when the topmasts of the chilian schooner had disappeared below the horizon line, with no reason to suppose that the schooner would put back again, captain horn started for the caves. had he obeyed his instincts, he would have begun to stroll along the beach as soon as the vessel had weighed anchor. but even now, as he hurried on, he walked prudently, keeping close to the water, so that the surf might wash out his footsteps as fast as he made them. he climbed over the two ridges to the north of rackbirds' cove, and then made his way along the stretch of sand which extended to the spot where the party had landed when he first reached this coast. he stopped and looked about him, and then, in fancy, he saw edna standing upon the beach, her face pale, her eyes large and supernaturally dark, and behind her mrs. cliff and the boy and the two negroes. not until this moment had he felt that he was alone. but now there came a great desire to speak and be spoken to, and yet that very morning he had spoken and listened as much as had suited him.
as he walked up the rising ground toward the caves, that ground he had traversed so often when this place had been, to all intents and purposes, his home, where there had been voices and movement and life, the sense of desertion grew upon him—not only desertion of the place, but of himself. when he had opened his eyes, that morning, his overpowering desire had been that not an hour of daylight should pass before he should be left alone, and yet now his heart sank at the feeling that he was here and no one was with him.
when the captain had approached within a few yards of the great stone face, his brows were slowly knitted.
"this is carelessness," he said to himself. "i did not expect it of them. i told them to leave the utensils, but i did not suppose that they would leave them outside. no matter how much they were hurried in going away, they should have put these things into the caves. a passing indian might have been afraid to go into that dark hole, but to leave those tin things there is the same as hanging out a sign to show that people lived inside."
instantly the captain gathered up the tin pan and tin plates, and looked about him to see if there was anything else which should be put out of sight. he did find something else. it was a little, short, black, wooden pipe which was lying on a stone. he picked it up in surprise. neither maka nor cheditafa smoked, and it could not have belonged to the boy.
"perhaps," thought the captain, "one of the sailors from the mary bartlett may have left it. yes, that must have been the case. but sailors do not often leave their pipes behind them, nor should the officer in charge have allowed them to lounge about and smoke. but it must have been one of those sailors who left it here. i am glad i am the one to find these things."
the captain now entered the opening to the caves. passing along until he reached the room which he had once occupied, there he saw his rough pallet on the ground, drawn close to the door, however.
the captain knew that the rest of his party had gone away in a great hurry, but to his orderly mariner's mind it seemed strange that they should have left things in such disorder.
he could not stop to consider these trifles now, however, and going to the end of the passage, he climbed over the low wall and entered the cave of the lake. when he lighted the lantern he had brought with him, he saw it as he had left it, dry, or even drier than before, for the few pools which had remained after the main body of water had run off had disappeared, probably evaporated. he hurried on toward the mound in the distant recess of the cave. on the way, his foot struck something which rattled, and holding down his lantern to see what it was, he perceived an old tin cup.
"confound it!" he exclaimed. "this is too careless! did the boy intend to make a regular trail from the outside entrance to the mound? i suppose he brought that cup here to dip up water, and forgot it. i must take it with me when i go back."
he went on, throwing the light of the lantern on the ground before him, for he had now reached a part of the cave which was entirely dark. suddenly something on the ground attracted his attention. it was bright—it shone as if it were a little pale flame of a candle. he sprang toward it, he picked it up. it was one of the bars of gold he had seen in the mound.
"could i have dropped this?" he ejaculated. he slipped the little bar into his pocket, and then, his heart beginning to beat rapidly, he advanced, with his lantern close to the rocky floor. presently he saw two other pieces of gold, and then, a little farther on, the end of a candle, so small that it could scarcely have been held by the fingers. he picked up this and stared at it. it was a commonplace candle-end, but the sight of it sent a chill through him from head to foot. it must have been dropped by some one who could hold it no longer.
he pressed on, his light still sweeping the floor. he found no more gold nor pieces of candle, but here and there he perceived the ends of burnt wooden matches. going on, he found more matches, two or three with the heads broken off and unburnt. in a few moments the mound loomed up out of the darkness like a spectral dome, and, looking no more upon the ground, the captain ran toward it. by means of the stony projections he quickly mounted to the top, and there the sight he saw almost made him drop his lantern. the great lid of the mound had been moved and was now awry, leaving about one half of the opening exposed.
in one great gasp the captain's breath seemed to leave him, but he was a man of strong nerves, and quickly recovered himself; but even then he did not lift his lantern so that he could look into the interior of the mound. for a few moments he shut his eyes. he did not dare even to look. but then his courage came back, and holding his lantern over the opening, he gazed down into the mound, and it seemed to his rapid glance that there was as much gold in it as when he last saw it.
the discovery that the treasure was still there had almost as much effect upon the captain as if he had found the mound empty. he grew so faint that he felt he could not maintain his hold upon the top of the mound, and quickly descended, half sliding, to the bottom. there he sat down, his lantern by his side. when his strength came back to him,—and he could not have told any one how long it was before this happened,—the first thing he did was to feel for his box of matches, and finding them safe in his waistcoat pocket, he extinguished the lantern. he must not be discovered, if there should be any one to discover him.
now the captain began to think as fiercely and rapidly as a man's mind could be made to work. some one had been there. some one had taken away gold from that mound—how much or how little, it did not matter. some one besides himself had had access to the treasure!
his suspicions fell upon ralph, chiefly because his most earnest desire at that moment was that ralph might be the offender. if he could have believed that he would have been happy. it must have been that the boy was not willing to go away and leave all that gold, feeling that perhaps he and his sister might never possess any of it, and that just before leaving he had made a hurried visit to the mound. but the more the captain thought of this, the less probable it became. he was almost sure that ralph could not have lifted that great mass of stone which formed the lid covering the opening of the mound, for it had required all his own strength to do it; and then, if anything of this sort had really happened, the letters he had received from edna and the boy must have been most carefully written with the intention to deceive him.
