Cursed be the treasure
"So you see there were only two who knew the secret; for we needn't
count the servant. He was merely a part of his master's will. And
then"--again he paused--"Playden was killed. He was _stabbed in the
neck_." He seemed to intend me to understand something particular by
this. "And the manuscript vanished. Here it is."
The conclusion was obvious. He might have said, "Here is the murderer."
Again there was silence for a while, as they fixed me with their
eyes from behind their masks. Then I began to be aware of something
happening behind me. For a little time now there had been a sort of
gentle tugging at my bonds, but I had hardly noticed it as my mind had
been given to the story. But now in the space of silence I grew keenly
conscious of it. There was something furtive in the twitching of the
cords at my wrists, very much as though a rat were gnawing at them.
Indeed for half a minute I wondered whether Providence were coming to
my aid, for I had heard of prisoners being miraculously freed in such a
way. But the hope was too wild to be credited.
Then the man before me began to speak again, and my mind was torn
between his words, which I knew I must follow with all my wits, and
the silent movements behind me which I couldn't understand, but which
vaguely alarmed me by their secrecy and stealth.
"But the manuscript, as you know, is now only half a key. It is old and
torn, and there is a vital portion missing." He turned to the map and
pointed to the spot which had puzzled my father. "Even Playden never
unravelled the mystery though he searched for twenty years."
At that moment I felt a hand touch mine. It was immediately withdrawn.
The hand was cold, and the touch had been but a fractional pressure;
but it was enough. I knew there was somebody there behind me; in the
water it must be, for I was in the very stern of the boat. A horrible
fear caught at my heart. It was bad enough to be held in captivity
with my father's enemy in the lantern-light there before me; but this
subtle, unseen creature, feeling up at me out of the dark water, was a
thing to shake my nerve with a sense of inscrutable forces at work to
undermine me unawares. I could scarcely concentrate my attention on the
vital business in hand. But I must listen perforce, though with half my
mind alert for the movements of that unknown presence at my back.
The voice was speaking again: "You will either supply me with the
missing clue, or"--he spoke with an ominous emphasis--"you will pay the
penalty which the sign on your hand warrants."
Still there was a stealthy jogging at my wrists. Casting desperately in
my mind for what it could mean, and half afraid every moment to feel
a knife in my back, I yet had a thought to give to the words of my
captor. It all seemed clear to me now. Worthing had been right in his
surmise, though he hadn't suspected the connection between my father's
fate and the persecution of the Captain. It was a common enemy, I knew
now, who being himself on the scent of the treasure knew that he needed
both the manuscript which my father had possessed and the clue which
only the Captain could supply, as he had already threaded the maze and
stolen a share of the gold. But I was still in the dark as to how I
could serve the fellow's turn.
He resumed: "You have the choice. Behind you lies the shore and
freedom; before you a sea-voyage and the forfeit at the end of it. I
will give you two minutes to decide. I shall then ungag you and you
will tell me the secret of the entrance. If you refuse you will be your
own executioner."
He took out a heavy watch, and repeated, "I give you two minutes."
I was in an agony. Clearly he thought I knew the secret because I had
lived with the Captain. He seemed to know I had once penetrated to the
secret chamber; probably he presumed I had then learnt the answer to
the riddle. My mind was in a maze. All I could see clearly was that I
was in danger of sharing the fate of that wretched skeleton if I failed
to satisfy the demands of these men. The forfeit.... I shuddered,
remembering my alarming experience in the passage. How was I to
convince this man that I was as ignorant as himself?
Then I held my breath in sudden excitement, for I felt the cord at my
right wrist slip loose. I moved my hand gently, and knew that it was
free. The mystery of that strange presence in the water behind me was
instantly clear. It was a friend. I didn't stop to think who, nor how
he had found me. But some one had been cutting at my bonds, and now I
was free. At least my knife hand was free. Instinctively I looked to my
belt to see if my weapons had been taken from me. They lay, the knife
and the pistol, by the lantern in the bottom of the boat.
"One minute!" said the man.
I remembered I still had my stiletto hidden at my breast. Perhaps
I could draw it before they knew what I was at, and take them by
surprise. That would be easier than stooping for my knife and risking
a blow at my bent neck. I tightened my muscles for a quick grab at the
weapon, and looked across at my two enemies. For some reason I knew
I would strike the smaller man first. He was the one who had had the
actual killing of my father. I saw the spot on his neck where I would
stab. I could almost see the throb of the artery where I meant to
strike.
"Half a minute!" said the man.
Then I felt something hard pushed into my hand. It was the haft of a
knife. I knew then it was Dirk who had come to my rescue.
"Time!"
I hurled myself forward at my father's murderer, and plunged my blade
deep into his throat. He sank limply with a choking gasp, and I fell
on top of him snarling through my gag in an uncontrollable access of
hate and fury. At the same moment there was a splash and a cry, and a
huge figure leapt out of the water and dealt with the other man. I saw
him as he knelt above his victim draw a knife from his breast dripping
dreadfully in the light of the lantern.
