The Coming Wave Part 13

"When Harvey Barth looked behind him, he could not see the coffin; and of course I couldn't see it when I came this way. I suppose it only shows itself, like the man's head near the light-house, from one particular point. The head can only be made out from a boat, when it ranges between the island and the light, one way, and in line with the dead tree and Jones's barn on the north sh.o.r.e, the other way. Twenty feet from this position, nothing that looks like a head can be seen.

Probably this coffin works by the same rule. If it don't, it is strange that I have never noticed it. Now I will walk in the direction that Harvey Barth did, and if there is any coffin here I shall see it."

The bright flashes of lightning still illuminated the cliffs, as Leopold walked slowly towards the Hole in the Wall, scrutinizing the rocks with the utmost care. By the rising of the tide his line of march was now within ten feet of the cliff, and the beach was of about the same width as when the shipwrecked party had sought a refuge upon it; but the sea was comparatively calm, and there was no peril on its smooth sands.

Leopold had gone about one third of the length of the beach, when his eye rested upon a formation in the cliff, which, as the lightning played upon it, a.s.sured him he had found what he sought. The view he had obtained of it was only for an instant. He halted, waiting again till the lightning again, enabled him to see the rock.

"That's it, as sure as I live!" exclaimed the boatman.

Again and again he saw it, as the lightning glared upon it; and the resemblance to a coffin was certainly very striking. Harvey Barth was justified again, and Leopold acknowledged to himself the correctness of the description in the diary. Thrusting the oar down into the sand on the spot where he was, so as not to loose the locality, he stood for some time observing the phenomenon on the rocks. He understood now why he had not seen it before. In his previous search, he had walked on the beach twenty feet farther out from the cliff. Changing his position by wading into the water, the shape of the coffin on the rock was lost before he had moved ten feet from the oar. From this point it a.s.sumed a new form, looking like nothing in particular but a ma.s.s of rock.

Leopold returned to the stake which he had set up, and then walked from it to the cliff. When he stopped, the projecting rock was directly over his head. He knew the spot very well. He had baked clams there for Rosabel Hamilton during one of his visits to High Rock with her; and he had dug over every foot of sand beneath it, in search of the hidden treasure, without finding it. But Harvey Barth was so correct in regard to his description of the locality that the boatman was more disposed to rely upon his statements in other matters than he had ever been before.

He gathered a pile of stones to mark the place, and then gave himself up to a careful consideration of the circ.u.mstances of the case. He could not now escape the conclusion that the money was actually buried beneath the projecting rock--"Coffin Rock" he had already named in his own mind; and he proceeded to inquire why he had not found it, when he dug the ground all over.

"Miss Liverage told me the hole which Wallbridge dug was not more than a foot deep; and Harvey Barth's diary contained the same statement," said the boatman to himself. "I dug a foot down, and the money was not there.

I remember I found a piece of boat-hook, with the iron on it about that distance below the surface. What does that prove? How happened that piece of a boat-hook, to be a foot under ground? On the top of the cliffs the sand and gravel, with a little soil on top, is six feet deep, and this beach is formed by the caving down of the earth. There is no beach beyond the Hole, because the rocks are all bare on the top of the cliff. I suppose the sand keeps dropping down, and the roll of the sea has spread it out as it fell. I have no doubt that the hurricane piled the sand up a foot or more next to the cliff. That's the reason I didn't find the money. I will dig deeper now."

Satisfied with this reasoning, Leopold waded off to the Rosabel which the tide had swung in towards the beach again. In the cuddy he had a lantern,--for use when he was out after dark,--which he lighted. As he was obliged to supply bait for parties who went out fishing with him, he kept under the seat in the standing-room a boy's shovel, which his father had given him years before, with which he dug clams on the beaches. Letting out the cable, the boat drifted still nearer to the beach, and the skipper landed, with his lantern and shovel. Throwing off his wet coat, he began to dig under Coffin Rock. He allowed considerable lat.i.tude in marking out the size of the hole, to allow for any possible want of accuracy in Harvey Barth's observation.

It was pitch dark after the shower, for the sky and the stars were obscured by dense clouds. Leopold had only the light of his lantern to enable him to work, and his task was gloomy enough to satisfy the veriest money-digger that ever delved into the earth for hidden treasure. In half an hour, more or less, he had dug the hole a foot deep, and then felt that he had reduced this part of the beach to its former elevation, at the time of the wreck of the Waldo. A descent of another foot would decide whether or not the treasure had an existence, save in the brain of the sick man.

It was hard work, after a full day's labor at the hotel; but Leopold redoubled his exertions after he had removed the first foot of sand. As he proceeded, he examined every stone he threw out of the hole, to a.s.sure himself that he did not miss the bag of gold. The task began to be somewhat exciting, as the solution of the problem drew nearer.

The hole which he had laid out was six feet square; and when he had thrown out all the sand and gravel to this depth, in order to save any unnecessary labor he began to dig in the middle of the excavation, for this was directly under the centre of the projecting rock. If Harvey Barth's statement was exactly correct, the bag would be found where Leopold was now at work. Faster and faster he plied the shovel, the deeper he went, and, when he judged that the lower hole was nearly a foot deep, his excitement of mind was intense. He had come to the last layer of sand he had to remove in making the second foot in depth.

Placing his heel upon the shovel, he attempted to force it down the length of the blade; but something impeded his progress. It was not a rock, for it yielded slightly, and gave forth no sharp sound. Sc.r.a.ping out the sand with the shovel, Leopold began to paw it away with his hands. Presently he felt something which was neither sand nor gravel. He drew it forth from the hole, and held it up where the light of the lantern struck upon it.

It was the hidden treasure.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE MONEY DIGGER. Page 176.]

