elliott awoke next morning with an uneasy head and a feverish taste in his mouth, and looked vaguely around the unfamiliar hotel chamber without being able to recall how he had come there. it was only yesterday that he had been riding surreptitiously in box cars. but as his brain cleared he remembered the splendid and joyous dinner that had closed the day before, a misty glitter of glass and silver and delicious wines and cigars. that recalled his new friends and his message to them, and then the whole transformation of his fortunes flashed back upon him—the miraculous winning at roulette, the treasure trail; and, wide awake instantly, he jumped out of bed in a flush of excitement.
he found a new suit of clothes on a chair, which he now recollected having bought ready-made on the previous afternoon. they were very good clothes and fitted well, and in the trousers pocket he found a thick wad of bills. each of the partners had taken a hundred dollars, and the rest of the money was in a sealed package in the hotel safe.
in the dining-room he found henninger and hawke finishing breakfast, though it was nearly eleven o’clock. hawke looked wearied and nervous, with the rags of yesterday’s excitement still clinging about him, but henninger was as fresh, as neat, and as unmoved as ever. a few other late breakfasters at the other end of the room looked at the trio with curiosity, for the report of their coup, greatly magnified in the telling, had gone abroad; and the negro waiter served them with exaggerated respect.
in the lobby elliott bought himself the best cigar he had ever smoked, luxuriating in the novel sense of riches, which was like a sudden relief from pain. he had never felt so wealthy in his life. the money had come with such incredible ease; the sum looked almost inexhaustible; and beyond it was the great treasure to be fished up from the african seas.
there were too many people in the lobby for private conversation, and they returned to henninger’s room.
“first of all, i vote we send bennett a hundred dollars. i kept it out for him when i sealed the money last night,” said henninger. “i’ll wire him what we’ve done, and then i’ll wire sullivan. i don’t know that we told you, elliott, where sullivan is. he’s in washington, attending to a case for us. we were all in south america last winter, and we’ve got a claim against the venezuelan government for damages and confiscation of property, and so forth, for two millions.”
“two what?” exclaimed elliott.
“two millions. we thought we might get a few thousands out of it. anyway, sullivan has been trying to get our case taken up at washington, but we’ll drop all that and tell him to meet us in new york.”
“i’d like very much to look up that madagascar channel on the largest map there is,” hawke broke in, “and see what we can make of it.”
he voiced a common desire. every one wanted to look at it, and they went down to the public library and obtained a gigantic atlas. they propped it up on a table and put their heads together over the map of east africa. the steamer route from delagoa bay to zanzibar and suez was marked in red, and at the northern end of the mozambique channel it passed through a tangle of little islands and reefs.
“comoro, mohilla, mayotta, st. lazarus bank,” read hawke, under his breath. “it must be one of these.”
they all gazed at the archipelago, two thumbs’ width on the paper that represented a hundred sea leagues. somewhere among these islands lay the treasure that had cost the lives of a ship’s company already, and as he stared at the brown and yellow spots, elliott saw in excited imagination the barren islands on the sunny tropical ocean, and the spray spouting high over the reefs where the sea-birds wheeled about the iron skeleton of the clara mcclay. there was the end of the rainbow; there was the golden magnet that had already stirred the passions of men on the other side of the world; and as he looked at the lettered surface of the map, he felt a sudden cold prescience of tragedy.
“glorioso, farquahar!” murmured hawke. “they surely couldn’t have run so far out of their course as that. st. lazarus is my choice, and, if i’m right, we’ll make it st. dives.”
“we don’t know enough yet to make this any use,” said henninger, suddenly. “let’s get out.”
the sight of the map and its hundreds of miles of islands and seas did in fact bring the problem into concrete reality, and forcibly emphasized the difficulties. they all felt somewhat downcast and vaguely disappointed, but, as they were going down the steps, elliott had an inspiration.
“it occurs to me,” he said, “that if anybody escaped in the boats, they must have been picked up somewhere at sea. in that case, the fact is likely to be reported in some newspaper, isn’t it?”
“what have we been thinking of?” exclaimed henninger. “you’re right, of course. the new york herald should have it, as she was an american ship. we’ll go back and look through the files of the herald, if they have them, for the last few months.”
the papers were bound up by months, and each man took a volume and sat down to run through the shipping news. elliott finished his without finding anything, and obtained another file. he was half through this when hawke tiptoed over to him.
