miss sarah liverage had taken herself out of the reach of all further communication in regard to the hidden treasure. leopold had no hope of being able to see or hear from her. she had not sent him her last address, and he had used all the means in his power to carry out the terms of the agreement. he considered himself, therefore, released from all responsibility, so far as she was concerned. but even then he did not feel like going to high rock and taking the money for his own or his father's use. he could not get rid of the idea that the money belonged to somebody. if wallbridge had saved this money from the earnings of two years in cuba, it certainly ought to go to his heirs, now that he was dead.
the remarks of harvey barth in his diary[pg 161] seemed to indicate that the passenger had committed some crime, or at least that he was open to the suspicion of having done so. leopold considered, whether this might not be the reason why no one had yet claimed any relationship to him. the young man was sorely perplexed in regard to his duty in the matter; and he was really more afraid of doing wrong than he was of losing twelve hundred dollars in gold. he did not like to confess it even to himself; but he was afraid that his father's views, if he told him about the hidden treasure, might he looser than his own. he believed that the landlord was even more honest than the majority of men; but, after he had commenced upon the extensive improvements of the hotel, the son feared that the father might be tempted to do what was not exactly right.
while all these questions remained unsettled in the mind of leopold, he did nothing to recover the money, until the hotel was nearly completed. in fact, he had no time to do so, for his father kept him busy from morning till night, and then he was so tired that he did not even feel like reading the diary. after he had[pg 162] obtained the important facts in regard to the buried money, he did not feel any further interest in the journal of harvey barth. he had tried to read portions of it; but each day commenced with a detailed account of the writer's health, with remarks on the weather, and similar topics, which did not hold the attention of the young man. the enlargement of the hotel was a subject which engrossed his whole mind, after the novelty of finding the diary had worked itself off. he was deeply interested in the progress of the work; and when the putting up of the partitions gave form and shape to the interior, not many other matters occupied his mind.
the mechanics finished their labors, and the hotel was ready to receive the new furniture which had been purchased for it. leopold was busier than ever, and hardly a thought of the hidden treasure came to his mind. he put down carpets and put up bedsteads, till he was nearly worn out with hard work, though the excitement of seeing the various apartments of the new house assume their final aspect prevented him from feeling the fatigue of his labor.[pg 163] by the middle of june everything was ready for the reception of guests, though not many of them were expected to arrive till the middle of july. now the hotel was called the "sea cliff house," and its opening was advertised in the principal cities of new york and new england. as the island hotel lost its "trade" and the new house obtained it all, ethan wormbury was correspondingly angry.
as usually happens to those who rebuild and remodel private or public houses, the expense far exceeded the estimates. the war of the rebellion was in progress, and the prices of everything in the shape of building material and furniture had fearfully increased. the nine thousand dollars which mr. bennington had on hand to pay his bills, was exhausted long before the work was completed. the landlord was sorely troubled, and he went to squire wormbury to obtain a further loan on his property; but the money-lender declared that he would not risk another dollar on the security. then mr. bennington mortgaged his furniture for two thousand dollars,—all he could obtain on it,—in order to relieve the pressure upon him; but[pg 164] even then the "floating debt" annoyed him very seriously. he had always paid his bills promptly, and kept out of debt, so that his present embarrassment was doubly annoying to him, on account of its novelty. with all his mind, heart and soul he regretted that he had undertaken the great enterprise, and feared that it would end in total ruin to him.
the landlord talked freely with his wife and leopold about his embarrassments, and the son suffered quite as much as the father on account of them. there were guests enough in the hotel to have met the expenses of the old establishment, but not of the new one; and the landlord found it difficult even to pay the daily demands upon him. he was almost in despair, and a dollar seemed larger to him now than ever before, and hardly a single one of them would stay in his pocket over night. the interest on the mortgage note would be due on the first of july, and mr. bennington knew not where to obtain the first dollar with which to pay it. the landlord was in great distress, for he knew that squire moses was as relentless as death itself, and would show him no mercy.[pg 165]
"i don't see but i must fail," said mr. bennington, with a deep sigh, as the day of payment drew near.
"fail, father!" exclaimed leopold.
"that will be the end of it all. if i don't pay my interest on the day it is due, squire wormbury will foreclose his mortgage, and take possession of the house," groaned the landlord.
"can't something be done, father?" asked the son.
"i don't know what i can do, i have borrowed of everybody who will lend me a dollar. with one good season i could pay off every dollar i owe, except squire wormbury's mortgage. it seems hard to go to the wall just for the want of a month's time. i am sure i shall make money after the season opens, for i have engaged half the rooms in the house after the middle of july. half a dozen families from chicago are coming then, and when i was in boston a dozen people told me they would come here for the summer."