In a moment I was free of my bonds. I would have stripped the masks
from the dead men, and looked on the faces of these enemies of mine who
had already tracked my father to his death, and had so nearly sent me
to follow him. But Dirk grasped me and pulled me away. "Back," he said
in a low harsh voice, "we must swim for it." And he was in the water.
I stopped to slip my weapons back into my belt, and stuff the
manuscript in my breast; and was over the side and in the sea, striking
out in the wake of Dirk for the lights of the brig _Revenge_.
CHAPTER XXVII
A NIGHT AND A DAY
As soon as we clambered on board, dripping from our swim, Dirk
dismissed me below without a word except a rough good night. I didn't
know how he had come to play the part he had done in the dark adventure
of the evening, nor did I give the matter much thought, for my mind was
too busy with other aspects of the problem. The feeling that for so
long I had been blindly groping on a forlorn quest, and that now by my
enemies' own move I had suddenly accomplished not only the mission on
which Jenny had sent me, but my own private revenge as well, was like
the falling away of an enormous chain, or the flooding of a prison with
noonday light.
As I lay on my bunk tossing in my excitement I hugged my arms across my
breast and laughed into my blankets. It all seemed so miraculous, so
incredible, as though Providence had planned the move and I had merely
trodden an ordained path, I wondered whether I were indeed especially
cared for and watched over by Heaven. Perhaps my affairs were in the
keeping of a power beyond myself. But the thought was swallowed up in
my exultation. For I was in a glow of excitement and couldn't sleep. I
didn't want to sleep. I wanted to lie awake and let my imagination wing
me away to Jenny and the meeting that was to be; for now I could say to
her, "He is dead; your father need fear no more."
Again and again I pictured the scene to myself in a tumult of rapture.
I wouldn't merely be going to her because she had sent for me. The joy
I had felt when I learnt she wanted me was intensified a hundredfold by
the knowledge that now I had fulfilled the task she had set me to do.
The consideration that I had avenged my father's murder didn't give
me so much satisfaction as the knowledge that I had struck down the
Captain's foe. I think revenge had become merely a shadowy sort of duty
to me, whereas there was a real purpose served in freeing a living man
from a lifelong persecution. It needed the bodily presence of my enemy
to whip up my fury to the pitch of mortal hatred. While he sat there
before me in the boat my fingers had itched for the blow. But now that
the blow had been given I felt no hatred. Indeed I gave little thought
to the fellow at all. My mind was turned homewards to Jenny and the
welcome that awaited me; and the things that lay at my heart to say
made me flush and throb as with a fever.
Between these glowing pictures I tried at times to slip in a question
as to how the affair had come about, but it was too much of a puzzle
for my mind to solve in its state of fervid imagining. All I could
clearly know was that I had been tracked by those two men, and that
somehow Dirk discovering my plight had swum silently up to the boat
as it lay on the dark waters and so had saved me. For the rest, how
they had tracked me, what they thought I knew, I put away for later
consideration. And once again turning my mind to Jenny and all the
wonder that lay ahead, I at last fell into a troubled sleep, broken by
confused visions of mingled rapture and alarm.
For with the wearing of the night a reaction began to set in. Little
by little my dreams turned from pleasing glimpses of Jenny to those
dark, silent bodies lying motionless under the stars. Once I awoke,
thinking that again I was dealing that deadly blow; and the feel of
the knife as it sank with a thud into the fellow's neck was so real
that I thought I had stabbed some one in my sleep. After that the
delusion came again and again with sickening reiteration, till at
length it seemed to be a punishment I was doomed to undergo rather than
the fulfilment of a long-cherished quest. Repeatedly I kept finding
myself being dragged unwillingly to the ordeal. Before me was the
victim, and always he seemed to be mocking me from under his mask, as
though I were the more to be pitied of the two. The fantasy grew upon
me that somehow I was striking at my own heart, till it seemed at times
it was my father I was bidden to kill, and then it was Dirk, and then
it was Jenny herself; at which I would struggle desperately against the
fatality that was forcing me on, and would wake with a terrible dread
upon me. I would try to soothe myself with the pleasanter thoughts
of the days ahead; but the charm had snapped; I couldn't conjure the
desirable vision back into my mind; and again I would tumble off into
a feverish doze to act over and over the horrible deed of the night.
Every detail returned upon me vividly, and even feelings I hadn't been
conscious of at the moment surged back upon me. For always there came
a stealthy fingering at my hand, and then a dagger would be slipped
furtively into my fingers as though the deed I was to do were evil and
accursed. And always I saw the throbbing of the blood at the victim's
throat, horribly intensified. And some one would be counting; and at
the cry of "Time!" I would leap forward, hating the duty to which some
fearful force impelled me, and strike savagely at the spot where the
blood beat. Then with the flesh sucking disgustingly at the blade as I
tugged to draw it free, and with a gush of blood that blinded me as I
toppled forward on to my victim, I would start awake with a sense of