it is one thing to lay a course even in the open sea, and it is quite another to follow it. wind, waves, and currents often drive a vessel from the way she wishes to go; and all of these had acted on the wreck-path, seemingly conspiring to make difficult the line of progress that howard had mapped out. again and again he had to make long detours to pass some insurmountable wreck that lay across his path, and finally he had to turn aside from it altogether to skirt a narrow but impassable channel of weed-grown water that corkscrewed unexpectedly across his path.
“it’s that hurricane we had a month agone,” explained joyce. “it isn’t often they come here, but when they do, faith it’s the foine mix-up they make! i moind one of thim ten years agone! it split[201] the pack for miles back, and filled the hole up again with wrecks that would have made the fortune of a dime-museum man, so they would. the most of them were fair rotten with age, and sank as soon as they began to rub up against the strong new ships. the last storm wasn’t so bad, and, belike, it only split the pack here and there.”
howard nodded. the explanation seemed very probable, as in no other way could he account for the open channel in the midst of the vessel-wrecks. mere mutual attraction ought to have closed it up years before. it made him anxious, for the channel had already led him a mile deeper into the pack than he had intended to go, and still showed no signs of ending.
it might go on even to the heart of the wreckage, where lay the ancient ships on which all food had rotted away centuries before. if a former storm had opened up a channel that far, so might a later one.
[202]that the cases were parallel was soon exhibited with startling proof. for some moments howard had been noticing a great grey hull, banded with tarnished gold, that loomed across the pack two or three ships ahead. as he drew nearer, he saw, with wonder, its strange architecture. huge, round-bellied, with castle-like structures reared at stem and stern, it rose about the other wrecks, tier above tier, with lines of frowning ports from which protruded the mouths of old fashioned cannon. no such ship had sailed the ocean for years—not since the days when spain was in her glory and her rich fleets bore the riches of america to fill her already overflowing coffers. it must have lain screened in the heart of the ship-continent for at least two centuries, to be at last spewed forth in time to meet the curious gaze of an alien race.
from the topgallant poop of a modern sailing-ship, howard studied it curiously, while behind him the rest of the party looked on with amazement.
[203]“sure, and that’s the very spirit and image of them i was spakin’ about,” remarked joyce, triumphantly. “an’ what sort of a ship do you suppose she is, sor?”
“she’s a spanish galleon, beyond doubt,” rejoined howard. “she’s the very type of those old treasure-ships. and there are more of the same kind behind her. look!”
along the open channel, far away to the sunset, stretched a file of ancient vessels, now in single file, now in double. not all were galleons, but all plainly belonged to dead and gone ages. while the others of their kind had long ago perished from human sight, here, in this lost corner of the world, these had lingered on, slowly decaying, like the once mighty nation that sent them forth. howard stared at them in wondering amaze.
but joyce recalled him to himself. “did you say treasure, sor?” he insinuated.
[204]howard laughed. “oh, yes,” he answered, indifferently. “she’s a treasure-ship, all right, though that isn’t to say that she has treasure aboard. still, it’s not unlikely. there may be a million apiece for all of us on her—if we could only carry it away. hold on! where are you going?”
joyce was already climbing through one of the open ports of the galleon, but at howard’s call he paused. “sure, an’ i’m going to look after that million,” he returned, defiantly.
howard hesitated. then he noticed a restless movement of the missionary and eager glances by the two women and laughed. “go ahead and look for it,” he said. “but be careful. remember the ship must be rotten through and through; i doubt whether her decks will bear your weight.”
joyce disappeared, but a moment later stuck his head out of the port again. “she’s better nor she looks, sor,” he[205] averred. “the planks are rotten, but i think they’ll hold. perhaps your good lady would like to come aboard.”
howard glanced at dorothy.