“here’s where bennett appears,” he whispered.
it was a four-line telegram from sydney, stating that a seaman named bennett had been picked up from a raft in the indian ocean, reporting that the american steamer clara mcclay had foundered with all hands in the mozambique channel.
there was nothing new in this, but it seemed somehow encouraging, and while elliott was reading it, henninger came over to them. his eyes were sparkling, and he looked as if holding some strong emotion in check. he laid down his file before them, and put his finger on a paragraph, dated more than a fortnight earlier than the despatch from sydney.
“bombay, march 19.
“the italian steamer andrea sforzia, arriving yesterday from cape town and durban, reports having picked up on the 10th about one hundred miles n. e. of cape amber, a boat containing first mate burke, of the steamer clara mcclay, of philadelphia. he stated that his ship foundered in deep water in the mozambique channel by reason of heavy weather and shifting of cargo, and believes himself to be the only survivor. he was almost unconscious, and nearly dead of thirst when rescued.
“the clara mcclay was an iron steamer of 2,500 tons, built at greenock in 1869, and has been for some years engaged in the east and west african coast trade. she was owned by s. jacobs and son, of philadelphia, and commanded by captain elihu cox.”
the two men read this item, and elliott, glancing up, saw his mystification reflected on hawke’s face. what new development did it indicate that bennett and the mate should have told the same falsehood about the sinking of the clara mcclay, and certainly without collusion? henninger meanwhile was carefully copying the paragraph into a note-book, and when he had finished, he gathered up the papers, returned them to the librarian’s desk, and led the way out of the building.
“we’ve got a line on it at last,” he said, when they were in the open air, and there was a keen eagerness in his usually impassive voice.
“it’s clear that the mate was saved, but it don’t help us to find the island, so far as i can see,” hawke objected.
“oh, the island—confound it!” as they came into the crowds of church street. “let’s go somewhere where we can talk.” and he shut his mouth and did not open it again till they were placed comfortably in a small german café, which happened to be almost empty.
“you don’t seem to understand,” he then resumed. “the mate lied,—said the ship sunk in deep water, didn’t he? he told the same story as bennett. why? for the same reason. he must have known the bullion was there, after all. he took chances on being the only survivor of the wreck, and he wanted to choke off any inquiry. there’s never any search for a wreck that goes down in a hundred fathoms.”
“but there were other survivors,” said elliott. “there were others in that boat with him when bennett saw them sailing away. that must have been the mate’s boat, and what became of the others?”
“ah, yes,—what?” replied henninger, grimly. “he was alone when he was picked up.”
there was a moment’s silence at this sudden apparition of the crimson thread in the tangle.
“this is the way i see the story,” said henninger. “that mate—what’s his name—burke?—knew the gold was on board. how he found out, i don’t know. whether he accidentally ran the steamer out of her course that night, or whether he piled her up intentionally, i don’t know, either. he may have done it by reason of his jag, or he may have tanked up to give himself courage to carry it through. i suspect it was the latter. anyhow, when she was smashed, he saw his chance, for he reckoned that his was the only boat to get away safe. he had several men with him, but they seem to pass out of the story. he was picked up, carried to bombay; he lied about the wreck.
“what does he do next? why, of course he gets ready to go back to zanzibar or some such port and hire a craft to go to look for his wreck. if he thinks he’s safe, he may lie low for awhile; or, if he hasn’t the capital for the thing, he will have to hunt up some ruffians to finance him. but if he thinks that he’s in any danger of being forestalled, he’ll make haste. if by bad luck he reads of bennett’s being picked up, it’ll galvanize him; and as like as not he’s sailing up the channel this minute, while we’re sitting here drinking lager, doing nothing—because we don’t know anything!”
“yes, but how are we going to find out anything,—where the wreck is, for example?” demanded elliott.
“why, from this same mate, burke, if we can catch him. he’s the source of knowledge. he knows very well where it is; if he didn’t, he wouldn’t have taken the trouble to lie about it. first of all, we’ve got to catch that mate, and when we’ve got him, we’ll induce him to tell us what he knows. do you remember how casal used to interrogate prisoners in venezuela, hawke? we’ve got to get on his trail right away, and meanwhile see that he doesn’t collar the cash before we know it.”
“it’ll be a long, wide trail,” hawke remarked.
“no. there’s only one hemisphere for burke, and only one spot in it, and that’s somewhere between madagascar and the african coast. he won’t go far from that if he can help it, and wherever he goes he’s bound to come back. and he’ll have to come in his own ship, for there aren’t any steamers plying to his island. he’ll have to hire or buy a small craft on the east african coast, and there are only three ports that will serve.”
henninger sipped his beer, and meditated in silence for a little.