"i think you will find some way to raise the money, father," added leopold, more hopeful than his father.[pg 166]
"i don't see where it is coming from. the bank won't discount any more for me. i feel like a beggar already; and all for the want of a month's time."
leopold was very sad; but in this emergency he thought of the hidden treasure of high rock. but he had already made up his mind that this money did not belong to him. he even felt that it would be stealing for him to take it. in his father's sore embarrassment he was tempted to appropriate the treasure, and let him use it as a loan. but then, if his father should fail, and the heirs of wallbridge should appear, he could not satisfy them, or satisfy his own conscience.
but the temptation was very great; and the next time he went out alone in the rosabel, he visited the beach under high rock. it was the first time he had been there this season. he landed, and commenced the search for the projecting rock which was shaped like a coffin. he walked from one end of the beach to the other, without discovering any rock which answered to harvey barth's description. he started to retrace his steps, remembering that[pg 167] the writer of the journal had been unable to observe the singular form of the rock after he had changed his position. the tide was low, and he walked on the edge of the water; but by going in this direction he had no better success. after spending an hour in looking for it, he could discover no rock which looked like the emblem of death. he returned to rockhaven, almost convinced that harvey barth had imagined the scene he had described in his diary.
the next day, just at dark, a thunder-storm, the first of the season, came up. the weather had been warm and sultry for a week, and the farmers declared that the season was a fortnight earlier than usual. the roaring thunder and the flashing lightning reminded leopold of the scene described in harvey's journal, and especially of the burying of the twelve hundred dollars in gold. without saving anything to any one of his intention, he left the hotel, and embarked in the rosabel, with no dread of the rain, or a squall. there was wind enough to take him down as far as the ledges, and then it suddenly subsided. leopold furled his mainsail, for the calm indicated a coming squall. it[pg 168] wanted an hour of high tide, and he anchored the rosabel at a considerable distance from the shore, paying out the cable till the stern of the boat was in water not more than three feet deep. pulling upon the rope till he was satisfied that the anchor had hooked upon one of the sharp rocks below the beach, he prepared to go on shore. the beach sloped so sharply that the sands were not more than twenty feet from the stern of the rosabel.
it was now quite dark, but the scene was frequently lighted up by the sharp lightning. the tide had risen so that the water was within a rod of the cliffs. taking an oar in his hand, he planted the blade end of it in the water as far as he could reach from the stern, and grasping the other end, he made a flying leap with its aid, and struck at a spot where the water was only knee-deep. he had scarcely reached the beach before the squall came; but it blew out of the north-west, so that the rosabel was partially sheltered from its fury by the projecting cliffs between high rock and the mouth of the river. she swung around, abreast of the cliffs, into the deep water between the beach[pg 169] and the ledges. leopold watched her for a few moments, fearful that the change of position might have unhooked the anchor; but it held on till the squall, which expended its force in a few moments, was over. then the rain came down in torrents, drenching the boatman to the skin.
leopold, with the oar in his hand, walked along the narrow beach, watching the play of the lightning on the rocks of the cliff. occasionally he halted to observe the shapes they assumed, and he could not help perceiving that the glare of the electric fluid gave them an entirely different appearance from that which they usually wore. he had landed near the ravine by which harvey earth had escaped from the angry billows, and he walked to the farther end of the beach without seeing any rock which bore the least resemblance to a coffin. the tide was rising all the time, driving him nearer and nearer to the cliff. leopold was not much excited, for his former failure to find the hidden treasure had almost convinced him that no such thing existed. he was cool enough—drenched to the skin as he was—to reason about the[pg 170] movements of the shipwrecked party on the beach.
"when harvey barth left wallbridge filling up the hole in which he had put the bag of gold," thought leopold, "he must have walked towards the 'hole in the wall'"—as the ravine was called by those who visited high rock. "if he hadn't walked towards it, he wouldn't have found it. if he had walked up and down the beach, he would have seen wallbridge and the mate when they went off in the whale-boat to return to the wreck. this shows plainly enough that he only walked one way before he came to the hole. that way must have been the opposite direction from that i have just come; for if he had walked the way i have, he could not have reached the hole; and there is no beach to walk on beyond it.
"when harvey barth looked behind him, he could not see the coffin; and of course i couldn't see it when i came this way. i suppose it only shows itself, like the man's head near the light-house, from one particular point. the head can only be made out from a boat, when it ranges between the island and the light, one way, and[pg 171] in line with the dead tree and jones's barn on the north shore, the other way. twenty feet from this position, nothing that looks like a head can be seen. probably this coffin works by the same rule. if it don't, it is strange that i have never noticed it. now i will walk in the direction that harvey barth did, and if there is any coffin here i shall see it."
the bright flashes of lightning still illuminated the cliffs, as leopold walked slowly towards the hole in the wall, scrutinizing the rocks with the utmost care. by the rising of the tide his line of march was now within ten feet of the cliff, and the beach was of about the same width as when the shipwrecked party had sought a refuge upon it; but the sea was comparatively calm, and there was no peril on its smooth sands. leopold had gone about one third of the length of the beach, when his eye rested upon a formation in the cliff, which, as the lightning played upon it, assured him he had found what he sought. the view he had obtained of it was only for an instant. he halted, waiting again till the lightning again, enabled him to see the rock.[pg 172]
"that's it, as sure as i live!" exclaimed the boatman.
