Spanish Doubloons Page 14

  XIV

  MR. TUBBS INTERRUPTS

  I had determined as an offset to my pusillanimous behavior aboutthe cave to show a dogged industry in the matter of the _IslandQueen_. It would take me a long while to get down through the sandto the chest, but I resolved to accomplish it, and borrowed ofCookie, without his knowledge, a large iron spoon which I thought Icould wield more easily than a heavy spade. Besides, Cookie wouldbe less sleuth-like in getting on the trail of his missing propertythan Mr. Shaw--though there would be a certain piquancy in havingthat martinet hale me before him for stealing a spade.

  But that afternoon I was tired and hot--it really called for agrimmer resolve than mine to shovel sand through the languor of aLeeward Island afternoon. Instead, I slept in my hammock, anddreamed that I was queen of a cannibal island, draped in necklacesmade of the doubloons now hidden under the sand in the cabin of thederelict.

  Later, the wailing of Cookie was heard in the land, and I had torestore the spoon to free Crusoe of the charge of having stolen it.I said I had wanted it to dig with. But of course it occurred tono one that it was the treasure I had expected to dig up withCookie's spoon. It was touching to see the universal faith in thetrivial nature of my employments, to know that every one imaginedthemselves to be seriously occupied, while I was merely agirl--there is no common denominator for the qualifyingadjective--who roamed about idly with a dog, and that no onedreamed that we had thus come to be potentially among the richestdogs and girls in these latitudes.

  A more serious obstacle to my explorations on the _Island Queen_presented itself next day. Instead of putting to sea, Mr. Shaw andCaptain Magnus hauled the boat up on the beach and set to work torepair it. The wild work of exploring the coast had left the boatwith leaky seams and a damaged gunwale. The preceding day had beenfilled with hardship and danger--so much so that my heart sank alittle at the recountal of it. You saw the little boat threadingits way among the reefs, tossed like seaweed by the white teeth ofgnawing waves, screamed at by angry gulls whose homes were thoseclefts and caves which the boat invaded. And all this, poor littleboat, on a hopeless quest--for no reward but peril and wounds.Captain Magnus had a bruised and bleeding wrist, but refused tohave it dressed, vaunting his hardihood with a savage pride.Cuthbert Vane, however, had a sprained thumb which could not beignored, and on the strength of which he was dismissed from theboat-repairing contingent, and thrown on my hands to entertain. Soof course I had to renounce all thoughts of visiting the sloop. Ishould not have dared to go there anyway, with Mr. Shaw and thecaptain able more or less to overlook my motions from the beach,for I was quite morbidly afraid of attracting attention to thederelict. It seemed to me a happy miracle that no one but myselfhad taken any interest in her, or been inspired to ask by whatchance so small a boat had come to be wrecked upon these desolateshores. Fortunately in her position in the shadow of the cliff shewas inconspicuous, so that she might easily have been taken for thehalf of a large boat instead of the whole of a small one, or shemust before this have drawn the questioning notice of theScotchman. As to the captain, his attention was all set on theeffort to discover the cave, and his intelligence was not livelyenough to start on an entirely new tack by itself. And theHonorable Cuthbert viewed derelicts as he viewed the planetarybodies; somehow in the course of nature they happened.

