"Blackie, this ain't bad. It's coolin', but thin--a real nice ladylike sort of drink, I should say. Suppose you take a swig over to Miss Jinny there with my compliments--I'm one to always treat a lady generous if she gives me half a chance."

Obediently Cookie hastened for another cup, set it on a tray, and approached me with his old-time ornate manner. I faced him with a withering look, but, unmindful, he bowed, presenting me the cup, and interposing his bulky person between me and the deeply-quaffing pirates. At the same time his voice reached me, pitched in a low and anxious key.

"Fo' de Lawd's sake, Miss Jinny, spill it out! It am mighty powerful dope--it done fumented twice as long as befo'--it am boun'

to give dat trash de blind-staggahs sho'tly!"

Instantly I understood, and a thrill of relief and of hope inexpressible shot through me. I raised to the troubled black face a glance which I trust was eloquent--it must needs have been to express the thankfulness I felt. Cookie responded with a solemn and convulsive wink--and I put the cup to my lips and after a brief parade of drinking pa.s.sed it back to Cookie, spilling the contents on the ground en route.

Cookie retired with his tray in his most impressive cake-walk fashion, and in pa.s.sing announced to Captain Magnus that "Miss Jinny say she mos' suhtinly am obligated to de gennelmun to' de refreshment of dis yere acidulous beverage." Which bare-faced mendacity provoked a loud roar of amus.e.m.e.nt from the sentinels, who were still sampling the cooling contents of the stone crock.

"Learning to like what I do already, hey?" guffawed the captain, and he called on Chris to drain another cup with him to the lady of his choice.

I have believed since that dragging, interminable time which I now lived through, that complete despair, where you rest quite finally on bedrock and have nothing to dread in the way of further tumbles, must be a much happier state than the dreadful one of oscillating between hope and fear. For a leaden-footed eternity, it seemed to me, I oscillated, longing for, yet dreading, the signs that Cookie's powerful dope had begun to work upon our guards--for might not the first symptoms be quite different from the antic.i.p.ated blind staggers? Fancy a murderous maniac pair reeling about the clearing, with death-vomiting revolvers and gleaming knives!

And then suddenly time, which had dragged so slowly, appeared to gallop, and the morning to be fleeing past, so that every wave that broke upon the beach was the footfalls of the returning pirates.

Long, long before that thirsty, garrulous pair grew still and torpid their companions must return--

And I saw Cookie, his stratagem discovered, dangling from a convenient tree.

Gradually the rough disjointed talk of the sailors began to languish. Covertly watching, I saw that Chris's head had begun to droop. His body, propped comfortably against a tree, sagged a little. The hand that held the cup was lifted, stretched out in the direction of the enticing jar, then forgetting its errand fell heavily. After a few spasmodic twitchings of the eyelids and uneasy grunts, Chris slumbered.

Captain Magnus was of tougher fiber. But he, too, grew silent and there was a certain meal-sack limpness about his att.i.tude. His dulled eyes stared dreamily. All at once with a jerk he roused himself, turned over, and administered to the sleeping Chris a prod with his large boot.

"Hey, there, wake up! What right you got to be asleep at the switch?" But Chris only breathed more heavily.

Captain Magnus himself heaved a tremendous yawn, settled back in greater comfort against his sustaining tree, and closed his eyes.

I waited, counting the seconds by the beating of the blood in my ears. In the background Cookie hovered apprehensively. Plainly he would go on hovering unless loud snores from the pirates gave him a.s.surance. For myself, I sat fingering my penknife, wondering whether I ought to rush over and plunge it into the sleepers'

throats. This would be heroic and practical, but unpleasant. If, on the other hand, I merely tried to free the prisoners and Captain Magnus woke, what then? The palm where they were tied was a dozen yards from me, much nearer to the guards, and within range of even their most languid glance. Beyond the prisoners was Miss Browne, glaring uncomprehendingly over the edge of her book. There was no help in Miss Browne.

I left my seat and stole on feet which seemed to stir every leaf and twig to loud complaint toward the captive pair. Tense, motionless, with burning eyes, they waited. There was a movement from Captain Magnus; he yawned, turned and muttered. I stood stricken, my heart beating with loud thumps against my ribs. But the captain's eyes remained closed.

"Virginia--quick, Virginia!" Dugald Shaw was stretching out his bound hands to me, and I had dropped on my knees before him and begun to cut at the knotted cords. They were tough strong cords, and I was hacking at them feverishly when something bounded across the clearing and flung itself upon me. Crusoe, of course!--and wild with the joy of reunion. I strangled a cry of dismay, and with one hand tried to thrust him off while I cut through the rope with the other.

"Down, Crusoe!" I kept desperately whispering. But Crusoe was unused to whispered orders. He kept bounding up on me, intent to fulfil an unachieved ambition of licking my ear. Cuthbert Vane tried, under his breath, to lure him away. But Crusoe's emotions were all for me, and swiftly becoming uncontrollable they burst forth in a volley of shrill yelps.

