The Voodoo Gold Trail Part 41

Carlos was at the foot of the incline when Duran reached the limit of the ledge. On up that way sped Carlos, after him. My heart, my breath, my feet, all alike stopped, as I awaited the clash. And then it came.

The struggle was short. The two tripped over the edge together. I saw Carlos grasp at some growth; it tore loose. And then he seized on a vine, finally sliding to the bottom. I rushed to him. He had escaped with a badly wrenched shoulder.

Duran lay at the rocky foot of the cliff in a heap, the death-rattle already in his throat. He had broken his skull.

CHAPTER XXIX

HOW THE ENEMY PERISH AND THE MONKEY DISCOVERS THE TREASURE

It was some minutes before Carlos could hold up his head, so badly shaken was he. I went all over him, and had soon satisfied myself there were no broken bones. He had been saved by the very ma.s.s of vines that had before preserved me from death. His fall had been but forty feet, and mine had been many times that; a fall, after a manner of saying, for, as will be remembered, I slid down the rope halliard the greater part of the descent.

I ran through the wood to the creek, and brought Carlos a drink; and it was then he got to his feet. We stood looking on the now quite inanimate form of Duran, for a little, neither of us speaking his thoughts. I could not tell by Carlos' stoic features what there was in his mind; but in mine there was admixture, of some sorrow, that the presence of death always puts into one when excitement is gone, but more of a sense of elation that Duran had come by his death in the manner he had. For whatever intent Carlos had entertained in his mind, he had not actually slain the man with his own hand. And there on the ground, too, lay a knife that Duran had tried to use on Carlos, who was without a weapon of any sort, his own knife being in the camp.

It was time we were on the way to join our friends. I had been hearing occasional shots, but when we turned away from Duran's body, all sounds had ceased. We crossed the ridge, and in a little had come to the clearing. There was no one in sight; so we went round within the edge of the wood back of the huts; and as we neared the cliffs my nostrils were filled with the odor of sulphur. And we had no sooner got to the edge of the little open s.p.a.ce in front of the cave, than Robert was upon us and pulled us to the ground. He had us to crawl after him to where Norris and Marat lay, gun in hand, behind a fallen tree-trunk.

They had their eyes on the mouth of the cave, and looking over there, I saw a curious thing. A fire burned at the very entrance of the cave; and on the one side, Andy Hawkins lingered beside a pile of dried brush-wood and dead palm leaves. This fuel he cast on the flames, from time to time. Ray and the black boy soon came to view, back of Hawkins, with arms filled with more fuel which they added to the pile.

I now saw how it was; the enemy had taken refuge in the cave, and now our party were smoking them out. The smoke, I saw, was drawn into the cavern as into a chimney; and I remembered how, when I was in the cave, I had felt the draft of air going through. I looked up the cliff-side; and there, far to the left, I saw a wee column of smoke going up from a cleft. And then--there was that odor of sulphur again. Smoking them out!

Ay, but how smoking them out? My flesh crept with the horror of the thing. This was the miserable Hawkins' doing. I remembered now that word he had let drop about his taking care of them if we should but drive them into the cave--and his whispering in Norris' ear. I felt sick.

"Are we doing right?" I said to Norris, beside whom I crouched.

"Right!" he said, turning an angry look at me. "Didn't they plan to eat our hearts this night? And didn't they attack us, twenty guns against four--the murderous, child-eating cannibals? And isn't smoking as easy a death as hanging? What do you want?"

I was effectively silenced. And then I thought, too, on the alternative.

Suppose we retire and let the blacks out. Would they go their ways and let us alone? I knew better. They would simply set a strong guard on the only exit; and then collect many more of their voodoo comrades; and they would have our hearts for a voodoo feast in the end. So I gave in to this thing that was going on, distasteful as I found it.

I watched Andy Hawkins over there. That thin body of his squirmed with his infirmity, and made him seem to be in the throes of a heathen dance, as he plied the fire with the fuel. The volumes of yellow-white smoke continued to pour into the cave's mouth. It was burning sulphur, as I learned.

It may have been two hours that we lay behind that fallen tree, and the sun was mounted well on toward the zenith. Then Norris and Marat conferred, and decided that the enemy must be in a state beyond all power of striking back. So we approached the fire and pulled it away from the cave's mouth. But nearly another hour pa.s.sed before we ventured in. Norris took the lead with a battery lamp, the rest of us following.

A little way within, we came upon a body that lay in a pool of blood. He was one that sought to rush out, and got a ball in his body. Then at various portions of the pa.s.sage we saw three more blacks, all inanimate.

And at the uttermost confines of the cave, just below that narrow opening out--the chimney, as it were--all the rest lay in various postures, where they fell, choked by the fumes.

"Well, they all got just what they earned," observed Norris. "The world would be better, if all of their kind were here with them."

"Yes," agreed Jean Marat, "but Duran, he ees not here. I am ver' sorry he ees not here weeth hees voodoo frien's."

I had not told of Duran's accident at the foot of the ladder. Now I told it.

"Ah! You don't say!" said Norris. "Are you sure he's dead?"

"Yes," I a.s.sured him. "His skull was fractured."