“his good lady certainly would,” she smiled back. a moment later all stood on one of the galleon’s many decks.
joyce was right. the deck, though rotted, seemed to be reasonably sound, and the stairway leading upward did not give way when jackson mounted it. as he was the heaviest in the party, the rest felt safe in following him.
once on the upper deck, the cause of the ship’s plight was evident. all about her, tumbled in inextricable confusion, lay the bones of men mingled with the rust-eaten remains of guns and pikes and sabres. in some places, doubtless where the nameless fight had raged most fiercely, the skeletons were heaped high upon each other. flesh and clothing alike had long since disappeared, but parts of belts and buckles and fragments of the tinsel[206] of war remained to tell of the bitterness of the fight.
“probably the work of buccaneers,” explained howard. “they did not hesitate to attack ten times their number, and often won by the very fury of their assault. evidently they did this time. joyce, i’m afraid your million went to make a pirate holiday centuries ago.”
“bad cess to thim, whoiver they were. but where would it be, sor, if it was on board?”
“i really don’t know. and yet—the hold under the captain’s cabin, aft there, would be a likely place. suppose you look there.”
joyce and jackson hurried away, and soon the sound of dull hammering and the tear of rending wood came to the ears of the others, followed a moment later by a series of triumphant yells. then joyce appeared, fairly mad with excitement.
“hurroush! hurroush!” he screamed.[207] “we’ve found it! we’ve found it! tons and tons of solid gold! kathleen, mavourneen, we’re rich—we’re rich! we’ll go back to galway and buy the little place beyant the hill, and——”
“whist! whist! tim, man! an’ will you first be tellin’ me how you’re going to get yerself away, let alone your tons of gold?”
so absorbed was the party in the discovery of the gold that they forgot everything else—the danger from forbes, the utter uselessness of the treasure, the necessity of crossing the channel and making their way to the southern coast. even dorothy, used to wealth as she was, caught the infection, and babbled away as excitedly as a child.
howard was the first to recover his poise and to plan for the future. it was, he knew, utterly hopeless to try to tear joyce and jackson, or even the missionary away from the galleon until their excitement had spent itself. indeed, he[208] himself felt positively ill at thought of abandoning the gold, unavoidable as such action undoubtedly was. by rough calculation, he estimated that there were twelve tons of the treasure, worth about six million dollars, under their very feet, free for them to carry away, and yet as utterly unavailable as so much sand. indeed, in so far as unwillingness to leave it should delay movements of the party, it was a positive detriment.
he turned and looked at the others. joyce, jackson, the missionary, and even mother joyce, were working as they had never worked before, taking from the hold the golden bars, each a load for a strong man, and staggering on deck with them in their arms. in vain, howard tried to check them; they only glared at him, cursed, and hurried back for another load. joyce and his wife, too old for such labor, soon had to give way, crying like children as they did so; but the others toiled on, hot, black with the grime of ages, half ill from the smells[209] of the shut, musty hold. their muscles cracked; their backs ached; the sweat streamed down their faces, but still they kept on.
sick at heart, howard turned from the scene and wandered to the side of the galleon, where he stood, looking east, hoping the end of the zigzag channel might be somewhere in sight. in vain! as far as his eyes could serve, it stretched away.
disappointed, his glance dropped to the open water of the channel close at hand, and he stood transfixed. close beside the galleon, moored strongly fore and aft, lay a slender, queer-shaped boat about sixty feet long. it needed not the trained knowledge of the naval officer to tell that it was a submarine.
intensely modern in its lines, it was as much out of place in that ancient company as would be a rifle in the hands of cæsar’s legionaries. howard’s mouth fairly dropped open as he gazed at it.
[210]but in a moment understanding came. this was the means of escape that forbes had spoken of: safe, quick, and easy for one with the necessary technical knowledge; the gold on the galleon was part of the fortune that he wanted to get home in safety. no wonder he had been eager to enlist howard’s aid; and he could have had it—had it all, if he had not presumed on his power to grasp the girl, too! now he would lose all.
dorothy had tired of the gold and was standing on the deck, looking wonderingly around. howard called her, and together they descended to the lower deck of the galleon, and, slipping out through a port opposite to that by which they had entered, stepped easily out upon the deck of the submarine, which floated high in the water. with trembling fingers, howard pushed back the bolts that held the manhole cover in place, lifted it off, and peered into the darkness of the interior. “i’ll be back in a moment,” he promised,[211] glancing up at dorothy as he swung himself downward.
soon he was back again with radiant features. “she’s in perfect condition, so far as i can tell without starting the engines,” he announced, “and i guess they are all right. she’s almost the latest type in submarines—gas-engine for running at the surface, and an electric motor for use below. her oil-tanks are full, and she has an extra supply in glass jars and plenty of other necessary stores. unless there’s something wrong about her that i can’t see, she’ll get us all to land without the least difficulty.”
