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There was in her father's attitude something intangible, yet certain enough, which spelled the captain's doubt of him. As long as Parmalee's disappearance remained unexplained, as long as Ditty's story could not be disproved, Drew felt that Captain Hamilton would nurse in his mind a doubt of his innocence.
And that doubt, if it remained, whether Drew was ever tried for the crime of Parmalee's murder or not, just as surely put Ruth out of his grasp as though his hands actually dripped of the dead man's blood.
Captain Hamilton would never see his daughter marry a man under such a cloud. Drew appreciated the character of the schooner's commander too thoroughly to base any illusions upon the fact that Hamilton treated him kindly. They were partners in this treasure hunt. The doubloons once secured, the Bertha Hamilton once in port, Drew well knew that Ruth's father would do what he felt to be his duty. He would be Drew's accuser at the bar of public justice. That, undoubtedly, was a foregone conclusion.
Plunged in the depth of these despairing thoughts, Drew was startled by the light fall of a soft hand upon his arm, and he descried the slight figure of Ruth beside him.
"Walking the deck alone, Allen?" she said softly. "I wondered where you were."
"Just doing my usual forty laps after supper," he responded, trying to speak lightly.
"I should think your work to-day in the digging, to say nothing of our experience in the cave, would have been as much exercise as you really needed," she said, laughing. "And all for nothing!"
"We could scarcely expect success so soon," he replied.
"No? Perhaps success is not to be our portion, Allen. What then?"
"Well," and he tried to say it cheerfully, "we've had a run for our money."
"A run for the pirate's money, you mean. Let's see," she added slyly, "that confession did not state just how many doubloons were buried, did it?"
"The amount specified I failed to make out," he told her. "Time had erased it."
"Then we are after an unknown amount – an unknown quantity of doubloons. And perhaps we are fated never to know the amount of the pirate's hoard," and she laughed again. Then, suddenly, she clutched his arm more tightly as they paced the deck together, crying under her breath: "Oh! look yonder Allen."
A strangely flickering light dispelled the pall that hung above the hilltop. The cloud of smoke or steam, rising from the crater and which they had first seen that afternoon, was now illuminated and shot through with rays of light evidently reflected from the bowels of the hill.
"The volcano is surely alive!" cried the young man.
The crew, loafing on the forecastle, saw the phenomenon, and their chattering voices rose in a chorus of excitement. Tyke came up from below and joined Drew and the captain's daughter. The glare of the volcano illuminated the night, and they could see each other's features distinctly.
"Looks like we'd stirred things up over there," chuckled the old man. "There are more'n ghosts of dead and gone pirates guarding that treasure."
"It – it is rather terrifying, isn't it?" Ruth suggested.
"It is to them ignorant swabs for'ard," growled Tyke. "Good thing, though. They'll be too scared to want to roam over the island. We want it to ourselves till we find the loot. Don't we, Allen?"
"That's true. The disturbance over there may not be an unmitigated evil," was the young man's rejoinder.
Captain Hamilton called Ruth through the open window of his cabin, and she bade Grimshaw and Allen Drew good night and went below. Tyke remained only long enough to finish his cigar, then he departed.
The light over the volcano faded, the rumblings ceased. Drew, in his rubber-soled shoes, paced the deck alone; but he could not be seen ten feet away, for he wore dark clothes.
He knew that Mr. Rogers had long since gone to his room. Most of the crew had either sought their bunks or were stretched out on the forecastle hatch. Yet he heard a low murmur of voices from amidships. When he paced to that end of his walk, the voices reached him quite clearly and he recognized that of the one-eyed mate. The other man he knew to be Bingo, the only English sailor aboard – a shrewd and rat-faced little Cockney.
"Blime me, Bug-eye! but wot Hi sye Hi means. The devil 'imself's near where there's so much brimstone. If that hull bloomin' 'ill blows hup, where'll we be, Hi axes ye?"
"Jest here or hereabouts," growled Ditty.
Drew stepped nearer and frankly listened to the conversation.
"Hi'm as 'ungry for blunt as the next bloke, an' ye sye there's plenty hin it – "
"Slathers of it, Bingo," said the mate earnestly. "Why, man! some of these islands down here are rotten with buried pirate gold. Millions and millions was stole and buried by them old boys."
