The Spanish Chest Part 33

"I shall do it!" said Roger firmly. "There are three packages and we may not be in England on the Fourth of July. Besides I forgot it on Washington's birthday."

Fran and Win looked after him in amazement as he suddenly tore back to the house and rushed upstairs, spreading noise on his way and devastation in his room, where he jerked the very vitals out of his steamer trunk, scattering its contents to the four corners.

Nor was Edith enlightened when Roger reappeared with a pasteboard tube in one hand, and a box of matches in the other, but Win laughed and Frances gave a shriek of delight.

"Bed fire!" she exclaimed. "Oh, Roger, I never knew you had it. Do wait until the boat is a little nearer."

"It will be darker, too," Win advised. "Make more of a show if you wait."

"I only hope they will know it is for them," said Roger anxiously.

"They'll see where it comes from and perhaps they'll understand,"

said Win. "But don't expect the steamer to salute as one at home would."

At the proper second, a flare of red illuminated the end of Noirmont Terrace, greatly amazing not only St. Aubin's staid population but such inhabitants of St. Helier's as chanced to be on the water front, and affording Roger two full moments of complete and exquisite satisfaction.

"Real United States!" he said. "I suppose an English boat doesn't know enough to whistle--"

Roger stopped with his mouth open. From the _Alouette_ came two distinct blasts of the steam siren.

"Oh, that's Mr. Max," burst out Win in delight. "He's been in America and understands the etiquette of red fire. And you remember he said he knew personally all the captains on the Channel boats. Probably he went up to the bridge and got somebody to acknowledge our salute! Isn't that simply corking of him?"

"That was surely meant for us," agreed the pleased Frances. "Oh, how long shall we have to wait before we see them?"

That very evening Pierre brought a note from Constance, expressing appreciative thanks for their fiery welcome, the source of which Max had guessed and which he had easily induced Captain Lefevre to acknowledge. The note ended with an invitation to tea on Monday and promised a solution of some kind to Win's theories concerning the Spanish chest.

"How nice of Miss Connie to set the very first possible day," said Frances. "I suppose we shall not see them before then."

"Not unless we go to the little old church tomorrow," replied her brother. "If you want to, and it's a still day, we might get up there."

But the travelers had returned on an evening of clouds and threatening winds. Easter Sunday dawned with Jersey in the grip of a terrific southeast storm. All day the rain beat on the panes of Rose Villa, all day the wind howled and s.n.a.t.c.hed at the shutters, the house at times fairly quivering with its force. As dusk came, the gale increased to the proportions of a hurricane. Roger, going out to the pillar post-box, came struggling back with difficulty.

"I met one of the Noirmont fishermen," he reported. "He said it is the worst gale in thirty years and when the weather clears the surf will be worth seeing."

"Fisher told me that a southeast storm kicked up a fine sea,"

replied Win. "I only hope it won't stop our going to the Manor to- morrow."

All night the wind raged though the rain finally ceased. It seemed as though the reputed witches of Jersey were holding high carnival with the unloosed elements of air and water. Day broke, still without rain, but the violence of the wind was not lessened. Roger ran out to the end of the terrace and came hurrying back.

"Come out, everybody, and look," he shouted above the uproar. "The waves are coming over the breakwater. There isn't one inch of beach to be seen."

Roger's report was literally true. Though the sea wall protecting the town of St. Helier's rose twenty-five feet above the sands, the rollers were breaking beyond the wall on the esplanade itself, the white foam even running up some of the side streets. Only an inky howling ma.s.s of white-capped water stretched between the town and Elizabeth Castle.

Win, who had managed to make slow progress to a point of vantage, stood fascinated by the wild whirl of wind and water. The tide was at the flood and the spectacle at its finest. Just a few moments sufficed to lessen its grandeur as the waves, yielding to the law of their being, were dragged away from the land. Presently, instead of dashing over the wall, they broke against it, and then came a scene of different interest. The water, forcibly striking the masonry, was flung back on the next incoming roller, with a collision that sent spray forty feet into the air from the violence of the shock. This phenomenon was repeated as the rollers crashed down the curve of the wall, continuing for its full length, the flying spray looking like consecutive puffs of steam from a locomotive.

