It would be difficult--in fact, almost impossible--to land a cargo at the point near the caves where the captain and his party first ran their boats ash.o.r.e, nor did the captain in the least desire to establish his depot at a point so dangerously near the golden object of his undertaking. But the little bay which had been the harbor of the Rackbirds exactly suited his purpose, and here it was that he intended to land his bags of guano. He had brought with him on the vessel suitable timber with which to build a small pier, and he carried also a lighter, or a big scow, in which the cargo would be conveyed from the anch.o.r.ed schooner to the pier.

It seemed quite evident that the captain intended to establish himself in a somewhat permanent manner as a trader in guano. He had a small tent and a good stock of provisions, and, from the way he went to work and set his men to work, it was easy to see that he had thoroughly planned and arranged all the details of his enterprise.

It was nearly dark when the schooner dropped her anchor, and early the next morning all available hands were set to work to build the pier, and, when it was finished, the landing of the cargo was immediately begun.

Some of the sailors wandered about a little, when they had odd moments to spare, but they had seen such dreary coasts before, and would rather rest than ramble. But wherever they did happen to go, not one of them ever got away from the eye of Captain Horn.

The negroes evinced no desire to visit the cave, and Maka had been ordered by the captain to say nothing about it to the sailors. There was no difficulty in obeying this order, for these rough fellows, as much landsmen as mariners, had a great contempt for the black men, and had little to do with them. As Captain Horn informed Maka, he had heard from his friends, who had arrived in safety at Acapulco; therefore there was no need for wasting time in visiting their old habitation.

In that dry and rainless region a roof to cover the captain's stock in trade was not necessary, and the bags were placed upon a level spot on the sands, in long double rows, each bag on end, gently leaning against its opposite neighbor, and between the double rows there was room to walk.

The Chilian captain was greatly pleased with this arrangement. "I see well," said he, in bad Spanish, "that this business is not new to you. A ship's crew can land and carry away these bags without tumbling over each other. It is a grand thing to have a storehouse with a floor as wide as many acres."

A portion of the bags, however, were arranged in a different manner. They were placed in a circle two bags deep, inclosing a s.p.a.ce about ten feet in diameter. This, Captain Horn explained, he intended as a sort of little fort, in which the man left in charge could defend himself and the property, in case marauders should land upon the coast.

"You don't intend," exclaimed the Chilian captain, "that you will leave a guard here! n.o.body would have cause to come near the spot from either land or sea, and you might well leave your guano here for a year or more, and come back and find it."

"No," said Captain Horn, "I can't trust to that. A coasting-vessel might put in here for water. Some of them may know that there is a stream here, and with this convenient pier, and a cargo ready to their hands, my guano would be in danger. No, sir. I intend to send you off to-morrow, if the wind is favorable, for the second cargo for which we have contracted, and I shall stay here and guard my warehouse."

"What!" exclaimed the Chilian, "alone?"

"Why not?" said Captain Horn. "Our force is small, and we can only spare one man. In loading the schooner on this trip, I would be the least useful man on board, and, besides, do you think there is any one among you who would volunteer to stay here instead of me?"

The Chilian laughed and shook his head. "But what can one man do," said he, "to defend all this, if there should be need?"

"Oh, I don't intend to defend it," said the other. "The point is to have somebody here to claim it in case a coaster should touch here. I don't expect to be murdered for the sake of a lot of guano. But I shall keep my two rifles and other arms inside that little fort, and if I should see any signs of rascality I shall jump inside and talk over the guano-bags, and I am a good shot."

The Chilian shrugged his shoulders. "If I stayed here alone," said he, "I should be afraid of nothing but the devil, and I am sure he would come to me, with all his angels. But you are different from me."

"Yes," said Captain Horn, "I don't mind the devil. I have often camped out by myself, and I have not seen him yet."

When Maka heard that the captain intended staying alone, he was greatly disturbed. If the captain had not built the little fort with the guano-bags, he would have begged to be allowed to remain with him, but those defensive works had greatly alarmed him, for they made him believe that the captain feared that some of the Rackbirds might come back. He had had a great deal of talk with the other negroes about those bandits, and he was fully impressed with their capacity for atrocity. It grieved his soul to think that the captain would stay here alone, but the captain was a man who could defend himself against half a dozen Rackbirds, while he knew very well that he would not be a match for half a one. With tears in his eyes, he begged Captain Horn not to stay, for Rackbirds would not steal guano, even if any of them should return.

But his entreaties were of no avail. Captain Horn explained the matter to him, and tried to make him understand that it was as a claimant, more than as a defender of his property, that he remained, and that there was not the smallest reason to suspect any Rackbirds or other source of danger. The negro saw that the captain had made up his mind, and mournfully joined his fellows. In half an hour, however, he came back to the captain and offered to stay with him until the schooner should return. If Captain Horn had known the terrible mental struggle which had preceded this offer, he would have been more grateful to Maka than he had ever yet been to any human being, but he did not know it, and declined the proposition pleasantly but firmly.

