The First of the English: A Novel
Putting her hand in his arm she strolls with him down the little path,
the poplars throwing shadows on it here and there. Each time they reach
a shadow they pause for a farewell—and as they near the boat each
farewell grows longer and more drawn out, so it is many minutes before
they reach the last shadowed nook and stand there listening to the
sailors’ voices coming up to them from the landing. The men are making
merry, having brought provisions and wine with them for their stay.
Then the girl suddenly puts her arms about the lost one that has
returned to her and whispers impulsively: “Oh, my Guido, if we never
had to say good-night!”
“That time is coming soon.”
“Soon? Papa doesn’t even know yet.”
“Nevertheless the time is coming soon. I swear to you by this!” And Guy
Chester, leaving Hermoine’s fair cheeks very blushing and her dark eyes
in grandest brunette sparkle, walks down the stairs to the landing
place and gets into his gig, in his heart a great determination to make
good his words.
Curiously his boat does not drive up the Schelde, but turns the other
way, and after a two hours’ hard pull, the tide being against it, makes
the Dover Lass, in the cabin of which Chester has long and careful
converse with Dalton.
The immediate result of this is that the long boat of his vessel is put
overboard fully armed and equipped, and all that night and the
succeeding ones patrols the Schelde in front of Dona Hermoine’s country
house, guarding the slumbers of Alva’s daughter. For Chester has not as
much faith as his sweetheart in the absence of all marauding Gueux, and
has made up his mind that no other pirate shall carry off his treasure.
Then aided by the tide, Guy’s boat drives up the Schelde, getting to
Antwerp docks in time to give him a few hours’ sleep before daybreak.
On the first rise of the sun he is up.
Giving orders to Martin Corker, who is in charge, to hasten the landing
of the cargo, which is mostly light silks prepared purposely for quick
discharge, Chester receives astonishment.
“We’ve got too few hands to do it very quick,” grumbles the boatswain.
“How so? You’ve thirty!”
“Thirty yesterday—but Bodé Volcker, whose directions you told me to
follow, came down before sunset last night and took off twelve men with
their duds and bedding to sleep in the town.”
“All right,” answers the captain, but goes hurriedly up to the house on
the Meir to find the reason of this.
Here getting immediate word with Bodé Volcker, who is awake and in his
counting room, Guy finds that the merchant has entered into this
business of treasure-stealing with true mercantile rapacity.
“I’ve got everything running now,” remarks Niklaas. “Leave the whole
thing to me. You’d better not be known much in the matter. I have
discovered easily enough from people about the docks that old Señora
Sebastian, who is called ‘Dumb Devil’ on account of her infernal temper
and lack of tongue to express it with, keeps a sailors’ lodging house
for her dissipated livelihood, dividing her time between rum and sleep.
Now the shipping of this port has fallen off greatly, owing to the
accursed tenth penny tax.”
“Yes,” answers Guy, “the docks are not half full of vessels. But what
has this to do with our matter?”
“This! As there are few vessels there are few sailors to board, and
Mother Dumb Devil had only two last night, a Norwegian and a Frenchman.
Now she has fourteen, twelve of your men, who occupy the balance of the
house and have gone in there with their duds and bedding, each man of
them carrying a large bed-tick filled with straw.”
“What is your plan?”
“This: we get the Norwegian and the Frenchman drunk—dead drunk; ship
’em drunk on a vessel of mine, and to-morrow morning they wake up upon
the open ocean outside the Schelde bound for the other end of the
world. Then we get Mother Dumb Devil drunk and insensible; fill up the
two now vacant berths in the house with two more of your sailors——you
have very careful men?”
“Yes. They know their lives depend upon their caution.”
“Then there is room for no more boarders and the house is our own for a
few hours, in which we make our examination, and if all is right get
the treasure of Alva; your sailors bringing it out each day, as their
bedding——only the bed-ticks will be filled with doubloons instead of
straw—next a new lot of your men with fresh bedding.”
“This is as good a plan,” answers Guy, considering, “as you could have
hit upon. There is but one serious danger. Is the house watched by some
of Alva’s agents?”
“That I have investigated, and I think no one connected with Alva or
the Spanish government has ever been near the place since it was let to
Señora Sebastian. But,” adds the merchant, rubbing his head, “that is
what frightens me! Do you suppose such an astute man would take no
precautions to inform himself of the safety of his treasure? Mark my
words, there’s something in that Alva’s statue that we don’t know of.”
“If you’re afraid to make the venture, I am not,” says Guy
determinedly. “I’ll take the risk.”
“Well, perhaps it were better you go in first,” returns Bodé Volcker.
“You have the greatest interest in the matter. Then, if it should come
to fighting, you would have a thousand chances to my none.”
So the matter is arranged, and Bodé Volcker does his part of the work
thoroughly. Four hours after this the Norwegian and French sailors are
drunk; the next day they awake tossing upon the open ocean, aboard a
ship bound for the Indies, a cruise that will last three years. At dusk
the merchant comes to Chester, who waits in his counting room, and
whispers: “Mother Dumb Devil is dead drunk also; do your work.”
