Cursed be the treasure
them alive. History had repeated itself, I thought. The original crime
of the Mad Captain and his followers had been perpetrated a second
time, not only in imagination, as in my father's yarn, but in reality.
But there was a difference. As I examined the script, making out here
and there another word, and another, I began to find myself on a clue
worth all the rest of the story. When once removed the boulder that
had guarded the cave-mouth had been so delicately poised that a couple
of men could roll it back into place, though it had needed twenty with
ropes and levers to heave it up from the hole it covered. But the thing
that arrested me was that the boulder had originally been at the end
of a short but steep passage rising up from the sea into the land, and
the entrance it had sealed was a large hole in the floor of the tunnel.
When the great stone was released, instead of merely falling back into
place, its impetus as it fell had carried it over the pit it had first
covered, and it had rushed to the mouth of the tunnel itself where it
had stuck, jammed immovably in the narrow opening. I didn't need to
cast about in my mind for a possible locality to suit the description;
I knew at once it was the Dragon's Mouth. I had been right in my
surmise that if that tongue were drawn back into the throat the mystery
would be laid bare. No wonder the priest's map had failed to give my
father the clue he had needed. By the rolling of that stone the trace
of the pit-mouth had been destroyed.
But I wasn't satisfied yet. Again I bent to the withered paper.
However, I learnt little more, for a great deal was illegible, though
I determined when out in the daylight to scan it letter by letter till
all lay clear. But I did learn the personal tragedy of the wretch whose
bones lay before me. When his party had been trapped, and had wasted
their energies making futile efforts to escape, futile appeals to their
enemies, clamouring at the great sealed door as though their voices
could penetrate it, he had set himself to search for some other way of
breaking from his prison. He noticed that in the cave there was a wide
pool of water which rose and sank with the tide, and so he had argued
that it must communicate with the sea. In a desperate resolve he had
written out his story, and corking the paper securely in a bottle he
had tied it round his neck, so that if he perished his body might be
found at sea, and his friends at least be rescued. Then diving into
the pool he had trusted to good fortune to see him out to safety. I
could reconstruct the sequel without much difficulty. He had groped
his way through the water and had found the mouth of a tunnel, where,
risking all, he had entered and swum for dear life. But the fates had
been against him; he had been trapped in this pocket having risen and
plunged again how many times I couldn't say. But I knew he had made his
bid for freedom with the tide well in, for at low water having reached
so far he would have won to safety unless overtaken by sheer physical
exhaustion. I felt the tragedy of the thing; so near and yet so far.
And the old story of the manuscript became vividly real to me with
this witness at my feet of a victim trapped to death. I glanced at the
end of the paper for the fellow's name. Meadows, I made out--Carey
Meadows--and inscribed in thicker letters so that its impression might
never fade was a prayer that if he should die, and his body be found,
justice might be done on his accursed brother who had shut him there to
perish: Commander Evelyn Meadows of the _Tiger_.
I had no time to think what this might mean, for suddenly I became
aware that the tide had risen; high up the slope as I was, the water
was feeling about my ankles. So engrossed had I been in my strange
discovery that I hadn't noticed the waters creeping up over my feet.
Hastily I scrambled down the steep fall to find myself trapped in the
next pocket, with the water already over the mouth of it. Perforce I
dropped my lantern, and in sudden darkness dived beneath the arch and
rose into blackness on the other side, where again I pressed forward in
utmost alarm, for I was blindly stumbling and slipping. Then the roof
came down against my head, again forcing me beneath the water. Once
more I dived, but rose only to crack my head against the rock, with no
space of air to breathe in. I was almost choking for want of breath,
but I kicked out frenziedly against the pressing rock, sinking down and
down until at last I felt the roof rise up again, and I knew I was in
the next pocket. With my lungs near bursting I splashed my way up to
the surface, where fortunately there was room for my head to clear the
water. There I rested for a moment gulping in the dank air; but fearing
to delay plunged once again beneath the arch, and so up into the fifth
pocket, and on to the next. It was a terrible journey, but at length
I came out into the open way, almost sobbing with terror, but knowing
that now I was safe.
I sank upon a rock to recover my breath, and at last felt my courage
return to me, and even laughed at the adventure, though I knew well I
had played a close match with death. Then I stripped off my soaking
garments, and dived for the last time, rising to the good daylight
in Ebb-Tide Pool, where for a long while I lay out on a hot rock and
basked in the sun, till feeling a desire for dinner I set off for my
clothes which I had left on the platform above the pool.
I climbed out on to the great rock by the way I had learnt. I was still
a few feet from the platform when I saw a face looking down at me from
above. It was hastily withdrawn, but the surprise nearly upset me, and
I swung, clinging by my finger-tips, to the face of the rock. Then
gathering my strength I tightened my grip, and was once more climbing
steadily upwards, when I heard a terrible cry above me and the sound of
scuffling feet. My curiosity was aroused, and I tugged myself up in a
last effort. Just as I was about to swing myself on to the platform I
saw two figures swaying above me, locked in a deadly struggle. I clung
to my perch, half fearing they would topple on to me. Then I recognized
Dirk. Immediately I knew what had happened: at last he had tracked
his quarry to earth. I saw the huge fellow slowly bending his enemy
back over the edge of rock, so that his body was curved like a bow.