  So, dissembling my excitements and anxieties, I swung placidly inmy hammock, and near by sat the beautiful youth with his thumbcarried tenderly in a bandage. In my preoccupied state of mind, toentertain him might have seemed by no means an idle pastime, if hehadn't unexpectedly developed a talkative streak himself. Was itmerely my being so distrait, or was it quite another reason, thatled him to open up so suddenly about his Kentish home? Strange tosay, instead of panting for the title, Cuthbert wanted his brotherto go on living, though there was something queer about his spine,poor fellow, and the doctors said he couldn't possibly-- Of courseI was surprised at Cuthbert's views, for I had always thought thatif there were a title in your family your sentiments toward thosewho kept you out of it were necessarily murderous, and your tearscrocodile when you pretended to weep over their biers. ButCuthbert's feelings were so human that I mentally apologized to thenobility. As to High Staunton Manor, I adored it. It is mostlyJacobean, but with an ancient Tudor wing, and it has a chapel and aghost and a secret staircase and a frightfully beautiful and wickedancestress hanging in the hall--I mean a portrait of her--andquantities of oak paneling quite black with age, and silver thatwas hidden in the family tombs when Cromwell's soldiers came, and achamber where Elizabeth once slept, and other romantic details toonumerous to mention. It is all a little bit run down and shabby,for lack of money to keep it up, and of course on that account allthe more entrancing. Naturally the less money the morearistocracy, for it meant that the family had never descended tomarrying coal miners and brewers--which comment is my own, forCuthbert was quite destitute of swank.

  The present Lord Grasmere lived up to his position so completelythat he had the gout and sat with his foot on a cushion exactlylike all the elderly aristocrats you ever heard of, only when Iinquired if his lordship cursed his valet and flung plates at thefootmen when his foot hurt him his son was much shocked and pained.He did not realize so well as I--from an extensive course ofnovel-reading--that such is the usual behavior of titled persons.

  It was delightful, there in the hot stillness of the island, withthe palms rustling faintly overhead, to hear of that cool, mossy,ancient place. I asked eager questions--I repeated gloatinglyfragments of description--I wondered enviously what it would belike to have anything so old and proud and beautiful in your veryblood--when suddenly I realized that, misled by my enthusiasm,Cuthbert was saying something which must not be said--that he wasabout to offer the shelter of that ancient roof to me. To me,whose heart could never nest there, but must be ever on the wing, awild bird of passage in the track of a ship--

  I sat up with a galvanic start. "Oh--listen--didn't you hearsomething?" I desperately broke in. For somehow I must stop him.I didn't want our nice jolly friendship spoiled--and besides, fancybeing cooped up on an island with a man you have refused!Especially when all the while you'd be wanting so to pet andconsole him!

  But with his calm doggedness Cuthbert began again--"I was a bitafraid the old place would have seemed too quiet and dull to you--"when the day was saved and my interruption strangely justified by ashrill outcry from the camp.

  I knew that high falsetto tone. It was the voice of Mr. Tubbs, butpitched in a key of quite insane excitement. I sprang up and ran,Crusoe and the Honorable Cuthbert at my heels. There in the midstof the camp Mr. Tubbs stood, the center of a group who wereregarding him with astonished looks. Mr. Shaw and the captain hadleft their tinkering, Cookie his saucepans, and Aunt Jane andViolet had come hurrying from the hut. Among us all stood Mr.Tubbs with folded arms, looking round upon the company with anextraordinary air of complacency and triumph.

  "What is it, oh, what is it, Mr. Tubbs?" cried Aunt Jane,fluttering with the consciousness of her proprietorship.

  But Mr. Tubbs glanced at her as indifferently as a satedturkey-buzzard at a morsel which has ceased to tempt him.

  "Mr. Tubbs," commanded Violet, "speak--explain yourself!"

  "Come, out with it, Tubbs," advised Mr. Shaw.

  Then the lips of Mr. Tubbs parted, and from them issued thissolitary word:

  "Eureka!"

  "What?" screamed Miss Higglesby-Browne. "_You have found it_?"

  Solemnly Mr. Tubbs inclined his head.

  "Eureka!" he repeated. "I have found it!"

  Amidst the exclamations, the questions, the general commotion whichensued, I had room for only one thought--that Mr. Tubbs had somehowdiscovered the treasure in the cabin of the _Island Queen_.Indeed, I should have shrieked the words aloud, but for aprovidential dumbness that fell upon me. Meanwhile Mr. Tubbs hadunfolded his arms from their Napoleonic posture on his bosom longenough to wave his hand for silence.