The bag was just what Harvey Barth had described, and it weighed at least the four pounds and a half Avoirdupois which he had made it by his calculations. Leopold was tremendously excited, as he seated himself on the brink of the hole, with the shot-bag in his hand.

"Hallo, Le! Is that you?" shouted a voice from the water.

It was Stumpy in Leopold's old boat.

CHAPTER X.

DOUBTS AND DEBTS.

Leopold was terribly startled when he heard the voice of Stumpy. He was the possessor of a mighty secret, and he felt that he had been very imprudent in exposing it to discovery. It would have been better to dig up the hidden treasure in the daytime, when the light would have enabled him to observe the approach of an intruder. But he was glad it was Stumpy, rather than any other person, who had detected him in his strange and unseasonable labor. If need be, he could reveal the great secret to his friend, which he would have been very unwilling to do to any one else. But he did not wish to say a word about the hidden treasure even to Stumpy.

He was startled when he heard the voice of his friend, and, without deciding at that moment upon his future course, he dropped the shot-bag into the hole from which he had taken it, and hastily covered it with sand to the depth of a foot, in fact, filling up the smaller hole he had made. This was the work of a moment; and before Stumpy had time to approach the spot, Leopold, with the lantern in his hand, walked to the place where his friend had landed.

"What are you doing here in the dark?" demanded Stumpy, as Leopold approached him.

"Lighting up the darkness," replied the money-digger, lightly.

"What were you doing with that shovel?" added Stumpy, as his friend stepped into the old boat, the bow of which rested on the beach.

"Digging, of course," answered the possessor of the mighty secret, not yet decided whether or not to reveal what he knew, and what he had been doing.

"I don't think there is much fun in digging down here where it is as dark as a stack of black cats."

"I was not digging for the fun of it. But what brought you down here in the darkness, Stumpy?" asked Leopold, willing to change the subject.

"I wanted to see you, and went over to the Sea Cliff House. Your father told me you had gone out in your boat just at dark; and, as a smart squall had just stirred up the bay, he was somewhat worried about you."

"Was he? I didn't know that he ever worried about me when I was on the water. I think I know how to take care of myself."

"No doubt you do; but the smartest boatmen get caught sometimes. I think we had better hurry back, for the longer you are out, the more anxious your folks will be about you."

"That's so," replied the considerate Leopold. "But we have two boats here, and we can't both return in the Rosabel."

"Can't we tow the old boat?"

"We can, but I don't like to do it, for the old boat will be sure to b.u.mp against the Rosabel, and sc.r.a.pe the paint off. Now, Stumpy, if you will take the new boat, and sail back in her, I will follow you in the old tub. You will get to the house long before I do, and you can tell the folks I am right side up."

"Why don't you go in the Rosabel, and tell them yourself?" suggested Stumpy.

Just at this point Leopold was bothered. If Stumpy reached the hotel first, he would tell Mr. Bennington where he had found his son, on the beach under High Rock, with a lantern and shovel in his hand. Of course his father would wish to know what he was doing there; and under present circ.u.mstances this would be a hard question, for Leopold was deeply indoctrinated with the "little hatchet" principle. In a word, he could not tell a deliberate lie. He could not place himself in a situation where a falsehood would be necessary to extricate himself from a dilemma. Unhappily, like thousands of other scrupulous people, he could "strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel;" for it was just as much a lie to deceive his father by his silence as it was by his speech.

But, after all Leopold's motive was good. He was afraid his father would use the hidden treasure to relieve his embarra.s.sments in money matters, and he was not willing to subject him to this temptation. The young man was still firm in his faith that the money belonged to somebody, and just as firm in the belief that it was his duty to seek out the owner thereof, which he had not yet done, or had time to do.

He had thought a great deal about the ownership of the treasure; and, arguing the question as he might to himself, he always reached the same conclusion--that the money did not belong to him, and that it did belong to somebody else. He had considered the possibility of finding the proprietor of the twelve hundred dollars in gold through the owners of the Waldo, and the consignees or agents of the brig in Havana. This was before he found the old shot-bag; and, now that he had held it in his hand, this conclusion was even more forcible than before. Satisfied that the secret would be safer in the possession of Stumpy than of his father, he was tempted to tell him the whole story.

"After all, I guess we will go back in the Rosabel, Stumpy," added Leopold, when he had considered the matter. "You can keep your eye on the old boat, and see that she don't do any harm."

"I can keep her from doing any mischief," said Stumpy.

Leopold asked his companion to haul the Rosabel up to the beach, and, shoving off the old boat, he returned to the spot under Coffin Rock where he had been digging. Using his shovel vigorously for a few moments, he filled up the excavation he had made, and levelled off the sand and gravel, so that no chance visitor at the place should discover the traces of his labor.

By the time he had finished the work, the Rosabel had been hauled up to the beach, and the painter of the old boat attached to her stern. In a few moments the money-digger and his friend were under way, standing towards the mouth of the river.

"I don't see why my father should be worried about me," said Leopold, as he seated himself at the tiller.

"You don't very often go out in the night, and in a thunder-storm, too.

I was worried about you myself, Le, for any fellow might be caught in a squall. Without saying anything to your father, or any other person, I took the old boat, and stood out of the river. I shouted to you with all my might. When I got out beyond the point, I saw the light on the beach, under High Rock, and went for it."

"Well, I'm much obliged to you for the trouble you have taken," added Leopold.

"But what in the world were you doing on the beach with the lantern and the shovel?" asked Stumpy. "You couldn't catch any clams under the rocks where you were."

"I didn't catch any. When you sung out, I was sitting on the beach. I had anch.o.r.ed the Rosabel, with a long cable, and when the squall came, it blew her off so far from the sh.o.r.e that I could not get on board of her without swimming."

"O, that's it--was it?" exclaimed Stumpy, entirely satisfied with this explanation.