"You are wanted on the schooner," said he, "for none of the rest can cook, and you are not wanted here, so you must go with the others; and when you come back with the second load of guano, it will not be long before the ship which I have engaged to take away the guano will touch here, and then we will all go north together."

Maka smiled, and tried to be satisfied. He and the other negroes had been greatly grieved that the captain had not seen fit to go north from Callao, and take them with him. Their one desire was to get away from this region, so full of horrors to them, as soon as possible. But they had come to the conclusion that, as the captain had lost his ship, he must be poor, and that it was necessary for him to make a little money before he returned to the land of his home.

Fortune was on the captain's side the next day, for the wind was favorable, and the captain of the schooner was very willing to start. If that crew, with nothing to do, had been compelled by adverse weather to remain in that little cove for a day or more, it might have been very difficult indeed for Captain Horn to prevent them from wandering into the surrounding country, and what might have happened had they chanced to wander into the cave made the captain shudder to conjecture.

He had carefully considered this danger, and on the voyage he had made several plans by which he could keep the men at work, in case they were obliged to remain in the cove after the cargo had been landed. Happily, however, none of these schemes was necessary, and the next day, with a western wind, and at the beginning of the ebb-tide, the schooner sailed away for another island where Captain Horn had purchased guano, leaving him alone upon the sandy beach, apparently as calm and cool as usual, but actually filled with turbulent delight at seeing them depart.

CHAPTER XXI

IN THE GATES

When the topmasts of the Chilian schooner had disappeared below the horizon line, with no reason to suppose that the schooner would put back again, Captain Horn started for the caves. Had he obeyed his instincts, he would have begun to stroll along the beach as soon as the vessel had weighed anchor. But even now, as he hurried on, he walked prudently, keeping close to the water, so that the surf might wash out his footsteps as fast as he made them. He climbed over the two ridges to the north of Rackbirds' Cove, and then made his way along the stretch of sand which extended to the spot where the party had landed when he first reached this coast. He stopped and looked about him, and then, in fancy, he saw Edna standing upon the beach, her face pale, her eyes large and supernaturally dark, and behind her Mrs. Cliff and the boy and the two negroes. Not until this moment had he felt that he was alone. But now there came a great desire to speak and be spoken to, and yet that very morning he had spoken and listened as much as had suited him.

As he walked up the rising ground toward the caves, that ground he had traversed so often when this place had been, to all intents and purposes, his home, where there had been voices and movement and life, the sense of desertion grew upon him--not only desertion of the place, but of himself.

When he had opened his eyes, that morning, his overpowering desire had been that not an hour of daylight should pa.s.s before he should be left alone, and yet now his heart sank at the feeling that he was here and no one was with him.

When the captain had approached within a few yards of the great stone face, his brows were slowly knitted.

"This is carelessness," he said to himself. "I did not expect it of them. I told them to leave the utensils, but I did not suppose that they would leave them outside. No matter how much they were hurried in going away, they should have put these things into the caves. A pa.s.sing Indian might have been afraid to go into that dark hole, but to leave those tin things there is the same as hanging out a sign to show that people lived inside."

Instantly the captain gathered up the tin pan and tin plates, and looked about him to see if there was anything else which should be put out of sight. He did find something else. It was a little, short, black, wooden pipe which was lying on a stone. He picked it up in surprise. Neither Maka nor Cheditafa smoked, and it could not have belonged to the boy.

"Perhaps," thought the captain, "one of the sailors from the _Mary Bartlett_ may have left it. Yes, that must have been the case. But sailors do not often leave their pipes behind them, nor should the officer in charge have allowed them to lounge about and smoke. But it must have been one of those sailors who left it here. I am glad I am the one to find these things."

The captain now entered the opening to the caves. Pa.s.sing along until he reached the room which he had once occupied, there he saw his rough pallet on the ground, drawn close to the door, however.

The captain knew that the rest of his party had gone away in a great hurry, but to his orderly mariner's mind it seemed strange that they should have left things in such disorder.

He could not stop to consider these trifles now, however, and going to the end of the pa.s.sage, he climbed over the low wall and entered the cave of the lake. When he lighted the lantern he had brought with him, he saw it as he had left it, dry, or even drier than before, for the few pools which had remained after the main body of water had run off had disappeared, probably evaporated. He hurried on toward the mound in the distant recess of the cave. On the way, his foot struck something which rattled, and holding down his lantern to see what it was, he perceived an old tin cup.

"Confound it!" he exclaimed. "This is too careless! Did the boy intend to make a regular trail from the outside entrance to the mound? I suppose he brought that cup here to dip up water, and forgot it. I must take it with me when I go back."

He went on, throwing the light of the lantern on the ground before him, for he had now reached a part of the cave which was entirely dark.

Suddenly something on the ground attracted his attention. It was bright--it shone as if it were a little pale flame of a candle. He sprang toward it, he picked it up. It was one of the bars of gold he had seen in the mound.