&
nbsp; "Friends," he began, "it has been known from the start that therewas a landmark on this little old island that would give any partydiscovering the same a line on that chest of money right away.There's been some that was too high up in the exploring business towaste time looking for landmarks. They had ruther do more fancystunts, where what with surf, and sharks, and bangin' up the boat,they could make a good show of gettin' busy. But old Ham Tubbs, hedon't let on to be a hero. Jest a plain man o' business--that'sold H. H. Consequence is, he leaves the other fellers have thebrass band, while he sets out on the q. t. to run a certain littleclue to earth. And, ladies and gentlemen, he's run it!"

  "You have found--you have found the treasure!" shrilled Aunt Jane.

  Contrary to his bland custom, Mr. Tubbs frowned at her darkly.

  "I said I found the _clue_," he corrected. "Of course, it's thesame thing. Ladies and gentlemen, not to appear to be a hot-airartist, I will tell you in a word, that I have located thetombstone of one William Halliwell, deceased!"

  Of course. Not once had I thought of it. Bare, stark, glaring upat the sun, lay the stone carved with the letters and thecross-bones. Forgetting in the haste of my departure to replacethe vines upon the grave, I had left the stone to shout its secretto the first comer. And that had happened to be Mr. Tubbs.Happened, I say, for I knew that he had not had the slightestnotion where to look for the grave of Bill Halliwell. This runningto earth of clues was purely an affair of his own picturesqueimagination.

  I wondered uneasily what he had made of the uprooted vines--but hewould lay them to the pigs, no doubt. In the countenance of Mr.Tubbs, flushed and exultant, there was no suspicion that the secretwas not all his own.

  Miss Higglesby-Browne had been settling her helmet more firmly uponher wiry locks. She had a closed umbrella beneath her arm, and shedrew and brandished it like a saber as she took a long strideforward.

  "Mr. Tubbs," she commanded, "lead on!"

  But Mr. Tubbs did not lead on. He stood quite still, regardingMiss Browne with a smile of infinite slyness.

  "Oh, no indeed!" he said. "Old H. H. wasn't born yesterday. Itmay have struck you that to possess the sole and exclusiveknowledge of the whereabouts of a million or two--ratin' it low--issome considerable of an asset. And it's one I ain't got the leastidee of partin' with unless for inducements held out."

  Aunt Jane gave a faint shriek. I had been silently debating whatmy own course should be in the face of this unexpected development.Suddenly I saw my way quite clear. I would say nothing. Mr. Tubbsshould reveal his own perfidy. And the curtain should ring downupon the play, leaving Mr. Tubbs foiled all around, bereft both ofthe treasure and of Aunt Jane. Oh, how I would enjoy the farce asit was played by the unconscious actors! How I would step in atthe end to reward virtue and punish guilt! And how I would pointthe moral, later, very gently to Aunt Jane, an Aunt Jane allpenitence and docility!

  Little I dreamed what surprises ensuing acts of the play were tohold for me, or of their astounding contrast with the farce of myjoyous imagination.

  I took no part in the storm that raged round Mr. Tubbs. It is saidthat in the heart of the tempest there is calm, and this greattruth of natural philosophy Mr. Tubbs exemplified. His faceadorned by a seraphic, buttery smile, he stood unmoved, while MissHigglesby-Browne uttered cyclonic exhortations and reproaches,while Aunt Jane sobbed and said, "_Oh, Mr. Tubbs_!" while Mr. Shawstrove to make himself heard above the din. He did at leastsucceed in extracting from the traitor a definite statement ofterms. These were nothing less than fifty per cent. of thetreasure, secured to him by a document signed, sealed and deliveredinto his own hands. To a suggestion that as he had discovered theall-important tombstone so might some one else, he replied withtranquillity that he thought not, as he had taken precautionsagainst such an eventuality. In other words, as I was later todiscover, the wily Mr. Tubbs had contrived to raise the boulderfrom its bed and push it over the cliff into the sea, afterwardreplacing the mass of vines upon the grave.