"Yah! Hi've 'eard hall that before, Hi 'ave. Who hain't?" said Bingo, with considerable shrewdness. "Honly hit halways struck me that if them old buccaneers, as they calls 'em, was proper sailormen, they'd 'ave spent the hull blunt hinstead o' buryin' hof hit."
"Holy heavers, Bingo, they couldn't spend it all!" exclaimed Ditty. "There was too much of it. Millions, mind you!"
"Millions! My heye!" croaked the Cockney. "A million of yer Hamerican dollars or a million sterling?"
"You can lay to it," said Ditty firmly, "that there's more'n one million in English pounds buried in these here islands. And there's a bunch of it somewheres on this island."
"Then, Bug-eye, wye don't we git that map hand dig it hup hourselves on the bloomin' jump? Wye wite? We kin easy 'andle the hafter-guard."
"The boys are balkin', that's why," growled Ditty. "They're like you – afraid of that rotten old volcano."
"Blime me! Hand wye wouldn't they be scare't hof hit?" snarled the Cockney.
"That bein' the general feelin'," Ditty said calmly, "why we'll stick to my plan. Let the old man dig it up hisself and bring it aboard.
"It'll save us the trouble, won't it? And mebbe we can git rid of some of the swabs, one at a time – "
"Huh!" chuckled Bingo. "One's gone halready. Hi see yer bloomin' scheme, Bug-eye."
"Well, then," said the mate, rising from his seat, "keep it to yourself and take your orders from me, like the rest does."
"Hall right, matey, hall right," said Bingo, and likewise stood up.
Drew dared remain no longer. He stole away to the stern and stood for a while, looking over the rail into the black water – no blacker than the rage that filled his heart.
He felt half tempted to attack the treacherous Ditty with his bare hands and strangle the rascal. But he knew that this was no time for a reckless move. There were only himself, the captain, and Tyke to face this promised mutiny. Probably they could trust Rogers, and some few of the men forward might be faithful to the after-guard. The uncertainty of this, however, was appalling.
After a time he went below and rapped lightly on the captain's door. The commander of the Bertha Hamilton opened to him instantly. He was partly undressed.
"Eh? That you, Mr. Drew?"
"Sh! Put out your light, Captain. I'll bring Mr. Grimshaw. I have something to tell you both," whispered the young man.
"All right," said the captain, quick to understand.
His light was out before Drew reached Tyke's door. This was unlocked, but the old man was in his berth. Long years at sea had made Tyke a light sleeper. He often said he slept with one eye open.
"That you, Allen?"
"Yes. Hush! We want you in the captain's room – he and I. Come just as you are."
"Aye, aye!" grunted the old man, instantly out of his berth.
The light was turned low in the saloon. Drew did not know whether Ditty had come down or not; but unmistakable nasal sounds from Mr. Roger's room assured him that the second officer was safe.
Tyke, light-footed as a cat, followed him to Captain Hamilton's door. It was ajar, and they went in. The commander of the schooner sat on the edge of his berth. They could see each other dimly in the faint light that entered through the transom over the door. Captain Hamilton had drawn the blind at the window.
"Well, what's up?" he murmured.
Drew wasted no time, but in whispers repeated the conversation he had overheard between Bingo and the mate. When he had finished, Tyke observed coolly:
"I'd 've bet dollars to doughnuts that that was the way she headed. Now we know. Eh, Cap'n Rufe?"
"Yes," grunted the captain.
"What shall we do?" asked Drew.
"Do? Keep on," Captain Hamilton said firmly. "What d' you say, Tyke?"
"Yes," agreed Grimshaw. "Ditty is playing a waiting game. So will we. An' we have the advantage."
"I don't see that," Drew muttered.
"Why, we know his plans. He don't know ours," explained the old man. "We haven't got to worry about them swabs till we've found the doubloons, anyway."
"If we find 'em," murmured the captain.
"By George! we're bound to find 'em," Tyke said, with confidence. "That's what we come down here for."
His enthusiasm seemed unquenched. Drew could not lose heart when the old man was so hopefully determined.
"But Miss Ruth?" Allen suggested timidly, looking at Captain Hamilton.
"Don't bother about her," answered the captain shortly. "She'll not be out of my sight a minute. She must go ashore with us every day. I'll not trust her aboard alone with these scoundrels."