"We're in great luck," said Norris. "Now we've got the whole secret of this place among us. And Carlos, you had a narrow escape."

"Yes," said Carlos. "And my father, hees murderer, he dead."

We dug a long trench just without that cave; and it was well past noon when we had dragged out the blacks and buried them in it, with the five that had fallen at the clearing. We took a meal before we went down the vale, and placed Duran and that other black in another grave.

It was while we were dining (and it was a pair of Duran's chickens that made our feast) that Andy Hawkins told how he had come by the conceit of the sulphur fumes. It was one day that he had watched Duran, when he took a chicken tied by the legs, into the cave. Duran had then set a tin, holding the sulphur, at the entrance, and built a fire about it. An hour or two later, he had brought out the chicken, quite dead.

"I thought to myself then," continued Hawkins, "An' w'y does the boss be doin' of that thing? And then I got the idea. 'Ah, 'ee's a slick one, the boss is,' sez I to myself. ''Ee's after findin' a easy way, maybe, to get rid of anyone as is in 'is way 'ere. And that might be you, Handy 'Awkins, and you'll better keep out of that cave!'"

We took possession of the palm-thatched huts; and made beds, of palm fans for mattresses, which was pretty much all the bedding that was required, though Duran had blankets enough to cover us all in the event of a chill night. Out between the structures was the kitchen; and this was no more than a kind of shallow box, sand filled, and elevated on four posts, to make the fire on; with overhead a roof--palm-thatched--for shade, and protection against rain.

Our day had been pretty full, and when supper had been disposed of, all were ready to stretch out at full length for a needed rest. It was not altogether such a cheerful company as you might suppose. Even Ray was more dashed in spirit than I have seen him in many a day. You might say that we had every reason to be in high feather, having so lately been delivered of a great peril; not to say that we were in addition well rid of Duran, who alone was in a position--rightly or wrongly--to dispute with us the possession of this gold-paved vale.

But if you think we should have felt blithe that night, it will be because you have never been in the presence of so much death. I know the thought worked continually in my mind, of that score and more of humans--however villainous they may have been--that but a few hours before had danced with life and vigour, and were now already beginning to rot in their graves. Only Norris and Hawkins refused to be downcast; Norris, because he had been accustomed to battle, and had learned through discipline to rebate his natural qualms; with Hawkins, it was his dulled moral sense.

"Now tomorrow," said Norris, "we must find that place where Duran has been storing the gold." (Duran's taking off had so far softened him at least, that he refrained from referring to him as "the skunk.") He continued, "I know blooming well he has taken out of this place only a small part of what has been mined."

And Hawkins (and the black boy, too, when questioned) agreed with Norris.

"Thad Duran was ver' clever," said Jean Marat. "He find one ver' good place to hide thad gold."

And now, it would never be guessed how we came upon a clue to that spot.

It came about this way. Although we turned in early, we were that wearied that day came and caught us, every one, sound asleep. I was the first to wake; and it was with the feel of a wee hand upon my face. And

when I opened my eyes, there was the monkey. And he held out to me one of Duran's sections of bamboo.

I sat up, startled, and took the thing he held out, and it was weighty, like those others laden with the gold.

The monkey observed me narrowly, as though to gauge the degree of my interest in the object he had given me. Then he took my hand; and without stopping to slip on my shoes, I allowed the little animal to lead me forth.

My heart thumped in excitement of antic.i.p.ation; I was filled with a hope, as we went into the wood back of the huts, making direct toward the cliffs. He led me to where the vines, in a dense ma.s.s, went climbing up the rocky wall to a very considerable height. There he let go my hand and leaped upon the vines, and began to climb, looking over his shoulder, as if expecting me to follow monkey-fashion.

Then, seeing me hesitate, the monkey came down, and took me by the hand again. And, curious, I stepped forward, to find that where the vines sprang from the ground the wall ascended, for some six or eight feet, in a gentle slope that I could climb with ease.

When I got so far, and spread apart the vines, to my amazement I discovered that what I had thought was a part of the cliff wall, was no real piece of the cliff at all, but just a ridge; and behind it, and concealed by the ma.s.s of vines, was a bit of a dingle, perhaps fifteen feet across. The monkey and I descended into the place; and as my eyes became accustomed to the comparative darkness, I made out the low entrance to a cavern.

Stooping low, I followed the monkey in. Twenty steps, and I heard the squeaking monkey-talk at my feet. Then I felt another bamboo cylinder pressed to my hand; and I stooped to feel a heap of the bamboo, of unknown proportions. I took up several of the cylinders. All were heavy.

At last we had the thing we sought. And it took a monkey to find it for us! My battery lamp was out there in the hut; I did not tarry to investigate further, but hurried out; and, followed by the nimble monkey got back to my friends, who were now astir.

The black boy was kindling a fire on the elevated hearth; Norris stood looking on. At my approach he turned.

"h.e.l.lo!" he said. "And where----"

He cut off his speech at sight of the bamboo I carried in my hands.

"Say, now!" he began again, and he seized and hefted the things. "Where have you been picking up these?"

By this time all the party were crowded round, and the monkey scrambled to my shoulder. I told the story of the find.