Gavin Brice smiled grimly to himself in the darkness, as he recalled his own test of prowess with Roke.

"I don't think he'll hurt me overmuch," said he. "I thank you, just the same. It makes me very happy to know you aren't--"

"Mr. Brice!" she cried, in desperation. "Unless you promise me not to do as I dared you to--I shall not let you go a step farther with me. I--"

"I'm afraid you'll have to let me take you the rest of the way, Miss Standish," he said, a sterner note in his voice quelling her protest and setting her to wondering. "If you like, we can postpone my talk with Standish about the check-raising. But--if you care anything for him, you'd best let me go to him as fast as we can travel."

"Why? Is--?"

"Unless I read wrongly what we saw, back yonder in the clearing," he said, cryptically, "your brother is in sore need of every friend he can muster. I had only a glimpse of our subterranean half-man. But there was a gash across his eyebrow, and a ma.s.s of bruises on his throat. If I'm not mistaken, I put them there. That was the man who tried to knife Standish last evening. And, unless I've misread the riddle of that tunnel, we'll be lucky to get there in time.

There's trouble ahead. All sorts of trouble."

CHAPTER VIII

THE SIEGE

"Trouble?" repeated Claire, questioningly. "You mean--?"

"I mean I've pieced it out, partly from reports and partly from my own deductions and from the sight of that man, back there," said Brice. "I may be wrong in all or in part of it.

But I don't think I am. I figure that that chap we saw half under ground, is one of a clique or gang that is after something which Standish and Hade have--or that these fellows think Hade and Standish have. I figure they think your brother has wronged them in some way and that they are even more keen after him than after Hade. That, or else they think if they could put him out of the way, they could get the thing they are after. That or both reasons."

"I learned that Standish has hired special police to patrol the main road, after dark, under plea that he's afraid tramps might trespa.s.s on his groves. But he didn't dare hire them to patrol his grounds for fear of what they might chance to stumble on. And, naturally, he couldn't have them or any one patrol the hidden path. That's the reason he armed you and told you to look out for any one coming that way. That's why you held me up, when I came through here, yesterday. These must be people you know by sight. For you told me you took me for some one else. This chap, back yonder, knows the hidden path. And now it seems he knows the tunnel, too. If I'm right in thinking that tunnel leads to the secret orchard enclosure, back of your house, then I fancy Standish may be visited during the next half hour. And, unless I'm mistaken, I heard more than one set of bare feet scurrying down that tunnel just now. Our friend with the bashed-in face was apparently the last of several men to slip into the tunnel, and we happened along as he was doing it. If he recognized you and saw you had a man as an escort, he must know we're bound for your house. And he and the rest are likely to hurry to get there ahead of us.

That's why I've been walking you off your feet, in spite of the darkness, ever since we left him."

"I--I only saw him for the tiniest part of a second," said Claire, glancing nervously through the darkness behind her.

"And yet I'm almost sure he was a Caesar. He--"

"A Caesar?" queried Gavin, in real perplexity.

"That's the name the Floridian fishermen give to the family who live on Caesar's Estuary," she explained, almost impatiently. "The inlet that runs up into the mangroves, south of Caesar's Rock and Caesar's Creek. Caesar was an oldtime pirate, you know. These people claim to be descended from him, and they claim squatter's rights on a tract of marsh-and-mangrove land down there. They call themselves all one family, but it is more like a clan, Black Caesar's clan.

They have intermarried and others have joined them. It's a sort of community. They're really little better than conchs, though they fight any one who calls them conchs."

"But what--?"

"Oh, Milo and Rodney Hade leased some land from the government, down there. And that started the trouble."

Brice whistled, softly.

"I see," said he. "I gather there had been rumors of treasure, among the Caesars--there always are, along the coast, here--and the Caesars hadn't the wit to find the stuff.

They wouldn't have. But they guarded the place and always hoped to trip over the treasure some day. Regarded it as their own, and all that. 'Proprietary rights' theory, pa.s.sed on from fathers to sons. Then Standish and Hade leased the land, having gotten a better hint as to where the treasure was. And that got the Caesars riled. Then the Caesars get an inkling that Standish and Hade have actually located the treasure and are sneaking it to Standish's house, bit by bit.

And then they go still-hunting for the despoilers and for their ancestral h.o.a.rd."

"Why!" cried Claire, astounded. "That's the very thing you stopped me from telling you! If you knew, all the time--"

"I didn't," denied Brice. "What you said, just now, about the Caesars, gave me the clew. The rest was simple enough to any one who knew of the treasure's existence. There's one thing, though, that puzzles me--a thing that's none of my business, of course. I can understand how Standish could have told you he and Hade had stumbled onto a hatful of treasure, down there, somewhere, among the bayous and mangrove-choked inlets. And I can understand how the idea of treasure hunting must have stirred you. But what I can't understand is this:--When Standish found the Caesars were gunning for him, why in blue blazes did he content himself with telling you of it? Why didn't he send you away, out of any possible danger? Why didn't he insist on your running into Miami, to the Royal Palm or some lesser hotel, till the rumpus was all over? Even if he didn't think the government knew anything about the deal, he knew the Caesars did. And--"

"He wanted me to go to Miami," she said. "He even wanted me to go North. But I wouldn't. I was tremendously thrilled over it all. It was as exciting as a melodrama. And I insisted on staying in the thick of it. I--I still don't see what concern it is of the United States Government," she went on, rebelliously, "if two men find, on their own leased land, a cache of the plunder stolen more than a hundred years ago by the pirate, Caesar. It is treasure trove. And it seems to me they had a perfect right--"

"Have you seen any of this treasure?" interposed Brice.