“Show me the place.” And Guy, taking Corker with him, is led by Niklaas
to a street just on the town side of the Esplanade, where, among
tumble-down dwellings as wretched and dirty as itself, stands the house
of Señora Sebastian. One of Guy’s sailors lets them in, the merchant
not even entering the place, only pointing it out from round the
corner.
“Where is the mistress of the house?”
“Dead drunk upstairs, captain,” whispers the man. “She was raving an
hour ago, but now she’s good for an all night snore—she’s a rum
one—dumb, but snores like old Neptune himself.”
Inspecting the woman, Chester finds the report correct, and leaving a
rum bottle handy to keep her quiet in any event—he comes down stairs
and says hastily “To work.”
With this Guy and Corker enter the cellar and get to business by the
light of a flickering oil lamp.
To Chester’s delight, after taking up the four stones in the center, he
finds a heavy slab, made easy to handle by an iron ring inserted in its
top. But it will not move to their combined strength until they use a
crowbar. A hasty examination discloses that it has evidently been
undisturbed for a year or two, and that time has settled and cemented
it into its place. As they pry it up a little shaft is uncovered with a
ladder leading down it.
This is scarce ten feet in depth, and lowering the flickering lantern,
they see a passage leading from it in the right direction.
“Now,” whispers Guy to Corker, “keep watch here. If you’re attacked
make the best fight you can and warn and save me if possible. If not,
remain exactly as you are.”
“You’d better let me go with you, captain!”
“No, I’ll risk my own life first. I have the drawings, I have the
light, I have the keys.”
First lowering the lantern to the bottom to be sure that there is no
foul air that may bring him death, Chester descends and finds a paved
passageway scarce large enough for two men to pass abreast, with a
vaulted arch of masonry overhead. Striding along this, though his heart
beats faster, his nerves act steadily.
Within two hundred feet from the bottom of the shaft he encounters the
first iron doors. These are immensely strong, and would yield to
nothing save explosion. Inspecting by the lantern’s light the
instructions for the use of the successive keys, though Guy has already
memorized them, he oils the first key with finest olive oil and inserts
it.
The locks have evidently been left in perfect order and secured against
all damp and rust. The key turns readily. Then the second is tried;
again the wards yield; next the third with equal success. Withdrawing
this Chester discovers how beautiful is the mechanism of the Italian,
for the two immense iron doors would swing on their hinges to an
infant’s touch.
So far the dying Paciotto has told him the truth.
He goes on more confidently. The second pair of doors, from the surging
of the waters that he hears faintly above him, he knows is under the
moat itself. These yielding with equal readiness to the talisman he
holds, disclose to Chester the apparatus the engineer had spoken of,
and of which he holds the drawing in his hand, the one regulating the
valves that will deluge him with the waters of the moat if Alva’s
statue is destroyed.
Following the directions on the paper, he disconnects these, shutting
off connection with the moat, and to make things doubly sure wedges
these valves in their places.
Then he passes to the third doors. These are the ones that will open
upon Alva’s treasure house. His heart, which has been regular in its
beats until now, begins to thump in spasms as he uses the keys
carefully—almost lingeringly, as if afraid to see what is within.
Finally the wards yield three times, he presses the doors open, and
holding his lantern in front of him would stride on, but suddenly
stumbles, there is a clanking sound, and he falls groveling in the
midst of bags of gingling coin. Then he holds the lantern up and gasps:
“By heavens, what a miser’s sight,” and laughs, but very softly, as if
he feared the twenty feet of solid rock and the great Bastion of the
Duke that stands above it are as tissue paper and will let forth even
his sighs.
Recovering himself he makes rapid inspection of the treasure,
sufficient to know that there are four or five millions right to his
hand.
Then he goes back and calling Corker to him, the seaman says: “Thing
didn’t work?”
“Yes, it’s all right. Bring the men with you.”
Taking these with him he makes account of the treasure; and there are,
as well as he can see—he may make a mistake of one or two—one hundred
and seventy-nine bags of gold, each sealed with Alva’s arms and labeled
twenty thousand crowns and about four hundred thousand Spanish silver
dollars in some two hundred and fifty sacks. Besides these there is a
strong case that Chester does not open, but guesses it contains jewels,
plate and such pleasant things.
Leaving Corker in charge, he orders that each of the men carry out as
many sacks as possible to the cellar and to continue this work until he
returns. All this time he keeps four men heavily armed on guard at the
entrance, and these have orders to defend the house from any sudden
attack.
Then going along the dark streets to the counting room of Bodé Volcker,
his step exalted and his mind on fire, Chester strides up to the
merchant, who says to him—for he has not been very long upon this
work—“No success—nothing!—a fool’s story!”
“A fool’s story worth five millions!”
“Hel en duivel! Five millions! God bless you, my noble boy. Let us go
and get it at once.”
“No; there’s been no one troubling us,” jeers Guy. “For that reason
it’s dangerous, Bodé Volcker.”
But Bodé Volcker can no more be kept from seeing Alva’s treasure than
he could be kept from running away from it before; and he goes back
with Guy to the house of Mother Dumb Devil.
Here he says: “Leave everything in my charge. I’ll get it out; every
dollar shall be accounted for to you on the honor of a merchant.”
To this Chester answers: “The honor of a merchant is sufficient for me.