Part 29 (1/2)
His rage at Ditty vanished in an instant as he turned to her. She was trying to smile, but there was no laughter in her dewy eyes. But Drew saw there something deeper and sweeter and tenderer. There was immense sympathy and--what was that other fugitive expression that he caught before her eyelids lowered?
He bent toward her, but just then Grimshaw and the captain ranged alongside, and they had to take their places in the boat.
The members of the crew who had been told off for the service, bent to the oars, and, at a rapid pace, they approached the sh.o.r.e. The beach shelved gradually, and they had no trouble in making a landing. The sailors leaped out into the shallow water and drew the boat well up on the strand, and the party disembarked.
Drew wished that they had found it necessary to wade. With what delight he would have carried Ruth in those strong arms of his!
”We'll be back in an hour or two, my lads,” said the captain. ”You can scatter about and do as you like until we return, as long as you keep within hail of the boat.”
With the captain and Tyke in the lead, and Drew following behind to help Ruth over the hard places, they plunged into the unknown forest.
After all, they went slowly, for Tyke had to favor what he called his ”game leg.”
For all the evidence that the wood afforded, it had been untrodden for many years. Giant ceiba trees reared themselves two hundred feet into the air. Lianas hung in festoons from the boughs like monstrous boa constrictors. Parrots flew squawking from branch to branch, and humming birds and b.u.t.terflies of many hues and gorgeous beauty darted like bright arrows among the flowers.
The underbrush was thick and in some places impenetrable, and the treasure seekers would have found their progress very slow if it had not been for certain irregular trails that seemed to have been hewn through the woods at intervals. In some places these trails were many yards wide, while at others they narrowed to a foot or two. Nothing grew upon them, but they were covered by dead leaves and twigs of varying depths.
”Wonder how these trails came here,” said the captain. ”There are no footprints on them, and yet they must have been made by animals or men.”
”Better keep our eyes peeled,” warned Tyke.
The captain, who had sc.r.a.ped away some of the acc.u.mulated leaves and rubbish, gave a sudden exclamation.
”Why, this path is made of stone!” he cried. He dropped on his knees and examined more closely. When he rose to his feet his face was grave.
”It's lava!” he stated.
”Then the island must be volcanic!” exclaimed Drew, startled by the thought.
”Nothing very surprising about that when you come to think of it,” Tyke declared. ”We're right down here in the earthquake zone, where the earth's liable to throw a fit any time. Like enough this old whaleback is a sleeping volcano. She may blow up again some time.”
”Just as it did at Martinique,” confirmed the captain. ”Perhaps that may explain the absence of people hereabouts. They may have all been wiped out by some eruption, or they may have been so scared that they left the island for safer quarters.”
”I don't think we have much to worry about,” remarked Tyke. ”There ain't any doubt but this hill we're heading for has been at some time a volcano. But likely it's been quiet for hundreds of years. An' it's not likely that it's going to git busy now jest for our special benefit. Let's hike along.”
”There's one good thing about it, anyway,” remarked Drew, as they resumed their march. ”It's burned out these paths and made the walking easier. And it's pointed out just the way we want to go. All we have to do is to follow this path and it can't help but lead us right up to the whale's hump.”
”That's the point we want to head for,” replied the captain, consulting the map. ”You'll notice that these circles seem to be on the slope of the hill not so very far from the top. Besides, that pirate fellow would be likely to go quite a way in from the sh.o.r.e to bury his loot.”
Half a mile further on, a little stream ran through the forest. The party went over to it, and Drew, bending down and making a cup of his hands, bore some of the water to his lips. He made a wry face and almost choked.
”Sulphur!” he exclaimed. ”It's full of it.”
Captain Hamilton, too, tasted.
”Another proof, if we needed it, that the island is volcanic,” he observed. Then, in a tone that only Drew heard, he added: ”What I don't like about it is that it shows there's brimstone in the old whale's hump yet. If there wasn't, the water would have sweetened long ago.”
Tyke and Ruth each took a few drops of the water, and then the party went on a little more soberly than before. The trees soon became more scattered, though the undergrowth was dense. Before long they emerged on a sort of plateau above which was lifted, at a height of two hundred feet or more, the whale's hump.
Its sides were heaped with ma.s.ses of hardened lava in all kinds of grotesque shapes. It was utterly desolate and bare. Ruth shuddered as she looked at the weird scene.