“where did she come from?”
“straight from heaven, i guess. at least, i can’t imagine how else she got into the sea. no, stop! i believe— yes, by george, that’s it. maybe you remember that a spanish cruiser was lost at sea two or three years ago—disappeared in a big storm and was never heard of again? if i remember rightly, she had[212] a submarine on board. this may be it. yes! see! here’s its name—tiburon; that’s spanish for seashark. that cruiser must have drifted in here with it on board.”
“but where is she? how did this boat get here—to this very place?”
“i don’t know, but i can guess. forbes must have brought it here. he threw out hints about such a boat the first time i talked with him. yes, he must have brought it here. how he managed it i don’t know, and i don’t much care. the boat is ours now by that same law of salvage by which he claimed the queen and her contents. what’s sauce for the goose will do for the gander. but think how marvellous it is that we should have come here, straight as a homingbird—to here! the exact place where he had left his gold and his boat. and, yet, after all, it is not quite so marvellous as it seems, since he could hardly have kept her anywhere except up this channel, and we have been following the line of it for miles.”
[213]“can we get away on her?”
“certainly! all of us, and more, too, if necessary.”
“but how will we get through the weed?”
“we won’t go through it. we’ll go under it. the weed isn’t thick, you know—only a few feet at most; it grows on top of the water, which is two miles deep here, and we’ll simply dive under it.”
dorothy shuddered. “go under the water, you mean?” she questioned. “oh! frank, is it safe?”
“safe? surely! i have been down many a time in boats much like this. of course—i won’t deceive you—accidents are always possible, but there is really little risk, if the machinery works well. and we can’t tell about that till we try. don’t be afraid, dear. god has been too good to us to let it all come to naught now.”
“i’m not afraid, frank. i’m not afraid anywhere with you, my king of men.”
[214]howard had something to say to this, but it is scarcely worth setting down; lovers’ confidences seldom are. by and by he started up. “i’m afraid we’re as mad one way as those people on the galleon are in another,” he smiled. “i’m wasting valuable time that should be used in getting you out of this before forbes finds us. he’s sure to be looking up this place very soon.”
a thought struck dorothy. “oh, those poor people!” she exclaimed. “can’t you take some of their gold for them, frank? a little money will mean so much to the joyces. they are too old to go to work again, and——”
“it would come in rather handy with me, too. but i don’t see— by george! yes, i think i do! let’s look.” he dived down again into the body of the submarine and soon reappeared, his face radiant.
“there is about five tons of detachable lead ballast in the bottom,” he cried,[215] joyously. “we can take it out, and put gold in its place—two million dollars’ worth. if you will wait here. i’ll go and tell the others. maybe they are tired enough to listen to reason now.”
they were! howard found them all sitting glumly on the deck of the galleon, glaring despairingly at the great pile of gold bars they had extracted from the hold. one by one they had dropped their loads and sank down where they stood, when, with increasing weariness, the situation had at last dawned upon them. when howard approached, they did not heed him further than to cast savage glances in his direction. then they returned to contemplation of the gold.
howard understood the situation without words. “you oughtn’t to have worked so hard,” he observed, in a matter-of-fact tone. “you, especially, joyce. and you, mrs. joyce. you’ll feel this to-morrow. but now that you have gotten all the gold up here, i’m glad to tell[216] you that i’ve got a boat outside that will carry us, and just about this much gold besides—say a third of a million for each of us. the rest, i’m afraid, we’ll have to abandon.”