“my idea would be something like this. three of us will go to south africa at once; we pick up sullivan in new york, of course. one of us will post himself in each of those three ports,—lorenzo marques, mozambique, and zanzibar, watching every boat that comes in, every stranger that lands, and everything that goes on along the waterfront. if burke turns up, our man will have to use his own judgment as to how to get hold of him,—bribe him or kidnap him, or anything, but keep him there at any cost till the rest of us can come. meanwhile the fourth one of us will go to bombay, and try to find out where burke went and what he did. he might possibly be there yet; anyway, he must have left some trace at the consulate or the shipping-offices.”
“at any rate,” said elliott, “it appears fairly certain that no one knows anything about this ton of yellow metal but ourselves and the mate, burke. then there’s no danger of outside interference.”
“it’s a fair race to madagascar!” hawke exclaimed.
“it’s a race,” said henninger, shrugging his shoulders, “but i don’t know about its fairness. we’re heavily handicapped at the start. why we’re wasting time here, i don’t know.” he stood up suddenly, frowning, impatient.
“sit down and finish your cigar,” hawke advised him. “there’s no train for new york till nine o’clock to-night.”
“yes, and there’s no fast steamer for south african ports at all. we’ll do best to sail for england, i fancy. then the man who is going to india can take the p. and o., and the rest of us will go by the union castle line to the cape.”
“but which of us is going to india?” elliott inquired.
“i don’t know.” henninger glanced calculatingly at his companions. “i’d like to go to zanzibar myself, if you don’t mind, because i suspect that it’s the dangerous point; and sullivan should take lorenzo marques, because he was there once, and he knows something of the place. the shadowing lies between you two, as far as i can see.”
“i’ll match you for it,” proposed hawke.
elliott pulled out a quarter and spun it on the table, turning up tail. hawke followed, and lost.
“i’m to be the tracker, then,” said elliott. “i’m afraid i’ll make a poor sleuth. i wish bennett had given us a description of the mate, for he has probably changed his name.”
“so do i. i’d like to have time to run up to st. louis and talk it over with bennett. i’d like a lot of things that we haven’t time for. bennett can’t write with a broken arm, so there’s no use in writing to him for more details. but, as a matter of fact, i don’t really expect that you’ll come up with this man burke at all. what i do hope is that you’ll find out where he went when he left bombay, and if by chance he hired any kind of vessel anywhere, and in general what he was doing. we’ve got to get our information from him, there’s no doubt of that.”
“and what about bennett?” elliott inquired, after a pause. “how is he to come into the game?”
“the chances are that the game will be played before his arm’s mended,” said henninger. “we’ll send him a hundred, as i suggested,—or let’s make it three hundred,—and of course he’ll share and share alike with the rest of us. i think i’d better write him to go to san francisco as soon as he’s able to travel, if he hasn’t heard from us in the meantime, and hold himself in readiness there to join us. frisco’ll be the most convenient port, and he can cable us his address as soon as he gets there.”
“and i reckon we’d better telegraph to new york for staterooms,” hawke suggested. “the east-bound steamers are always crowded at this time of year.”
they sent the despatch at once to cook’s agency, asking simply to get to liverpool or southampton at the earliest date possible, expense being no consideration. at the same time henninger both telegraphed and wrote to bennett; and elliott wired to the express company in baltimore to have his trunk placed in storage for him till his return.
he had gone too far now upon the treasure trail to turn back, and indeed he would not have turned back if he could. it was really the romance of the adventure that fascinated him, though he did not think so. he told himself that it was a legitimate enterprise—he clung to the phrase—with a reasonable expectation of large profits. but in no manner could he see his way to write a complete explanation of his plans to margaret; if he could have talked to her, he thought, it would be easy. he composed a letter to her that afternoon, however, in which he remarked negligently that he was going to india on a commission for other parties, with all expenses paid, and would probably not be back to america before autumn. at the end of the letter, forgetting his precaution, he hinted of a vast fortune which was scarcely out of reach,—an imprudence which he afterward regretted.
the party left nashville that night, and, as the train rolled out of range of the last electric lights, hawke drew a long breath.
“i did begin to think we were never going to get away from that town,” he sighed. “it looked like we were in pawn to the hotel orleans for the rest of our lives.”
henninger smiled queerly. “since we are fairly away, i don’t mind telling you,” he said, “that the manager and i discussed the matter last week. i explained that we were waiting for a large remittance that was overdue, but it would certainly be here in a day or two; we expected it by every mail. he gave it four days to arrive,—then we’d leave or be thrown out. elliott turned up on the last day.”