They talked little more that night; but it was agreed to take all the firearms and much of the ammunition, disguised in wrappings of some kind, ashore with them in the morning and conceal all with the digging tools.
"Jest as well to take them all along," Tyke had advised. "I hope we won't have to use 'em. But if we're going to take Rogers with us to-morrow and leave Ditty in charge here, the rascal might go nosing around an' find them guns."
"I hate to leave Ditty in possession of the schooner," returned the captain, with a worried look.
"So do I," admitted Tyke. "But after all, it isn't only the schooner he wants. She's no good to him until we git the treasure aboard. The only men it will be wise to take with us to-morrow are Rogers an' a boat's crew that you know you can trust."
Immediately after breakfast the next morning the captain summoned the second officer.
"I want you to take me ashore this morning, Mr. Rogers," he said; "and as I have a lot of heavy dunnage that the men will have to carry, I'll want a husky crew. Take six men; and I want you to take special pains in picking out the best men we have. Men whom we can trust and who haven't been mixed up with the whispering and the queer business that you mentioned."
The second officer's eye flashed, and he nodded understandingly.
"Aye, aye, sir," he replied. "As for the men, sir," he went on reflectively, "there's a dozen I could stake my life on who wouldn't be in any crooked game. Suppose," he counted off on his fingers, "we take Olsen and Binney and Barker and Dodd and Thompson and Willis. They're all true blue, and I don't think they're in such a funk over the volcano as some of the others."
"They'll do," assented the captain. "They're the very men I had in mind. Call some of them down now and have them get this stuff up on deck. And tell the cook to send dinner grub along, for we may be gone all day."
"Aye, aye, sir," answered Rogers, as he left the cabin.
A little later the party gathered at the rail, and the captain spoke to the mate.
"Mr. Rogers is going to take us ashore, Mr. Ditty," he said pleasantly. "There are no special orders. You can let some of the men have shore leave if they want it, although after yesterday I don't suppose they will."
"I suppose not," replied Ditty surlily. "They'll all be glad when we turn our backs on this cursed island."
The captain pretended not to hear. The goods were stowed in the boat, the party and crew took their places, and the craft was pulled smartly to the beach.
"Now, my lads," said the captain briskly, as he stepped ashore, "there's quite a trip ahead of you and you've got a man's job in carrying this stuff, but I'll see that you don't lose anything by it. Step up smartly now."
The men shouldered their burdens and started off on the trail that had now grown familiar to the treasure seekers. The men were able to maintain a fairly rapid pace, and before long the party arrived at the edge of the clearing within which the treasure was supposed to be buried.
The captain took Rogers aside.
"Take your men back to the beach now, Mr. Rogers," he directed. "Remember, I want none of them poking about here. We'll rejoin you in good season for supper, if not before."
"Aye, aye, sir!" was the cheerful reply.
Rogers turned with his men, and the captain watched their backs far down the forest path, until they were lost to sight in the greenery of the jungle.
"Well now," he remarked, as he turned again to the others, "lively's the word. Let's get busy and – . Great Scott! Look at that!" he exclaimed, staring at the top of the whale's hump.
A column of black smoke was rising from the crater.
"Looks like the whale was going to blow again," Tyke said, with a feeble attempt at levity to disguise his apprehension.
The next moment the ears of the party were deafened by a terrific explosion.
CHAPTER XXVIII
BY FAVOR OF THE EARTHQUAKE
No thunder that had ever been heard could be compared with the sound of the explosion. It was like the bellowing of a thousand cannon. It was as though the island were being ripped apart.
The earth shook and staggered drunkenly beneath the feet of the treasure seekers. Great trees in the adjacent forest fell with tremendous uproar. The slope of the whale's hump was ridged until it looked like a giant accordion. Crevasses opened, extending from the summit of the hill downward. Rocks came tumbling down by the score, and a column of smoke and flame rose from the crater to a height of two hundred feet or more.
None of the party had been able to keep on a footing. All had been thrown to the ground by the first shock, and there they lay, sick from that awful seismic vibration.
A cloud of almost impalpable dust spread broadly and shrouded the sun. There was not a breath of air astir. Not a living thing was to be seen in the open – even the lizards had disappeared.
