The Treasure of Pearls: A Romance of Adventures in California
pale face streaming with cold, thick perspiration. "I have not always
been a ranger of the prairie. I was a sailor, like you are, as I caught
in your speech. Do you know the islands on the other coast of the Gulf
of California?"
"I have only sailed round to Guaymas."
"I will draw you the chart. Due north from Cantador Island I have a
treasure. Laugh not, raise no brow in derision. In coin, and emeralds,
gold, silver, and pearls, I have over a million dollars."
"Nonsense!"
"I am the last of the band of Colonel Dartois the Filibuster, and I
tell you I am the sole treasurer of the crew."
The Englishman was not acquainted with that adventurer, of much
notoriety in his day on the Pacific Coast, but the tone of the dying
man was sincere.
"Be quick, then, thou dying one, to give the clue," said he as if
convinced, whether so or not.
CHAPTER IV.
A DESERT MYSTERY.
Upon this enjoinder of so eminently practical a nature, and thoroughly
aware of the necessity of haste, the fallen Mexican rapidly drew with
his ramrod end, upon a space of earth smoothed by his foot in its
deerskin boot, like an antique tablet under the stylus, a map--rude,
but, to a navigator, plain and ample.
"At this point," said he, "a sunken reef trends north and south, with
a break at a little bow a quarter mile from the black rock that juts
out all but flush with its ripple. Deep water in 'the pot,' and there
we anchored to ride to a submerged buoy, so that the cankerworm would
not attack the metal or the borer the wood--a chest, bound with yellow
metal. If it shall have broke away, its weight would only have sunk it
deep in the oyster bed, all the shells there smashed to powdery scales
by the drags. A diver will find it for you, then."
"Now, swear to me!" he went on, forcing his weakening voice to keep
an even tenor. "Swear that one-half the contents of that hiding place
shall be Ignacio Santamaria's, my brother-in-law's, who will give
enough to his sister, my Angela. And the rest--be it yours, brave and
Christian heart."
Whether he was only fostering a delusion, or accepting a commission
that would enrich him, Gladsden nodded assent.
"But, swear!"
"I give you my word, as an English gentleman," said he, obstinately.
"I am content."
"And what is there stowed there away?" with a smile of his former
discredit, "Copper bolts?"
"Pearls! The choicest from Carmen Island to Acapulco."
"Well, that sounds natural enough. The next thing is, where shall I
find your brother Ignacio and the rest of the family, Master Pepillo
Santamaria?"
Poignant anguish rendered the other unconscious of external matter
for a period; he clutched his head with both hands as if to prevent
the bones flying asunder, then recovering his senses, as the paroxysm
quitted him, he said:
"You have not far to go for my brother. As for the dear ones, they are
at the old town of Guaymas. My brother is here--"
"Here! The devil!" looking round and falling on guard.
"At the Mound Tower." He pointed with a wavering finger to the
northeast. "Not two hours' ride, our rendezvous--a robber's
rendezvous--but have no fear! Ignacio is second of the band,--remember,
his sister's fortune is at stake! Call him out from among the crew--the
signal, our private signal, two meows of the catamount--Ignacio is
known as the _Gato de montes_, mark! Have mercy! Remember the pearls!
My wife--my little angels! Pity!"
Gladsden averted his gaze not to witness an agony which he could not
stay relieve or bid cease. When he looked on Pepillo again, he was dead.
As it threatened to come on dark, not only by the disappearance of the
sun, but by a storm, which the seaman divined, rather than perceived
in progress, he bent a silver coin, so as to make a species of pencil,
with the point at the double, and using some cigarette paper, copied
off, "in silver point," the map which the dead pirate, _cum_ pearl
fisher, _plus_ highwayman, had designed on the ground bedewed with his
blood. Whilst so employed, the Englishman repeated to himself, like a
scholar beating a lesson into his brain, the instructions connected
with this singular testament.
Recalling his intention before the robber's appeal had distracted him,
Gladsden, gun in hand, marched with a determination not to be cried
"halt!" to again, towards the huge cottonwood stump, by which he marked
the scene of the Mexican standing at bay against the Apache.
The latter's remains were there, a fresh made grave (covered with
stones and brambles to prevent the attack of the quadrupedal ghouls
to which the luckless red man was consigned, in most probability),
concealed don José de Miranda from the searcher's eyes. A fragment of
Dolores' attire was all that prevented Gladsden from supposing he had
been the prey of an illusion as to a woman having also occupied that
natural pedestal. To complete the puzzle a spade of North American make
was carelessly lying by the fresh mound.
"Hilli-ho! Ahoy there!" cried the Englishman, fortified against fear
of the bandits by the claim he had upon the lieutenant of the band,
and caring not a jot for Indians or others, since he had his gun in
shooting order.
But save the mocking of birds there was no rejoinder.
Afar he heard thunder, though.
"A mound tower must be prominent," he mused, "and this thicket in a
torrent rain and a tornado is worse accommodation than the toughest
highwayman must accord the bearer of an inheritance. I'll make for the
Mound Tower, and implore señor don El Sostenedor, of the most glorious
robber chief What's-his-name, for a corner of his stronghold, a chunk
of deer's meat, and a swig of pulque."