again and again he saw it, as the lightning glared upon it; and the resemblance to a coffin was certainly very striking. harvey barth was justified again, and leopold acknowledged to himself the correctness of the description in the diary. thrusting the oar down into the sand on the spot where he was, so as not to loose the locality, he stood for some time observing the phenomenon on the rocks. he understood now why he had not seen it before. in his previous search, he had walked on the beach twenty feet farther out from the cliff. changing his position by wading into the water, the shape of the coffin on the rock was lost before he had moved ten feet from the oar. from this point it assumed a new form, looking like nothing in particular but a mass of rock.
leopold returned to the stake which he had set up, and then walked from it to the cliff. when he stopped, the projecting rock was directly over his head. he knew the spot very well. he had baked clams there for rosabel hamilton during one of his visits to high rock[pg 173] with her; and he had dug over every foot of sand beneath it, in search of the hidden treasure, without finding it. but harvey barth was so correct in regard to his description of the locality that the boatman was more disposed to rely upon his statements in other matters than he had ever been before. he gathered a pile of stones to mark the place, and then gave himself up to a careful consideration of the circumstances of the case. he could not now escape the conclusion that the money was actually buried beneath the projecting rock—"coffin rock" he had already named in his own mind; and he proceeded to inquire why he had not found it, when he dug the ground all over.
"miss liverage told me the hole which wallbridge dug was not more than a foot deep; and harvey barth's diary contained the same statement," said the boatman to himself. "i dug a foot down, and the money was not there. i remember i found a piece of boat-hook, with the iron on it about that distance below the surface. what does that prove? how happened that piece of a boat-hook, to be a foot under ground? on the top of the cliffs the sand and[pg 174] gravel, with a little soil on top, is six feet deep, and this beach is formed by the caving down of the earth. there is no beach beyond the hole, because the rocks are all bare on the top of the cliff. i suppose the sand keeps dropping down, and the roll of the sea has spread it out as it fell. i have no doubt that the hurricane piled the sand up a foot or more next to the cliff. that's the reason i didn't find the money. i will dig deeper now."
satisfied with this reasoning, leopold waded off to the rosabel which the tide had swung in towards the beach again. in the cuddy he had a lantern,—for use when he was out after dark,—which he lighted. as he was obliged to supply bait for parties who went out fishing with him, he kept under the seat in the standing-room a boy's shovel, which his father had given him years before, with which he dug clams on the beaches. letting out the cable, the boat drifted still nearer to the beach, and the skipper landed, with his lantern and shovel. throwing off his wet coat, he began to dig under coffin rock. he allowed considerable latitude in marking out the size of the hole, to[pg 175] allow for any possible want of accuracy in harvey barth's observation.
it was pitch dark after the shower, for the sky and the stars were obscured by dense clouds. leopold had only the light of his lantern to enable him to work, and his task was gloomy enough to satisfy the veriest money-digger that ever delved into the earth for hidden treasure. in half an hour, more or less, he had dug the hole a foot deep, and then felt that he had reduced this part of the beach to its former elevation, at the time of the wreck of the waldo. a descent of another foot would decide whether or not the treasure had an existence, save in the brain of the sick man.
it was hard work, after a full day's labor at the hotel; but leopold redoubled his exertions after he had removed the first foot of sand. as he proceeded, he examined every stone he threw out of the hole, to assure himself that he did not miss the bag of gold. the task began to be somewhat exciting, as the solution of the problem drew nearer.
the hole which he had laid out was six feet square; and when he had thrown out all the[pg 176] sand and gravel to this depth, in order to save any unnecessary labor he began to dig in the middle of the excavation, for this was directly under the centre of the projecting rock. if harvey barth's statement was exactly correct, the bag would be found where leopold was now at work. faster and faster he plied the shovel, the deeper he went, and, when he judged that the lower hole was nearly a foot deep, his excitement of mind was intense. he had come to the last layer of sand he had to remove in making the second foot in depth. placing his heel upon the shovel, he attempted to force it down the length of the blade; but something impeded his progress. it was not a rock, for it yielded slightly, and gave forth no sharp sound. scraping out the sand with the shovel, leopold began to paw it away with his hands. presently he felt something which was neither sand nor gravel. he drew it forth from the hole, and held it up where the light of the lantern struck upon it.
it was the hidden treasure.
the money digger. page 176. the money digger. page 176.
[pg 177]the bag was just what harvey barth had described, and it weighed at least the four pounds and a half avoirdupois which he had made it by his calculations. leopold was tremendously excited, as he seated himself on the brink of the hole, with the shot-bag in his hand.
"hallo, le! is that you?" shouted a voice from the water.
it was stumpy in leopold's old boat.