  As to the entrance to the tunnel, it was apparent to me that Mr.Tubbs had not yet discovered it. Even if he had, I am certain thathe would have been no more heroic than myself about exploring it,though there was no missing Peter to haunt his imagination. Butwith the grave as a starting-point, there could be no question asto the ultimate discovery of the cave.

  I was so eager myself to see the inside of the cave, and to knowwhatever it had to reveal of the fate of Peter, that I was inclinedto wish Mr. Tubbs success in driving his hard bargain, especiallyas it would profit him nothing in the end. But this sentiment wasexclusively my own. On all hands indignation greeted the rigorousdemands of Mr. Tubbs. With a righteous joy, I saw the fabric ofAunt Jane's illusions shaken by the rude blast of reality. Wouldit be riven quite in twain? I was dubious, for Aunt Jane'sillusions have a toughness in striking contrast to the uncertainnature of her ideas in general. Darker and darker disclosures ofMr. Tubbs's perfidy would be required. But judging from hispresent recklessness, they would be forthcoming. For where was theTubbs of yesterday--the honey-tongued, the suave, the anxiouslyobsequious Tubbs? Gone, quite gone. Instead, here was a Tubbs whococked his helmet rakishly, and leered round upon the company, deafto the claims of loyalty, the pleas of friendship, the voice oftenderness--Aunt Jane's.

  Manfully Miss Higglesby-Browne stormed up and down the beach. Shedemanded of Mr. Shaw, of Cuthbert Vane, of Captain Magnus, each andseverally, that Mr. Tubbs be compelled to disgorge his secret. Yousaw that she would not have shrunk from a regimen of racks andthumbscrews. But there were no racks or thumbscrews on the island.Of course we could have invented various instruments of torture--Ifelt I could have developed some ingenuity that way myself--but toofatally well Mr. Tubbs knew the civilized prejudices of those withwhom he had to deal. With perfect impunity he could strut aboutthe camp, sure that no weapons worse than words would be brought tobear upon him, that he would not even be turned away from thegeneral board to browse on cocoanuts in solitude.

  Long ago Mr. Shaw had left the field to Violet and with a curtshrug had turned his back and stood looking out over the cove,stroking his chin reflectively. Miss Browne's eloquence had risento amazing flights, and she already had Mr. Tubbs inextricablymixed with. Ananias and Sapphira, when the Scotchman broke in uponher ruthlessly.

  "Friends," he said, "so far as I can see we have been put a goodbit ahead by this morning's work. First, we know that the gravewhich should be our landmark has not been entirely obliterated bythe jungle, as I had thought most likely. Second, we know that itis on this side of the island, for the reason that this chap Tubbshasn't nerve to go much beyond shouting distance by himself.Third, as Tubbs has tried this hold-up business I believe we shouldconsider the agreement by which he was to receive a sixteenth sharenull and void, and decide here and now that he gets nothingwhatever. Fourth, the boat is now pretty well to rights, and assoon as we have a snack Bert and Magnus and I will set out, intwice as good heart as before, having had the story that brought ushere confirmed for the first time. So Tubbs and his tombstone cango to thunder."

  "I can, can I?" cried Mr. Tubbs. "Say, are you a human iceberg, totalk that cool before a man's own face? Say, I'll--"

  But Cuthbert Vane broke in.

  "Three rousing cheers, old boy!" he cried to the Scotchmanenthusiastically. "Always did think the chap a frightful bounder,don't you know? We'll stand by old Shaw, won't we, Magnus?" Whichcomradely outbreak showed the excess of the beautiful youth'semotions, for usually he turned a large cold shoulder on thecaptain, though managing in some mysterious manner to be perfectlycivil all the time. Perhaps you have to be born at High StauntonManor or its equivalent to possess the art of relegating people toimmense distances without seeming to administer even the gentlestshove.

  But unfortunately the effect of the Honorable Cuthbert's cordialitywas lost, so far as the object of it was concerned, because of thesurprising fact, only now remarked by any one, that Captain Magnushad disappear
ed.