Part 36 (1/2)

A half-moon shone in a rift between the ma.s.sed banks of cloud when Austin stood looking down into the trench four of the Spaniards were digging. It ran partly across the islet, which was small and sandy, intersecting another excavation that had a palm at one end of it, while a half-rotten cottonwood, from which orchids sprang, stood in line with the trench the men were toiling in. They were shovelling strenuously, and the thud of the sand they flung out jarred on the silence, for the night was very still. Austin could hear the creek lapping on the beach, and the deep humming of the _c.u.mbria_'s pump, softened by the distance.

She lay, with a light or two blinking fitfully on board her, half a mile away, ready at last for sea. Then he glanced at Jefferson, who stood close beside him, s.h.i.+vering a little, though the night was hot, as he leaned upon a shovel.

”We have been at it, at least, a couple of hours,” Austin said suggestively.

Jefferson laughed. ”And we'll be here this time to-morrow unless we find the case. There's only one on this islet, that fellow said, and, as I tried to point out, the men who buried it probably wanted to get the thing done quickly. They'd have run a line from the two trees, and either dumped the case at the intersection or a few paces outside it on a given bearing. If we don't strike it in a few minutes we'll work a traverse.”

Ten minutes pa.s.sed, and then one of the Canarios cried out excitedly as he struck something with his shovel. Austin saw his comrade's hands quiver on the shovel-haft in the moonlight, but that was all, and next moment two of the Spaniards fell on hands and knees in the sand. They flung it up in showers with their fingers, while Austin, by an effort, stood very still, for he felt that he might do things he would be sorry for afterwards if he let himself go. The Latins were panting in their eagerness, and wallowing rather like beasts than men amidst the flying sand. Then one of them, who dragged something out, hove it up and flung it at Austin's feet with a gasp of consternation.

”Ah, maldito! Es muy chiquit.i.ta!” he said.

Austin set his lips as he glanced at his comrade, whose face grew suddenly hard.

”Yes,” he said, with portentous quietness. ”It is remarkably small, and by the way he hove it up there can't be very much in it.”

They stood still a moment, looking down at the little wooden case, while the Spaniards cl.u.s.tered round them, with eyes that gleamed in the moonlight, breathing unevenly. Then Jefferson said: ”Light that blast-lamp, and we'll open it.”

Austin's fingers trembled, and he wasted several matches before the sheet of flame sprang up. Then he fell furiously upon the case with a hammer and splintered the lid. He plunged his hand in and took out a quill, which he twisted until it burst, and spilled a little heap of gleaming grains in his palm.

”It's gold,” he said.

”Empty the lot!” said Jefferson, and his voice was hoa.r.s.e. ”Your hat is big enough. It will all go into it.”

There was a low murmur from the Spaniards when Austin obeyed him, and he handed the wide-brimmed hat to Jefferson.

”Would you make it four pounds?” asked the latter.

”I certainly would not.”

Jefferson laughed harshly. ”Then it's probably worth some 200,” he said. ”It's rather a grim joke, considering what has no doubt been done for the sake of it.”

He laid the hat down, and one of the Spaniards, glancing at the little pile of quills, broke into a torrent of horrible maledictions, while Austin, who said nothing, gazed at his comrade until the latter made a curious little gesture.

”There is still the gum,” he said.

Austin smiled sardonically. ”If you can still believe in it you are an optimist of the finest water. Any way, we'll go and look for it. It will be a relief to get done with the thing.”

They waded to the surfboat, which lay close by on the beach, and slid down stream to an adjacent island, where they had no difficulty in finding the tree the man who made the note in the engineers' tables had alluded to. The moon had, however, sunk behind a cloud, and they toiled by the light of the blast-lamp for half an hour, until once more one of the Canarios struck something with his shovel. They dragged it out with difficulty, and found it to be a heavy, half-rotten bag, with something that appeared to be a package of plaited fibre inside it. Other bags followed, and hope was growing strong in them again when they had disclosed at least a score. Jefferson looked at Austin with a little smile in his eyes.

”There's a couple of hundred pounds, any way, in each of those bags, and if the man who told me was right, that stuff is worth anything over 100 the ton,” he said. ”So far as we have prospected, this strip of sand is full of them. It's going to be more profitable than gold-mining. We'll get this lot into the surfboat first. Put that lamp out.”

Austin did so, and they staggered through a foot or two of water with the bags on their backs. Some of them burst as they carried them, but the fibre packages remained intact, and the big boat was almost loaded when Austin, who was breathless, seated himself for a moment on her gunwale. He could see by the silvery gleam on the cloud bank's edge that the moon was coming through again, and he was glad of the fact, for he had stumbled and once fallen heavily under his burden when floundering through the strip of th.o.r.n.y brushwood which fringed the beach. Still, he agreed with Jefferson that it was not advisable to use the big blast-light any longer than was absolutely necessary, for they both had an unpleasant suspicion that they had not done yet with Funnel-paint. It was, indeed, for that reason they had made the search at night and used the surfboat, which could be paddled almost silently, instead of the launch, though Tom had repaired her boiler, and she was then lying alongside the _c.u.mbria_, with steam up, ready.

The black hull of the latter was faintly visible, and as he glanced at it he fancied that a puff of white steam sprang up where he supposed the locomotive boiler to be. A moment later a thin, shrill scream rang through the stillness, and one of the Spaniards, startled by the sound, fell heavily against the boat with the bag he was carrying. Austin made a sign to Jefferson, who was staggering across the beach with a bag upon his back.

”They're whistling,” he said. ”I fancy I can hear the launch coming.”

There was another hoa.r.s.er scream, and when it died away a low thudding sound crept out of the darkness. Austin swept his gaze upriver, but could only see the shadowy mangroves, for the moon had not come through yet.

”Funnel-paint!” said Jefferson, breathlessly. ”There are four more bags in sight. We'll get her afloat before we go for them.”