The Copper Princess Part 18

While it was not certain that the expected smuggling schooner would reach the coast that evening, she might do so, and, with the cautiousness marking all of his operations, Ralph Darrell decided that it would not do for her cargo to be landed while there was a chance of a stranger, who was at the same time an enemy, being in the neighborhood. He felt a.s.sured that the young man who had so mysteriously appeared and disappeared that day must be an enemy; for, though Mary had not mentioned his name, she had described him as being the one who had recently attempted to steal his logs from the land-locked basin. Now he had no doubt that the chap was a revenue-officer who had come to spy out his smuggling operations, and only pretended to be in search of wrecked timber as a cloak for his real designs. Else why should he still hang around, and especially in the vicinity of the cavern, where there were no logs?

Mary even declared a belief that he had been in their carefully concealed hiding-place, but, of course, she must be mistaken. Still, no more cargo must be landed until the spy was located and driven from that region.

"I sha'n't need to carry on the business much longer," said the old man to himself; "but so long as I choose to remain in it I don't propose to be interfered with."

So Mary was directed to go and display two lanterns at the mouth of the cavern as a signal that no goods were to be landed that night, while her father went out for the final look at his precious mining property that he took every evening just after the men had quit work.

Ralph Darrell's heart was bound up in the new work he had recently began, and so anxious was he to push it that he was engaging all laborers who came that way. As yet his force was very small, but he was in hopes of speedily increasing it. Thus, to discover that three of his strongest men had suddenly thrown up their jobs and left him without warning filled him with anger. So furious was he, even after he entered the house, that poor Mary, who had just returned badly frightened from the cavern, dared not confess to him that, through her own carelessness, another stranger had been admitted to the hidden storehouse of the cliffs.

Perhaps by morning this unwelcome visitor would have disappeared, as the other had done; and, at any rate, he could never find the secret pa.s.sage, for it was too carefully concealed. By morning, too, her father would be restored to his ordinary frame of mind, and it would be easier to tell him what she had done, if, indeed, it should prove necessary to tell him at all.

In the meantime Mike Connell was much puzzled by the nature of the place in which he found himself after his climb, as well as by the abrupt disappearance of the lad upon whom he had counted for guidance.

The darkness, with its accompanying profound silence, so affected him that, while he called several times, "Whist now! Where are you? Come out o' that, young feller, and have done with your foolin'!" he did so in an awed tone but little above a whisper.

"All right; stay where you are then!" he added, after listening vainly for a reply. "If it's a game of hide-and-seek ye want, I can soon accommodate you, seeing as how you've been so kind as to leave me a couple of glims, though it's only one of them I'll need."

Thus saying, the new-comer removed one of the two lanterns that had been hung out as a warning to the smugglers, and unwittingly changed the danger-signal into one of safety and invitation by so doing. With the lantern thus acquired to light his footsteps, he began a careful survey of the cavern, hoping to discover either an exit from it or his vanished guide.

With his previous knowledge of the princ.i.p.al industry of that region, it did not take him long to conjecture the meaning of the bales and boxes upon which he soon stumbled.

"Holy smoke!" he cried; "it's a cave of smugglers you've broke into, Mike Connell, no less, and a sorrowful time ye'll have of it if the folks comes home and catches you at the trespa.s.sing! Where the divil is the back door, I wonder, for the one in front is no good at all?

Saints preserve us! What's that?"

With this last exclamation the frightened Irishman began to retreat slowly backward, holding his lantern so that, while it revealed his own terror-stricken face, its light also fell full on the form of Richard Peveril standing before him and staring in blankest amazement.

"Plaze, good Mister Spook--I mean yer Honor--Oh, Holy Fathers! what will I say?" stammered the poor fellow, in such faltering accents that Peveril broke into a roar of laughter.

"Mike Connell!" he cried; "wherever did you come from? and what has happened? You look as though you had seen a ghost!"

"And haven't I?" retorted the other, still staring dubiously. "Is it yourself, lad? But sure it must be, seeing you have a voice of your own, which is a thing never yet given to a spook. Glory be to goodness, Mister Peril, that I've found you just as I'd lost you entirely, and meself as well!"

"But how do you happen to be here?" asked the still bewildered Peveril.

"Sure I just came, thinking you might want me."

"Which way did you come?"

"Through the front door, the same as yourself."

"But I came in by a back entrance."

"Then we'd best be getting out that way, for I'm afeard there'll soon be others here as won't be pleased to see us."