He returned to the two dead men, loaded his belt with such of their
weapons as completed, not to say replete, a portable arsenal, which an
Albanian janissary would have envied, and, with the same heedlessness
as to southwestern travelling precautions which had heretofore
distinguished him, stepped manfully away from the haunt of murder. Ere
he had taken half a dozen strides, he heard many a soft padded foot
in the bushes; the volunteer sextons of the prairie were flocking to
entomb the dead in their unscrupulous maw.
The thunder boomed more audible, and the eagle screamed defiance over
the lonely adventurer's head.
CHAPTER V.
THE GODSEND.
The inhabitants of the wilderness, red or white, black or yellow,
obliged often to "let go of all," as our sailor friend would word it,
and "get" (as he would probably say if his foolhardy behaviour allowed
him to live long enough in that region to acquire the cant language),
and pretty suddenly too, to follow the chase or avoid an ambush, are
necessitated to abandon their plunder and traps, using these words in
their legitimate sense. As, at the same time, they have no inclination
to renounce their property, they bank it, or, as the trappers say,
_cache_ it.
The model _cache_ is thus constructed: the first thing is to spread
blankets or buffalo robes around the chosen spot for the excavation,
which is scooped out in any desirable shape with knives and flat
stones; all the extracted ground, loam, sand, or whatever its nature,
being carefully put on the spreads. When the pit is sufficiently
capacious it is lined with buffalo hides to keep out damp, and the
valuables are deposited within, even packed up in hide, if necessary.
The earth is restored and trodden down, or rammed firmly with the
rifle butts, water is sometimes sprinkled on the top to facilitate
the settling, and upon the replaced sod to prevent it dying after the
injury to its roots. All the earth left over is carried to a running
water, or scattered to the four winds, so as to make the least
evidences of the concealment vanish. The _cache_ is generally so well
hidden that only the eye of an uncommonly gifted man can discover it.
Often, then, he only chances upon one that has been opened and emptied
by the owners, who, after that, of course, were easy in their second
operation. The contents of a well-constructed _cache_ may keep half a
dozen years without spoiling.
Benito Bustamente believed he had been led to die upon a _cache_.
To a man dropping of fatigue and famine such a find was of inestimable
value. It might reasonably offer him the primary necessities of which
he was denuded, and he would be revived, literally, on being furnished
with the means to fight his way to civilisation, where otherwise he and
Dolores, always hoping the young girl had not preceded him past the
bourne, must perish.
For a few instants, propped up on both hands, in a wistful attitude,
which I never saw in a pictorial representation of a human being, but
which was recalled to me by the pose of the bloodhound in Landseer's
picture of the trail of blood, in which floats a broken plume.
A moment of suspense!
He was swayed by indefinable sensations, fascinated, so as to be
fearful of breaking the spell.
When, at length, he mastered his emotion, he did not forget the duty
of an honest man constrained to invade the property of another, though
that other might be his enemy!
Trapper law is explicit; wanton breaking into a _cache_ is punishable
by death.
So he shaped out a square of the sod with a sharp mussel shell which
he spied glistening near him, and slowly removed that piece, anxiously
quivering in the act. Other turf he removed in the same manner, more
and more sure that it was a _cache_. This preliminary over, he paused
to take breath, and to enjoy the luxury of discounting a pleasure which
came as veritable life in the midst of death.
Then he resumed a task terrible for one exhausted by privations and
loss of blood. Many times he was forced to stop, his energy giving out.
Slow went on the work; no indications of his being correct arose to
corroborate his surmise. The shell broke, but then he used the two
fragments, held in his hand with such tenacity that they seemed to be
supplementary nails. Vain as was the toil, here lay, he still believed,
the sole chance of safety; if heaven smiled on his efforts, his darling
Dolores might yet be a happy woman. So he clung to this last chance
offered by happy hazard with that energy of despair, the immense power
of Archimedes, for which nothing is impossible.
The hole, of no contemptible size, yawned blankly before him. Nothing
augured success, and, whatever the indomitable energy of the young
man's character, he felt discouragement cast a new gloom over his soul.
His eyelids, red with fever, licked up the tear that ventured to soothe
them, and his lips cracked as he pressed them together.
"At least, here I dig a grave for don José, and my poor love," he said
wildly. "It shall be deep enough to baffle the wolf!"
He renewed his tearing at the soil, when suddenly the shells snapped
off, both pieces together, and his nails also scraping something of
a different material to the earth, turned back at their jagged ends,
but not at that supreme moment giving him the pain which at another
time the same accident must have caused. Some hairs were mingled with
the earth, and a scent different from that of the freshly bared ground
intoxicated him with its musk.
Disdaining the shattered mussel shell, he used his hands as scoops, and
presently unearthed a buffalo skin.
Instead of tugging at it with greedy relish to feast on the treasure it
doubtlessly muffled, Benito drew back his hands and stared with worse
tribulation than ever.
A _cache_--yes! A full one--who knew?
Long ago it might have been pillaged. With but one movement between
him and the verification or annihilation of his hopes the Mexican
hesitated. He was frightened.
His labour under difficulties had been so great, he had cherished
so many dreams and nursed so many chimeras, that he instinctively