Part 30 (1/2)

”Our first direction is to follow the shadow of the keep to its easterly angle when the sun s.h.i.+nes, at 3:30, on the sixth of September,” I began, when Walter interrupted me with:

”But has it occurred to you that since that record was written the calendar has been altered? What was the sixth of September in the sixteenth century is not the sixth of September in the present day.”

”By Jove?” I gasped. ”I never thought of that. But what is the precise difference?”

”I happened to be looking that very point up not long ago,” said Walter, ”which is what brought it to my mind now. About 1582 Pope Gregory XIII decreed that ten days should be omitted, and October fifth was reckoned as the fifteenth. But this was not universal till 1751, when a bill was pa.s.sed for regulating the commencement of the year, and for correcting the calendar. By that bill eleven days were omitted after the second of September, so that the ensuing day was the fourteenth.”

”In that case, then, September sixth of G.o.dfrey Lovel's day is really our September seventeenth. That gives us nearly two weeks more time than we had counted on,” I remarked. ”Yet it will be half-past three before we leave today, and we shall then, at any rate, be able to see the vicinity of the spot, although we cannot fix it exactly until the day and hour indicated.”

”I wonder whether we shall really find the casket?” Walter said, eagerly. ”To me this is just the sort of place where some treasure lies buried. The day before we left town I went to the British Museum and looked up the history of the place. Our record in The Closed Book is certainly borne out by history. Maxwell of Terregles was keeper of the Threave in G.o.dfrey's day, the dawn of the Reformation, and seems to have had rather a rough time of it, just as the old monk has written. John Gordon of Lochinvar, Dean Vaus of Soulseat, the Macdowalls of Freuch and of Mindork, who burned Brod.i.c.k Castle and invaded Arran, and James Earl of Bothwell, of Earlston, as mentioned by G.o.dfrey Lovel, were all his prominent contemporaries. Therefore it is certainly likely that the ex-favourite of Lucrezia Borgia did actually conceal the casket intrusted to him somewhere on this island, which in his day was, of course, impregnable.”

”I quite agree,” I answered, looking wonderingly around. ”Of course, the directions are complicated, purposely no doubt; and today it seems quite useless to attempt to follow them. We must arouse no suspicion of our intentions.”

”We shall require a.s.sistance when we really do investigate,” my companion remarked.

”Then we'll take Fred into our confidence. He would thoroughly enter into the spirit of the thing--that I know.”

We walked back to where the others were still seated on the gra.s.s, in the shadow of the high grey wall, with its grim ”hanging k.n.o.b,” and a chorus of jeers at my studious nature greeted me.

”Going to write a book, I suppose, Allan?” cried Sammy Waldron, his mouth full of sandwich. ”Put me in it, old fellow. I'm good-looking enough to be a hero, aren't I?”

Bertie Sale opened a bottle of soda clumsily, and squirted it in a lady's face, and Mrs Payling, to whom Walter turned his attention, was discovered actually talking frocks with Connie, and was allowed to continue, for both men and women admired her for being so well turned-out on every occasion. G.o.dfrey Handsworth had been heard to remark that it was a pity that she was not twenty years younger; but, as it was, she was still very handsome, with a figure that many a younger woman envied.

Fred Fenwicke and Connie looked after everyone's comfort. On such occasions they never took servants. Everyone helped himself and looked after a lady, and, as such _al fresco_ luncheons were weekly in the shooting season, this kind of entertainment had been brought to a fine art.

The men smoked and idled, some of them lying stretched upon the gra.s.s, while others escorted the ladies around the ruins, the chief excitement being the loss of Connie's Aberdeen ”Jack,” a one-eyed dog of Satanic expression and cunning, the terror of Campbell, the st.u.r.dy, good-humoured gamekeeper of Crailloch.

I sat on the gra.s.s, smoking, chatting, and drinking whisky and soda with Fred,--Walter, Sammy, and Mr Batten, while the others wandered about the island. The afternoon was absolutely perfect, with as blue a sky as ever seen in Italy, and across the wide sweep of river, towards Greenlaw, rose the long, low heathery hills.

From where we idled Mr Batten pointed out to us the peaks Bengairn and Cairntosh and the highlands of Balmaghie, and related several archaeological facts that, in view of our forthcoming explorations, were of intense interest to us.

”You see that great rugged hole in the wall, half-way up the front of the castle?” he said, pointing to it. ”The hole looks almost like a window, but it is a breach made by the cannon known as Mons Meg, now to be seen at Edinburgh Castle. The piece of artillery was made by a blacksmith and his sons at Buchan, and was used by the king in his operations against Threave. The charge consisted of a peck of gunpowder and a granite ball the weight of a Carsphairn cow. The first discharge produced a panic among the inmates of the castle, and the second shot went through the walls and carried away the right hand of the Countess, the celebrated Fair Maid of Galloway, as she sat at table in the banqueting hall about to raise a wine cup to her lips. The garrison quickly surrendered, and the blacksmith was granted the forfeited lands of Mollance and Barncrosh.”

”Curious?” I remarked. ”Only a legend, I suppose?”

”Not at all--a historical fact. As late as 1841 Mr Gordon of Greenlaw, tenant of this island, discovered an immense granite ball which, on examination, was found to be a bullet, in all respects the same as those belonging to Mons Meg, while a ma.s.sive gold ring inscribed `Margaret de Douglas' was discovered by a workman employed to clear out some rubbish when the castle was repaired as a barrack for French prisoners. This was the actual ring supposed to have been on the hand of the Fair Maid of Galloway when it was blown away at the siege.”

Such discovery caused hope to arise within us. I exchanged glances with Wyman, and saw that he considered this additional evidence that treasure might be hidden beneath that turf on which we were lounging.

Presently we all rose to rejoin the party, and again Walter and I managed to separate ourselves from the rest and strolled around the small marshy island.

It was ten minutes past three, and the sun, still s.h.i.+ning brightly, cast a long, straight, sharply defined shadow in the direction of the broad river and the high land of Greenlaw. The great square tower was higher on the eastern angle than the western, therefore from its position to the sun the eastern angle threw a longer shadow, which, together, we followed through the gra.s.s-grown ditch which was once the fosse and up the bank, then, counting forty-three paces, we halted at a spot covered with nettles or gra.s.s.

”The starting point for measurements must be somewhere here. Fifty-six paces with the face toward Bengairn,” I remarked. ”I'm no astronomer; but I suppose that, on the date mentioned, the shadow will be more to eastward or to westward. We will, at any rate, mark this spot,” and, finding a piece of broken hurdle, used some time or other to pen in cattle which had grazed on the island, I stuck it deeply in the ground just at the farthermost point of the great oblong shadow across the gra.s.s.

CHAPTER THIRTY TWO.

THE MAJOR MAKES A STATEMENT.

While the rest of the party examined the dungeon, I clambered over the ruins, and ascended by the winding, broken stairway to the summit. I walked with Wyman across the weedy, neglected ground beyond the dried-up fosse, reconstructing the stronghold in imagination by the position of the broken barbican.

Over the self-same ground the unfrocked monk of Crowland had wandered with his companion in misfortune, the monk Malcolm. We looked back at the gateway of the castle, so high up that it was on a level with the second floor. Through that, the only exit from the castle, old G.o.dfrey had fled with his fair charge across the drawbridge, over the island to the river, and across the narrow temporary bridge, then existing, to the sh.o.r.e--away back to safety in England, leaving Lucrezia's casket, with its precious contents, safely hidden.