"We can't, for that way is barred," answered Peveril; "but let us sit down and try to arrive at some understanding of this mysterious affair."

So, for nearly an hour, the two talked over the situation; and, though each frequently interrupted the other with questions or exclamations, they finally gained a pretty clear comprehension of their position. At the end of the conference Peveril exclaimed:

"Then, so far as I can see, we are shut up here like two rats in a trap."

"Yes," cried Connell, "and here comes the rat-catchers after us now!"

As he spoke he pointed to the outer entrance, where the head and shoulders of a man had just appeared above the rocky ledge.

CHAPTER XXIII

A BATTLE WITH SMUGGLERS

After supper that same evening the violence of Ralph Darrell's rage had so subsided that his daughter ventured to inquire concerning its cause. When he had informed her, she said:

"Why should you let a little thing like that worry you, papa? Surely you can engage plenty more miners if you want them. I don't see why you should bother with the old mine, though. It don't seem to be worth anything."

"Not worth anything!" cried the old man, standing up in his excitement. "Why, child, it is worth millions! It is one of the richest copper properties in the world, and in one week's time it will be all my own. Rather, it will be yours, since it is for you alone that I have lived in this wilderness all these years, thereby saving it from destruction, and warding off the conspiracy that would reduce you to beggary. For your sake only have I so guarded the secret of its wealth that no living soul suspects it. Even the men who delve in its depths know not the value of the material in which they toil, for I have not told them. Nor have I allowed an a.s.say to be made of its smallest fragment; but I know its worth, its fabulous value, that will make the owner of the Copper Princess one of the richest heiresses in the world."

"Who is the Copper Princess, papa?" asked the girl, who, though bewildered by the old man's extravagant statements, could not help but be interested in them.

"You are, my darling, you are a copper princess; but the name also applies to your mine, and was given to it before you were born.

'Darrell's Folly' is what men, in their ignorance, call it now, but in one week's time it may a.s.sume its rightful t.i.tle, and thereafter the fame of the Copper Princess will spread far and wide."

"But why not let people call the mine by its real name now, papa? What difference will one week make?"

"Because," replied Ralph Darrell, bending towards his daughter, and lowering his voice almost to a whisper, as though fearful of being overheard, "in one week's time--only one week from this very day--the contract will expire, and the heirs of Richard Peveril can make no claim."

"Richard Peveril!" cried the girl, with a sudden recollection; "why, papa, that is the name of the young man who was in the cavern to-day, for he told me so himself. He is the same, you know, who came for your logs."

For an instant the old man glared at his daughter with an expression so terrible that she shrank from him frightened. Then it cleared, and in his ordinary tone he said, gently:

"I wish, dear, you would go and change your dress. I don't like to have you wear this boy's costume in the evening."

With only a moment of hesitation the girl obeyed him and left the room.

She had no sooner disappeared than the strange expression that he had so successfully banished for a minute returned to the man's face, and, possessing himself of a revolver, he proceeded to load it. As he did so he muttered:

"I must do it for her sake, though she must never know. Richard Peveril shall not be given an opportunity for making his claim. If he is really in the cavern he must not be allowed to escape from it alive."

So saying, the old man left the room, while Mary Darrell, who had been anxiously watching his movements through a crack of the opposite doorway, followed swiftly after him.

In the cavern, at that moment, two groups of men were confronting each other suspiciously, but hesitating as to what att.i.tude they should a.s.sume. The expected schooner had reached the coast that evening, and, a.s.sured of safety by the single light displayed from the cliffs, had run boldly in to her accustomed anchorage. As the operations of the smugglers were necessarily conducted with great promptness, a portion of her valuable cargo was immediately transferred to a small boat, and four men accompanied it to the usual landing-place on the black ledge. Here the goods were taken out, and two of the men returned to the schooner with the boat while the others remained on sh.o.r.e. These became so impatient at not receiving the usual intimation from above that all was in readiness for hoisting, nor any answer to their repeated signals, that they finally decided to avail themselves of the tackle hanging ready beside them to go up and investigate. The captain of the schooner, who was an Englishman, went first, and the other, who was a French Canadian, followed closely after him.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A WILD-LOOKING MAN LEVELLED A PISTOL AT PEVERIL]

To their amazement they found the cavern, which they had been told was never entered except by old man Darrell or his son, in possession of two strangers, who appeared equally surprised at seeing them.

"What are you chaps doing 'ere?" demanded the Englishman.