The spot where they had delved the day before, was now in plain view to the treasure seekers. They saw the hillside yawn there in an awful paroxysm, till the aperture was several yards wide. Then, from beneath, there shot into the open, smoking rocks, debris of many kinds, and – something else! Drew, seeing this final object, shrieked aloud. His voice could not be heard above the uproar, but the others saw his mouth agape, and struggled to see that at which he was pointing so wildly.
The crevasse closed with a crash and jar that rocked the whole island. It was the final throe of the volcano's travail. The lurid light above the crater subsided. The dust began to fall thick upon the treasure seekers as they lay upon the ground. They sat up, dazed and horror-stricken. It was some time before their palsied tongues could speak, and when they did, the words came almost in whispers.
Drew found that his arm was around Ruth. She had been near him when the first shock came, and he had seized her instinctively. Now he turned to her and asked:
"You're not hurt, are you, Ruth?"
"N – no," she gasped, "but dreadfully frightened! Oh, let's get away from here!"
She realized that he was holding her and drew away with a faint blush. He released her and staggered to his feet.
Tyke and the captain followed suit, and the three men looked at each other.
"Now, if I was superstitious – " began Tyke in a quavering voice.
"Never mind any 'ifs' just now," interrupted the captain. "We've got to get away from here just as fast as the good Lord will let us. I don't believe in tempting Providence."
"And leave the doubloons?" queried Tyke, in dismay.
"Yes, and leave the doubloons," replied the captain stubbornly. "If Ruth weren't here, we men might take a chance, but my daughter is worth more to me than all the pirate gold buried in the Caribbean."
Drew, if inaudibly, agreed with him. "Let's get Ruth down to the shore, anyway," he said. "Then, if you'll come back – I saw something just at that last crash."
"By the great jib-boom!" roared Tyke, "so did I. What did you see, Allen? Something shot up out o' one o' them pits we dug yesterday. I saw it. An' it wasn't a lava boulder, neither!"
"You're right, there," Drew agreed. "It was a box or something. Too square-shaped to be a rock."
"We can't fool with it now," Captain Hamilton said, with determination, though his eyes sparkled. "Come, Ruth. I must get you down to the boat."
But here the girl exercised a power of veto. "I don't go unless the rest of you do – and to remain, too," she declared. "I am not a child. Of course, I'm afraid of that volcano. But so are you men. And it's all over now. If Allen really saw something that looked like a box or a chest thrown out of that opening, I'm going to – "
She left the rest unspoken, but started boldly for the barren patch where they had dug the day before. It looked now like a piece of plowed ground over which were scattered blocks of lava of all sizes and shapes.
Captain Hamilton hesitated, but Drew ran ahead, reaching the spot first. Anxious and frightened as he had been at the moment of the phenomenon, the young man had noted exactly the spot where the strange object had fallen. Half buried in a heap of earth was a discolored, splintered chest. Its ancient appearance led Drew to utter a shout of satisfaction.
"I guess we've got it," he remarked in a tone that he tried to keep calm, but which trembled in spite of himself.
A cry of delight rose from all. The men joined Drew, and helped him clear away the earth. The chest soon stood revealed. Then by using their spades as levers, they pried it loose and by their united efforts dragged it over to the shade at the jungle's edge. They sat beside it there, panting, almost too exhausted from the excitement and their tremendous efforts to move or speak.
Ruth fluttered about like a humming bird, excited and eager. She looked somewhat less disheveled and begrimed than the men. But if they looked like trench diggers, they felt like plutocrats, and their hearts were swelling with jubilation.
The map had not lied! The paper had not lied! That old pirate, Ramon Alvarez, who had probably told a thousand lies, had told the truth at last in his ardent desire for the shriving of Holy Church. The treasure lay before them!
And how wonderfully the chest had been revealed to them! Not by their own exertions had the pirate hoard been uncovered!
A moment more and they were on their feet, Tyke panting:
"Now, if I was superstitious – "
They would have plenty of time for resting later on. Now a fierce impatience consumed them. They must see the contents of the box!
The chest was about five feet long, two feet wide and three feet deep. It was made of thick oak, and was bound by heavy bands of iron. A huge padlock held it closed.
The box had originally been of enormous strength, but time and nature and the earthquake had done their work. The wood was swollen and warped, the iron bands were eaten with rust. But the lock resisted their efforts when they sought to lift the cover.