"No," she admitted. "Once or twice, bags of it have been brought into the house, very late at night. But Milo explained to me it had to be taken away again, right off, for fear of fire or thieves or--"

"And you don't know where it was taken to?"

"No. Except that Rodney has been shipping it North. But they promised me that as soon--"

"I see!" he answered, as a stumble over a root cut short her words and made her cling to him more tightly. "You are an ideal sister. You'd be an ideal wife for a scoundrel. You would be a G.o.dsend to any one with phoney stock to sell. Your credulity is perfect. And your feminine curiosity is under lots better control than most women's. I suppose they told you this so-called treasure is in the form of ingots and nuggets and pieces-of-eight and jewels-so-rich-and-rare, and all the rest of the bag of tricks borrowed from Stevenson's 'Treasure Island'? They would!"

She showed her disrelish for his flippant tone, by removing her hand from his arm. But at once the faint hiss of a snake as it glided into the swamp from somewhere just in front of them made her clutch his wet sleeve afresh. His hints as to the nature of the treasure had roused her inquisitiveness to a keen point. Yet, remembering what he had said about her praiseworthy dearth of feminine curiosity, she approached the subject in a roundabout way.

"If it isn't gold bars and jewels and old Spanish coins, and so forth," said she, seeking to copy his bantering tone, "then I suppose it is illicit whiskey? It would be a sickening anticlimax to find they were liquor-smugglers."

"No," Brice rea.s.sured her, "neither Standish nor Hade is a bootlegger--nor anything so petty. That's too small game for them. Though, in some parts of southern Florida, bootleggers are so thick that they have to wear red b.u.t.tons in their lapels, to keep from trying to sell liquor to each other. No, the treasure is considerably bigger than booze or any other form of smuggling. It--h.e.l.lo!" he broke off. "There's your lawn, right ahead of us. I can see patches of starlight through that elaborate vine-screen draped so cleverly over the head of the path. Now, listen, Miss Standish. I am going to the house. But first I am going to see you to the main road.

That road's patroled, and it's safe from the gentle Caesars.

I want you to go there and then make your way to the nearest neighbor's. If there is any mixup, we'll want you as far out of it as possible."

As he spoke, he held aside the curtain of vines, for her to step out onto the starlit lawn. A salvo of barking sounded from the veranda, and Bobby Burns, who had been lying disconsolately on the steps, came bounding across the lawn, in rapture, at scent and step of the man he had chosen as his G.o.d.

"Good!" muttered Brice, stooping to pat the frantically delighted collie. "If he was drowsing there, it's a sign no intruders have tried to get into the house yet. He's been here a day. And that's long enough for a dog like Bobby to learn the step and the scent of the people who have a right here and to resent any one who doesn't belong. Now, what's the shortest way to the main road?"

"The shortest way to the house," called the girl, over her shoulder, "is the way I'm going now."

"But, Miss Standish!" he protested. "Please--"

She did not answer. As he had bent to pat the collie, she had broken into a run, and now she was half way across the lawn, on her way to the lighted veranda. Vexed at her disobedience in not taking his advice and absenting herself from impending trouble, Gavin Brice followed. Bobby Burns gamboled along at his side, leaping high in the air in an effort to lick Brice's face, setting the night astir with a fanfare of joyous barking, imperiling Gavin's every step with his whisking body, and in short conducting himself as does the average high-strung collie whose master breaks into a run.

The noise brought a man out of the hallway onto the veranda, to see the cause of the racket. He was tall, ma.s.sive, clad in snowy white, and with a golden beard that shone in the lamplight. Milo Standish, as he stood thus, under the glow of the veranda lights, was splendid target for any skulking marksman. Claire seemed to divine this. For, before her astonished brother could speak, she called to him:

"Go indoors! Quickly, please!"

Bewildered at the odd command, yet impressed with its stark earnestness, Milo took a wondering step backward, toward the open doorway. Then, at sight of the running man, just behind his sister, he paused. Claire's lips were parted, to repeat her strange order, as she came up the porch steps, but Gavin, following her, called rea.s.suringly:

"Don't worry, Miss Standish. They don't use guns. They're knifers. The conchs have a holy horror of firearms. Besides, a shot might bring the road patrol. He's perfectly safe."

As Gavin followed her up the steps and the full light of the lamps fell on his face, Milo Standish stared stupidly at him, in blank dismay. Then, over his bearded face, came a look of sharp annoyance.

"It's all right, Mr. Standish," said Gavin, reading his thoughts as readily as spoken words. "Don't be sore at Roke.

He didn't let me get away. He did his best to keep me. And my coming back isn't as unlucky for you as it seems. If the snakes had gotten me, there's a Secret Service chap over there who would have had an interesting report to make. And you'd have joined Hade and Roke in a murder trial. So, you see, things might be worse."

He spoke in his wonted lazily pleasant drawl, and with no trace of excitement. Yet he was studying the big man in front of him, with covert closeness. And the wholly uncomprehending aspect of Milo's face, at mention of the snakes and the possible murder charge, completed Brice's faith in Standish's innocence of the trick's worst features.

Claire had seized her brother's hand and was drawing the dumfounded Milo after her into the hallway. And as she went she burst forth vehemently into the story of Brice's afternoon adventures. Her words fairly fell over one another, in her indignant eagerness. Yet she spoke wellnigh as concisely as had Gavin when he had recounted the tale to her.