"Could I have dropped this?" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. He slipped the little bar into his pocket, and then, his heart beginning to beat rapidly, he advanced, with his lantern close to the rocky floor. Presently he saw two other pieces of gold, and then, a little farther on, the end of a candle, so small that it could scarcely have been held by the fingers. He picked up this and stared at it. It was a commonplace candle-end, but the sight of it sent a chill through him from head to foot. It must have been dropped by some one who could hold it no longer.

He pressed on, his light still sweeping the floor. He found no more gold nor pieces of candle, but here and there he perceived the ends of burnt wooden matches. Going on, he found more matches, two or three with the heads broken off and unburnt. In a few moments the mound loomed up out of the darkness like a spectral dome, and, looking no more upon the ground, the captain ran toward it. By means of the stony projections he quickly mounted to the top, and there the sight he saw almost made him drop his lantern. The great lid of the mound had been moved and was now awry, leaving about one half of the opening exposed.

In one great gasp the captain's breath seemed to leave him, but he was a man of strong nerves, and quickly recovered himself; but even then he did not lift his lantern so that he could look into the interior of the mound. For a few moments he shut his eyes. He did not dare even to look.

But then his courage came back, and holding his lantern over the opening, he gazed down into the mound, and it seemed to his rapid glance that there was as much gold in it as when he last saw it.

The discovery that the treasure was still there had almost as much effect upon the captain as if he had found the mound empty. He grew so faint that he felt he could not maintain his hold upon the top of the mound, and quickly descended, half sliding, to the bottom. There he sat down, his lantern by his side. When his strength came back to him,--and he could not have told any one how long it was before this happened,--the first thing he did was to feel for his box of matches, and finding them safe in his waistcoat pocket, he extinguished the lantern. He must not be discovered, if there should be any one to discover him.

Now the captain began to think as fiercely and rapidly as a man's mind could be made to work. Some one had been there. Some one had taken away gold from that mound--how much or how little, it did not matter. Some one besides himself had had access to the treasure!

His suspicions fell upon Ralph, chiefly because his most earnest desire at that moment was that Ralph might be the offender. If he could have believed that he would have been happy. It must have been that the boy was not willing to go away and leave all that gold, feeling that perhaps he and his sister might never possess any of it, and that just before leaving he had made a hurried visit to the mound. But the more the captain thought of this, the less probable it became. He was almost sure that Ralph could not have lifted that great ma.s.s of stone which formed the lid covering the opening of the mound, for it had required all his own strength to do it; and then, if anything of this sort had really happened, the letters he had received from Edna and the boy must have been most carefully written with the intention to deceive him.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Holding his lantern over the opening he gazed down into the mound.]

The letter from Edna, which in tone and style was a close imitation of his own to her, had been a strictly business communication. It told everything which happened after the arrival of the Mary Bartlett, and gave him no reason to suppose that any one could have had a chance to pillage the mound. Ralph's letter had been even more definite. It was constructed like an official report, and when the captain had read it, he had thought that the boy had probably taken great pride in its preparation. It was as guardian of the treasure mound that Ralph wrote, and his remarks were almost entirely confined to this important trust.

He briefly reported to the captain that, since his departure, no one had been in the recess of the cave where the mound was situated, and he described in detail the plan by which he had established Edna behind the wall in the pa.s.sage, so as to prevent any of the sailors from the ship from making explorations. He also stated that everything had been left in as high a condition of safety as it was possible to leave it, but that, if his sister had been willing, he would most certainly have remained behind, with the two negroes, until the captain's return.

Much as he wished to think otherwise, Captain Horn could not prevail upon himself to believe that Ralph could have written such a letter after a dishonorable and reckless visit to the mound.

It was possible that one or both of the negroes had discovered the mound, but it was difficult to believe that they would have dared to venture into that awful cavern, even if the vigilance of Edna, Mrs.

Cliff, and the boy had given them an opportunity, and Edna had written that the two men had always slept outside the caves, and had had no call to enter them. Furthermore, if Cheditafa had found the treasure, why should he keep it a secret? He would most probably have considered it an original discovery, and would have spoken of it to the others. Why should he be willing that they should all go away and leave so much wealth behind them? The chief danger, in case Cheditafa had found the treasure, was that he would talk about it in Mexico or the United States. But, in spite of the hazards to which such disclosures might expose his fortunes, the captain would have preferred that the black men should have been pilferers than that other men should have been discoverers. But who else could have discovered it? Who could have been there? Who could have gone away?

There was but one reasonable supposition, and that was that one or more of the Rackbirds, who had been away from their camp at the time when their fellow-miscreants were swept away by the flood, had come back, and in searching for their comrades, or some traces of them, had made their way to the caves. It was quite possible, and further it was quite probable, that the man or men who had found that mound might still be here or in the neighborhood. As soon as this idea came into the mind of the captain, he prepared for action. This was a question which must be resolved if he could do it, and without loss of time. Lighting his lantern,--for in that black darkness it was impossible for him to find his way without it, although it might make him a mark for some concealed foe,--the captain quickly made his way out of the lake cavern, and, leaving his lantern near the little wall, he proceeded, with a loaded pistol in his hand, to make an examination of the caves which he and his party had occupied.