[illustration: holding his lantern over the opening he gazed down into the mound.]
the letter from edna, which in tone and style was a close imitation of his own to her, had been a strictly business communication. it told everything which happened after the arrival of the mary bartlett, and gave him no reason to suppose that any one could have had a chance to pillage the mound. ralph's letter had been even more definite. it was constructed like an official report, and when the captain had read it, he had thought that the boy had probably taken great pride in its preparation. it was as guardian of the treasure mound that ralph wrote, and his remarks were almost entirely confined to this important trust.
he briefly reported to the captain that, since his departure, no one had been in the recess of the cave where the mound was situated, and he described in detail the plan by which he had established edna behind the wall in the passage, so as to prevent any of the sailors from the ship from making explorations. he also stated that everything had been left in as high a condition of safety as it was possible to leave it, but that, if his sister had been willing, he would most certainly have remained behind, with the two negroes, until the captain's return.
much as he wished to think otherwise, captain horn could not prevail upon himself to believe that ralph could have written such a letter after a dishonorable and reckless visit to the mound.
it was possible that one or both of the negroes had discovered the mound, but it was difficult to believe that they would have dared to venture into that awful cavern, even if the vigilance of edna, mrs. cliff, and the boy had given them an opportunity, and edna had written that the two men had always slept outside the caves, and had had no call to enter them. furthermore, if cheditafa had found the treasure, why should he keep it a secret? he would most probably have considered it an original discovery, and would have spoken of it to the others. why should he be willing that they should all go away and leave so much wealth behind them? the chief danger, in case cheditafa had found the treasure, was that he would talk about it in mexico or the united states. but, in spite of the hazards to which such disclosures might expose his fortunes, the captain would have preferred that the black men should have been pilferers than that other men should have been discoverers. but who else could have discovered it? who could have been there? who could have gone away?
there was but one reasonable supposition, and that was that one or more of the rackbirds, who had been away from their camp at the time when their fellow-miscreants were swept away by the flood, had come back, and in searching for their comrades, or some traces of them, had made their way to the caves. it was quite possible, and further it was quite probable, that the man or men who had found that mound might still be here or in the neighborhood. as soon as this idea came into the mind of the captain, he prepared for action. this was a question which must be resolved if he could do it, and without loss of time. lighting his lantern,—for in that black darkness it was impossible for him to find his way without it, although it might make him a mark for some concealed foe,—the captain quickly made his way out of the lake cavern, and, leaving his lantern near the little wall, he proceeded, with a loaded pistol in his hand, to make an examination of the caves which he and his party had occupied.
he had already looked into the first compartment, but stopping at the pallet which lay almost at the passage of the doorway, he stood and regarded it. then he stepped over it, and looked around the little room. the pallet of blankets and rugs which ralph had used was not there. then the captain stepped into the next room, and, to his surprise, he found this as bare of everything as if it had never been used as a sleeping-apartment. he now hurried back to the first room, and examined the pallet, which, when he had first been looking at it, he had thought to be somewhat different from what it had been when he had used it. he now found that it was composed of all the rugs and blankets which had previously made up the beds of all the party. the captain ground his teeth.
"there can be no doubt of it," he said. "some one has been here since they left, and has slept in these caves."
at this moment he remembered the innermost cave, the large compartment which was roofless, and which, in his excitement, he had forgotten. perhaps the man who slept on the pallet was in there at this minute. how reckless he had been! to what danger he had exposed himself! with his pistol cocked, the captain advanced cautiously toward the innermost compartment. putting his head in at the doorway, he glanced up, down, and around. he called out, "who's here?" and then he entered, and looked around, and behind each of the massive pieces of rock with which the floor was strewn. no one answered, and he saw no one. but he saw something which made him stare.
on the ground, at one side of the entrance to this compartment, were five or six pieces of rock about a foot high, placed in a small circle so that their tops came near enough together to support a tin kettle which was resting upon them. under the kettle, in the centre of the rocks, was a pile of burnt leaves and sticks.
"here he has cooked his meals," said the captain—for the pallet made up of all the others had convinced him that it had been one man who had been here after his party had left. "he stayed long enough to cook his meals and sleep," thought the captain. "i'll look into this provision business." passing through the other rooms, he went to a deep niche in the wall of the entrance passage where his party had kept their stores, and where edna had written him they had left provisions enough for the immediate use of himself and the men who should return. here he found tin cans tumbled about at the bottom of the niche, and every one of them absolutely empty. on a little ledge stood a tin box in which they had kept the matches and candles. the box was open, but there was nothing in it. on the floor near by was a tin biscuit-box, crushed nearly flat, as if some one had stamped upon it.
"he has eaten everything that was left," said the captain, "and he has been starved out. very likely, too, he got out of water, for, of course, those pools would dry up, and it is not likely he found the stream outside."
now the captain let down the hammer of his revolver, and put it in his belt. he felt sure that the man was not here. being out of provisions, he had to go away, but where he had gone to was useless to conjecture. of another thing the captain was now convinced: the intruder had not been a rackbird, for, while waiting for the disappearance of the chilian schooner, he had gone over to the concealed storehouse of the bandits, and had found it just as he had left it on his last visit, with a considerable quantity of stores remaining in it. if the man had known of the rackbirds' camp and this storehouse, it would not have been necessary for him to consume every crumb and vestige of food which had been left in these caves.
"no," said the captain, "it could not have been a rackbird, but who he was, and where he has gone, is beyond my comprehension."