The man's right hand was raised, and in it gleamed a knife; but Dirk
had him firmly gripped by the wrist. As I looked I saw the knife-hand
slowly opening with the pressure of Dirk's fingers upon it. At last the
knife slipped free and fell to his feet, and the empty hand spread wide
with the palm turned full towards me.
And across the palm were two jagged scars.
In a fever of frenzied excitement I heaved myself on to the platform,
and drawing my knife shouted, "Let him go, Dirk! Let him go! Let me
kill him! He's mine!"
CHAPTER XXXI
EXPIATION
My sudden interruption might have been fatal, for Dirk in his surprise
loosened his hold, and his antagonist nearly slipped free, and stooping
had his fingers within an inch of the fallen knife. But Dirk recovered
in time; and now that his enemy's sting had been drawn he crushed
him tight in his tremendous arms, and had leisure holding him so to
question my strange conduct; for I was still dancing madly about him, a
naked figure save for my belt, crying, "Let him go! Let me kill him!"
"Steady, lad," said Dirk slowly, while the little fellow in his arms
writhed unavailingly, darting from his eyes such a fury of malignant
passion that his very gaze seemed poisonous. And I looking upon him
recognized that evil face I had three times seen.
"He killed my father," I cried to Dirk.
"Can't fathom that, kid," said Dirk. "It's the King's Man."
"But I know," I shouted. "I saw the marks on his hand."
"I too," said Dirk. But I knew he was referring to the mark of the
fire. Still excitedly urging Dirk to let me have the killing of the
fellow I yet had space in my mind for the thought that I knew now
where the mark of the fire had come from. It was from that night in
the blazing hut where my father had burnt his hand. Evidently the old
witch hadn't crawled free without a trace of the flames. All that part
of the story was instantaneously clear to me. The fellow had betrayed
the smugglers, as my father had said, so as to cast suspicion on him;
and had laid a snare for him by informing the smugglers that they would
know their betrayer by the mark of the fire on his hand. But the sign
that was to have betrayed my father had merely served to lead his enemy
into his own trap.
All this was a mere flash of thought. I didn't cease crying to Dirk,
"I tell you; look at his right hand; inside. There's the marks of the
nails."
Dirk pressed at the clenched fist, and slowly the fingers opened,
revealing those two jagged tell-tale scars. I opened out my own hand
beside that of my enemy's for Dirk to see, for he knew the story of
that chase across the sands.
"Yus," he said at length, "you're right, kiddy. It's the same cove
we've been after all the time. But I dessay you'd better let me have
the settling of him."
"No, no," I cried, for my thirst for vengeance, so easily allayed, was
whipped into a madness at the actual sight of my father's murderer.
Dirk still delayed, gripping the fellow in his huge embrace, while I
continued to cry, "Let me, Dirk, let me. I can fight him. I'll kill
him."
All this while the look in the man's eyes was altogether
incomprehensible. For Dirk he had nothing but the evillest hatred I had
ever seen on any face; yet for me he had a look almost of tenderness.
But his countenance was so shifting in its expression that it wasn't
the same for half a minute together. In my frenzy I noticed little
of this at the time, except that it seemed to me that he felt some
kind of wicked gratitude for my appeal to Dirk to spare him so that I
might settle my own account of blood. I guessed he spied a loophole
of safety, as he would only have a boy to fight. This imagined slight
which I sensed in his contempt for me angered me the more, till I
fevered for his blood.
Eventually my clamouring prevailed upon Dirk, though I could see he was
unwilling to let me risk myself in fight against the fellow. But as he
said, "You've more to pay than I have, Tommy. You have first claim."
I picked up the man's knife and springing back as Dirk released him
tossed it to him. He caught it by the handle in true fashion. Then
naked as I was I faced him, and we circled round one another with eyes
fixed blazingly to each other's eyes. Dirk stood aside, but ready to
leap in if the fellow showed signs of attempting to escape. And indeed
I think that was his purpose. For at first he didn't try to aim a blow
at me; and once I saw his eyes turn for the fraction of a second to
where the cliff dropped sheer from his feet. I believe he would have
plunged and swum for it, but I drove in swiftly and gashed him down
the arm. I heard Dirk's "Bravo!" but I knew I had done foolishly to
wound and not to kill, for the fellow's anger was sharpened, and I
saw the glow of hate in his eyes flash on me for a second as I had
seen it burn against Dirk. Moreover, he began to press me, and I had
to give ground. Twice he lunged in, but I caught his wrist in time
and sprang away. And in my turn I feinted and struck, but he was too
quick for me. I began to feel he was a master of knife-work such as I
had never seen before. My father had been quick in our mock battles,
and Dirk had shown me something of what could be done in agility and
parrying and swift counterfeit. But this lithe, swarthy creature, who
circled stealthily about me and sprang in and away with the lightness