"Stand clear!" cried Captain Hamilton, raising his spade.
He struck the padlock a smashing blow. Then he stooped and lifted the cover, which yielded groaningly.
A cry burst simultaneously from the treasure seekers.
"Gold!"
"Doubloons!"
"Jewels!"
"Riches!"
Priceless treasures heaped in careless profusion, glinting, glowing, coruscating, scintillating threw back in splendor the rays of the tropic sun.
None of them could remember afterward quite how they acted in those first few minutes of unchained emotion. But they laughed and sang, cheered and shouted, and it was a long time before the rioting of their blood ceased and they regained a measure of self-control.
There was no attempt made to measure the value of the treasure trove. There would be time for that later on. What they did know beyond the shadow of a doubt was that wealth enough lay before them to make them all rich for the rest of their lives.
Gold there was, both coined and melted into bars; Spanish doubloons, Indian rupees, French louis, English guineas; cups and candelabra; chains and watches; jewels too, in whose depths flashed rainbow hues, amethysts, rubies, diamonds, emeralds, strings upon strings of shimmering pearls.
The discoverers bathed their hands in the golden store, running the coins in sparkling streams through their fingers, all the time feeling that they were moving in a dream from which at any moment they must be rudely awakened.
At last the captain's voice, a bit husky from emotion, brought them back to practical realities.
"Well, the first log of our voyage is written up," he said. "But now let's get down to the question of what we're to do next. How are we to get this stuff aboard?"
All sobered a little as they faced the problem.
"We can take the chest just as it is," said Tyke. "A four-man load, though."
"What will the crew think?" Drew asked somewhat anxiously.
"Let 'em think and be hanged to 'em!" replied Captain Hamilton. "Yet," he added a moment later, "with things in the shaky condition they are and that rascal, Ditty, planning mischief, we don't want to take too many chances."
"Couldn't we make a number of trips back and forth and take some of the treasure with us each time until we got it all on board?" suggested Ruth. "We could carry a lot in our clothes and we could wrap some up to look like the bundles we brought ashore."
"Take too long," objected her father.
"How would this do?" was Drew's contribution. "As has already been said, the men would be surprised to see us bring a box aboard if they hadn't first seen us take it ashore. Now, suppose we take one of the ship's chests, load it with some worthless junk that would make it as heavy as this box, and bring it ashore. We could bring it up here, throw away the contents, put the treasure in it, and then call on the men to take it back to the ship. They'd recognize it as the same one they'd brought over, and their thinking would stop right there."
"By Jove, I believe you've hit it, Allen!" exclaimed the captain.
"That sounds sensible," conceded Tyke. "I guess it's the only way."
"Well, now that that's settled," went on the captain, "what are we going to do with the treasure in the meanwhile? It's getting late now. We can't get it aboard to-day. We'll want eight men besides Rogers. Then, there's all this hardware," and he indicated the firearms.
"Couldn't we leave it just where it is until we come back to-morrow?" ventured Ruth. "There isn't a soul on the island, and we'll be here the first thing in the morning."
"A little too risky, I'm afraid," said Tyke. "It's dollars to doughnuts that there's no one on the island but ourselves and the boat's crew; yet we'd go 'round kicking ourselves for the rest of our lives if we found to-morrow that some one had been here an' helped himself."
"Let's pile some of these loose lava blocks on top of the chest," said Drew. "Make a regular mound. It will look as though the earthquake had done it."
That plan seemed the best, and they acted on it. They closed the cover after one more lingering, delighted look at the chest's gleaming contents, then they built the cairn.
"One sure thing," observed Tyke. "There isn't anybody going to come up here for jest a little pleasure jog – not much! That volcano's likely to spit again 'most any time."
The party started for the lagoon with their hearts bounding with exultation. But as they entered the forest path they were startled by the sight of Rogers and his men hastening toward them.
The captain was about to utter a rebuke, but when he saw the pale and frightened faces of the men he checked his tongue.
"Well, Mr. Rogers, what is it?" he asked. "Got a pretty good scare, I suppose, like the rest of us. I guess the quake's all over now."
"I hope so, sir," replied the second officer. "I thought sure it was all over with the lot of us. But it isn't that, sir, that I came back for. The boat's gone."