"Look, there comes the train from St. Helier's!" exclaimed Roger, dancing excitedly about. "Doesn't it look as though the ocean was trying to catch it?"

The little train had prudently delayed its starting until after the turn of the tide. As it crept slowly around the curve of the breakwater, great white tongues of foam constantly shot over the wall like fingers frantically trying to seize and draw it into the sea. But always the hands fell back baffled, to the accompaniment of a roar that sounded almost like human disappointment. The train reached St. Aubin's dripping with salt water.

"Five stones are torn out of the coping in the wall," reported Roger, coming back from his inspection of the adventurous little engine. "The guard says they are sweeping pebbles and stones by the ton out of the streets beyond the esplanade. And coming down here, he twice had a barrel of water slapped right at him. He is as wet as a drowned rat."

"The surf must be wonderful at Corbiere," said Estelle. "They say there is an undertow off that point which produces something this effect of the water flung back by the wall."

"Why, here's Miss Connie!" exclaimed Frances in excitement. Max and Constance on horseback were coming down the terrace.

"We've been half round the island," Connie announced after her first greetings. Well prepared for wind as they were, both looked disheveled. Connie's hair was braided in a thick club down her back, evidently the only way she could keep it under control; Max's was plastered back by wind and spray, for he had lost his hat, and their horses were blown and spattered with salt brine.

"Oh, but it is grand!" Constance went on. "Corbiere light is smothered in spray to the very top of the tower. We haven't had a storm like this since I was a tiny kiddie."

To talk above the uproar of the surf was difficult. Asking them to be at the Manor promptly by three, the two rode away.

"Why three?" asked Frances as they regained the shelter of the house.

"I think we are going down into the cave," said Win happily. "Mr.

Max told me just now that we were to begin exploring there and that things would be arranged so that it would not be hard for me.

I suppose he and Pierre have some plan."

"But you aren't going into the cave on a day like this?" exclaimed Mrs. Thayne, quite horrified at this announcement.

"Why, yes, Mother," said Win. "The tide will be as low as usual when it does ebb."

"Of course," a.s.sented his mother. "I forgot. But how about this wind? You must have the pony, Win."

"I will if it keeps up, but I imagine the gale will blow itself out by noon."

Win's prophecy proved correct. When the four started to keep their engagement, the wind was greatly abated and the only trace of the tempest was the ruined vines and gardens that marked their road.

At the Manor gates, Colonel Lisle, Constance and Max met them.

"It is to be the cave," Connie said gayly. "Max has things all mapped out for us."

Arrived at the cliff, the party stopped. Marks of the storm were visible in one or two landslides and in a great amount of debris strewing the uncovered beach and rocks. Even large stones seemed to have been displaced.

Max looked rather serious as he saw so much change in conditions usually stable. "I think you'd better let me go down and report whether matters are as I expect," he said. "There seems to have been considerable doing in this vicinity last evening."

"Let us wait, Win," said Constance quickly. "No use in going down until we see how he finds things."

Colonel Lisle also elected to await the report, but Roger and the girls accompanied Max. They were gone almost half an hour and the watchers on the cliff were beginning to wonder what had happened.

When they did appear, they called to the others not to come.

"'The best laid plans of mice and men!'" sighed Max as he reached the top of the cliff. "Uncle, the storm has picked up all the stones I had Pierre clear out of the tunnel and wedged them in tight again like a cork in a bottle."

"There was a pa.s.sage and we can't get into it?" demanded Win eagerly, his face reflecting the disappointment visible on the faces of the other young people.

"There was," replied Max, looking at him sympathetically, "not merely into another cave but striking inland. Pierre cleared its mouth and reported it pa.s.sable for fifty feet. Beyond that he did not go. Now, it is stopped as tight as ever. This shows, Uncle, how it came to be lost to the recollection of everybody about the Manor."

"Yes," said Colonel Lisle. "Very likely it was stopped by a similar storm a century or more ago. So far as I know there has never been a legend of any tunnel. But, Max," he added, "there is yet the cellar where you and Win have decided that the pa.s.sage enters the house."

"May we knock a hole there?" Max asked quickly. Win had said nothing more but his disappointment was evident.