Part 5 (1/2)

The Urchin grinned.

”Oh, you girls!” he said. ”Who ever heard of gas in a sea cave. What you are smelling is the lamp.”

Fiona took the lamp up.

”I'm going to take charge of this myself,” she said. ”You can carry the treasure.”

The Urchin picked up the sack and threw it over his shoulder.

”Go ahead, lady with the lamp,” he said, and grinned again. He felt very adventurous. He would rather have liked to be photographed.

With considerable caution, necessitated by the heavy lamp, they climbed the rock barrier and descended into the darkness of the inner cave. The walking was better here; the rounded slippery boulders had given place to a floor of pebbles and sand. Quite a short way from the barrier the wall of the cave curved away in a semicircle on the right, its smooth surface forming a kind of small recess. Fiona swept the recess with her lamp, and on the sandy floor something gleamed back; the Urchin pounced on it and picked it up. It was a gold coin, not the least like any which the children had ever seen. It was, in fact, a doubloon.

”This must be one of them,” said the boy exultantly as he pocketed it; ”one that got dropped. Come on, it can't be much farther.”

But Fiona held the lamp steady and stared at the sand.

”Look at the marks on the sand,” she said. ”They are like the marks of heavy boxes. The treasure has been here, Urchin, and it's not here now. Someone has been here and taken it, and dropped one piece.”

”I don't think so,” said the Urchin. ”We shall find them a bit farther on.”

So they went on, but not very far. For the light of the lamp suddenly fell on a rock wall before them, the end of the cave. And it had ended, not as the other caves do, by the roof growing lower and lower till it meets the floor; it had ended in this huge chamber of high rocky walls.

”So this is the cave that no one has ever reached the end of,” said Fiona. ”Why, it goes no distance at all.”

They retraced their steps to the recess, and then back to the end again, looking on this side and on that for openings, but it seemed quite clear that there were none.

”The boxes must have been carried off by sea,” said Fiona.

But the Urchin had an idea.

”No one would try to carry great heavy boxes over the rock barrier,”

he said. ”They'd just take the gold out in sacks.”

”The barrier may be a rock-fall,” said Fiona. ”The treasure may all have been cleared out long ago.”

And then there came to the Urchin the realization of the fact that he had lost his gun. He turned very red.

”It's a shame,” he said angrily, ”an awful shame. It was given to me, and someone has taken it. Can't you think where it could be, Fiona?

I'd go _anywhere_ to find it.”

Whatever Fiona may have been going to say, her words tailed off into sudden silence. For from beyond the cave wall, as it seemed, sounded again the footsteps which they had heard before; and this time they knew that there was no cave there, and that It was walking through solid rock as if along a road. There was no question this time of any concealment or pretence; both frankly turned tail and made for the rock barrier. Halfway there the Urchin tripped and fell heavily on his head. Fiona put the lamp down and helped him up, dizzy and shaking.

”Can you go on, Urchin?” she said. ”If not, I'll try and carry you.”

The Urchin looked back into the blackness, unrelieved by any ray of the lamp, which faced the other way. The footsteps were steadily drawing nearer, neither hasting nor staying. What the Urchin may have thought he saw Fiona could not guess; he gave one shriek, slid out of her grasp, and bolted for the rock barrier as fast as his trembling feet would carry him.

For one moment Fiona all but followed him. Then it suddenly came to her that she was responsible for the boy's safety. She never knew afterwards how she managed to do what she did; but she turned, and with the courage of utter desperation--the courage which enables the hen partridge to face the sparrow hawk--stood at bay, swinging up the heavy lamp to see and face whatever should come.

And into the circle of lamplight quietly walked the figure of the old hawker.