A loud cry answered them. It came from Captain Magnus, who had scrambled to his feet and was staggering across the clearing. One hand was groping at his belt--it was flourished in the air with the gleam of a knife in it--and staggering and shouting the captain came on.

"Ah, you would, would you? I'll teach you--but first I settle _him_, the porridge-eatin' Scotch swine--"

The reeling figure with the knife was right above me. I sprang up, in my hand the little two-inch weapon which was all I had for my defense--and Dugald Shaw's. There were loud noises in my ears, the shouting of men, and a shrill continuous note which I have since realized came from the lungs of Miss Higglesby-Browne. Magnus made a lunge forward--the arm with the knife descended. I caught it--wrenched at it frantically--striving blindly to wield my little penknife, whether or not with deadly intent I don't know to this day. He turned on me savagely, and the penknife was whirled from my hand as he caught my wrist in a terrible clutch.

All I remember after that is the terrible steely grip of the captain's arms and a face, flushed, wild-eyed, horrible, that was close to mine and inevitably coming closer, though I fought and tore at it--of hot feverish lips whose touch I knew would scorch me to the soul--and then I was suddenly free, and falling, falling, a long way through darkness.

XIX

THE YOUNG PERSON SCORES

My first memory is of voices, and after that I was shot swiftly out of a tunnel from an immense distance and opened my eyes upon the same world which I had left at some indefinite period in the past.

Faces, at first very large, by and by adjusted themselves in a proper perspective and became quite recognizable and familiar.

There was Aunt Jane's, very tearful, and Miss Higglesby-Browne's, very glum, and the Honorable Cuthbert's, very anxious and a little dazed, and Cookie's, very, very black. The face of Dugald Shaw I did not see, for the quite intelligible reason that I was lying with my head upon his shoulder.

As soon as I realized this I sat up suddenly, while every one exclaimed at once, "There, she's quite all right--see how her color is coming back!"

People kept Aunt Jane from flinging herself upon me and soothed her into calm while I found out what had happened. The penknife that I had lost in my struggle with Captain Magnus had fallen at the Scotchman's feet. Wrenching himself free of his all but severed bonds he had seized the knife, slashed through the rope that held him to the tree, and flung himself on Captain Magnus. It was a brief struggle--a fist neatly planted on the ruffian's jaw had ended it, and the captain, half dazed from his potations, went down limply.

Meanwhile Cookie had appeared upon the scene flourishing a kitchen knife, though intending it for no more b.l.o.o.d.y purpose than the setting free of Cuthbert Vane. Throughout the fray Chris slumbered undisturbed, and he and the unconscious Magnus were now reposing side by side, until they should awake to find themselves neatly trussed up with Cookie's clothes-lines.

But my poor brave Crusoe dragged a broken leg, from a kick bestowed on him by Captain Magnus, at whom he had flown valiantly in my defense.

So far so good; we had signally defeated our two guards, and the camp was ours. But what about the pirates who were still in the cave and would shortly be returning from it? They were three armed and st.u.r.dy ruffians, not to include Mr. Tubbs, whose habits were strictly non-combative. It would mean a battle to the death.

Our best hope would be to wait in ambush behind the trees of the clearing--I mean for Dugald Shaw and Cuthbert Vane to do it--and shoot down the unsuspecting pirates as they returned. This desperate plan, which so unpleasantly resembled murder, cast gloom on every brow.

"It's the women, lad," said the Scotchman in a low voice to Cuthbert. "It's--it's Virginia." And Cuthbert heavily a.s.sented.

Seeing myself as the motif of such slaughter shocked my mind suddenly back to clearness.

"Oh," I cried, "not that! Why not surprise them in the cave, and make them stay there? One man could guard the entrance easily--and afterward we could build it up with logs or something."

Everybody stared.

"A remarkably neat scheme," said Mr. Shaw, "but impossible of application, I'm afraid, because none of us knows where to find the cave."

I shook my head.

"I know!"

There was a lengthy silence. People looked at one another, and their eyes said, _This has been too much for her_!

"I _know_," I impatiently repeated. "I can take you straight there. I found the tombstone before Mr. Tubbs did, and the cave too. Come, let's not waste time. We must hurry--they'll be getting back!"

Amazement, still more than half incredulous, surged round me. Then Mr. Shaw said rapidly:

"You're right. Of course, if you have found the cave, the best thing we can do is to keep them shut up in it. But we must move fast--perhaps we're too late already. If they have found the chest they may by now be starting for camp with the first load of doubloons."

Again I shook my head.

"They haven't found the gold," I a.s.sured him.

The astonished faces grew more anxious. "It sho' have told on li'le Miss Jinny's brain," muttered Cookie to himself.

"They haven't found the gold," I reiterated with emphasis, "because the gold is not in the cave. Don't ask me how I know, because there isn't time to tell you. There was no gold there but the two bags that the pirates brought back last night. The--the skeleton moved it all out."

"My Lawd!" groaned Cookie, staggering backward.