She was reading aloud a favorite chapter in "Don Quixote," one of the few books we possessed. I was smoking.

Angela read well; her p.r.o.nunciation of Spanish was faultless, and I always took particular pleasure in hearing her read the idiomatic Castilian of Cervantes. Nevertheless, my mind wandered; and, try as I might, I could not help thinking more of the theft of the diamonds than the doughty deeds of the Don and the shrewd sayings of Sancho Panza. Not that the loss gave me serious concern. A few stones more or less made no great difference, and I should probably never turn to account those I had. But the incident revived suspicions as to the good faith of the two castaways, which had been long floating vaguely in my mind. From the first I had rather doubted the account they gave of themselves. And Kidd! I had never much liked him; he had a hard inscrutable face, and unless I greatly misjudged him was capable of bolder enterprises than petty larceny. He was just the man to steal secretly away and return with a horde of unscrupulous treasure-seekers, for he knew now that there were diamonds in the neighborhood, and he must have heard that we had found gold and silver ornaments and vessels in the old cemetery--

"_Dios mio!_ What is that?" exclaimed Angela, dropping her book and springing to her feet, an example which I instantly followed, for the earth was moving under us, and there fell on our ears, for the first time, the dread sound of subterranean thunder.

"An earthquake!"

But the alarm was only momentary. In less time than it takes to tell the trembling ceased and the thunder died away.

"Only a slight shock, after all," I said, "and I hope we shall have no more. However, it is just as well to be prepared. I will have the mules got out of the stable; and if there is anything inside you particularly want you had better fetch it. I will join you in the garden presently."

As I pa.s.sed through the house I saw Kidd coming out of the room where I kept my specimens.

"What are you doing there?" I asked him, sharply.

"I went for a tool I left there" (holding up a chisel). "Did you feel the shock?"

"Yes, and there may be another. Tell Maximiliano to get the mules out."

"If he has been after the diamonds," I thought, "he must know that I have taken them away. I had better make sure of them." And with that I stepped into my room, put on my quilted jacket, and armed myself with a small hatchet and a broad-bladed, highly tempered knife, given to me by the abbe, which served both as a dagger and a _machete_.

When I had seen the mules safely tethered, and warned the servants and others to run into the open if there should be another shock, I returned to Angela, who had resumed her seat in the veranda.

"Equipped for the mountains! Where away now, _caro mio_?" she said, regarding me with some surprise.

"Nowhere. At any rate, I have no present intention of running away. I have put on my jacket because of these diamonds, and brought my hatchet and hunting-knife because, if the house collapses, I should not be able to get them at the very time they would be the most required."

"If the house collapses! You think, then, we are going to have a bad earthquake?"

"It is possible. This is an earthquake country; there has been nothing more serious than a slight trembling since long before the abbe died; and I have a feeling that something more serious is about to happen.

Underground thunder is always an ominous symptom.--Ah! There it is again.

Run into the garden. I will bring the chairs and wraps."

The house being timber built and one storied, I had little fear that it would collapse; but anything may happen in an earthquake, and in the garden we were safe from anything short of the ground on which we stood actually gaping or slipping bodily down the mountain-side.

The second shock was followed by a third, more violent than either of its predecessors. The earth trembled and heaved so that we could scarcely stand. The underground thunder became louder and continuous and, what was even more appalling, we could distinctly see the mountain-tops move and shake, as if they were going to fall and overwhelm us.

But even this shock pa.s.sed off without doing any material mischief, and I was beginning to think the worst was over when one of the servants drew my attention to the great reservoir. It smoked and though there was no wind the water was white with foam and running over the banks.

This went on several minutes, and then the water, as if yielding to some irresistible force, left the sides, and there shot out of it a gigantic jet nearly as thick as the crater was wide and hundreds of feet high. It broke in the form of a rose and fell in a fine spray, which the setting sun hued with all the colors of the rainbow.