When, early the next morning, Captain Horn began to pack the newly arrived bags with the bundles of gold which he had buried in the sand, he found that the bags were not at all in the condition of those the filling of which he had supervised himself. Some of these were more heavily filled than others, and many were badly fastened up. This, of course, necessitated a good deal of extra work, but the captain sadly thought that probably he would have more time than he needed to do all that was necessary to get this second cargo into fair condition for transportation. He had checked off his little bundles as he had buried them, and there were nearly enough to fill all the bags. In fact, he had to make but three more trips in order to finish the business.

When the work was done, and everything was ready for the arrival of the Finland, the captain felt that he had good reason to curse the conscienceless Chilian whose laziness or carelessness had not only caused him the loss of perhaps a quarter of a million of dollars, but had given him days—how many he could not know—with nothing to do; and which of these two evils might prove the worse, the captain could not readily determine.

As Captain Horn walked up and down the long double rows of bags which contained what he hoped would become his fortune, he could not prevent a feeling of resentful disappointment when he thought of the small proportion borne by the gold in these bags to the treasure yet remaining in the mound. On his last visit to the mound he had carefully examined its interior, and although, of course, there was a great diminution in its contents, there was no reason to believe that the cavity of the mound did not extend downward to the floor of the cave, and that it remained packed with gold bars to the depth of several feet. It seemed silly, crazy, in fact, almost wicked, for him to sail away in the Finland and leave all that gold behind, and yet, how could he possibly take away any more of it?

He had with him a trunk nearly empty, in which he might pack some blankets and other stuff with some bags of gold stowed away between them, but more than fifty pounds added to the weight of the trunk and its contents would make it suspiciously heavy, and what was fifty pounds out of that vast mass? But although he puzzled his brains for the greater part of a day, trying to devise some method by which he could take away more gold without exciting the suspicions of the people on board the English vessel, there was no plan that entered his mind that did not contain elements of danger, and the danger was an appalling one. If the crew of the Finland, or the crew of any other vessel, should, on this desert coast, get scent of a treasure mound of gold ingots, he might as well attempt to reason with wild beasts as to try to make them understand that that treasure belonged to him. If he could get away with any of it, or even with his life, he ought to be thankful.

The captain was a man who, since he had come to an age of maturity, had been in the habit of turning his mind this way and that as he would turn the helm of his vessel, and of holding it to the course he had determined upon, no matter how strong the wind or wave, how dense the fog, or how black the night. But never had he stood to his helm as he now stood to a resolve.

"I will bring away a couple of bags," said he, "to put in my trunk, and then, I swear to myself, I will not think another minute about carrying away any more of that gold than what is packed in these guano-bags. If I can ever come back, I will come back, but what I have to do now is to get away with what I have already taken out of the mound, and also to get away with sound reason and steady nerves."

The next day there was not a sail on the far horizon, and the captain brought away two bags of gold. These, with some clothes, he packed in his empty trunk.

"Now," said he, "this is my present share. If I permit myself to think of taking another bar, I shall be committing a crime."



CHAPTER XXIV

HIS FORTUNE UNDER HIS FEET

Notwithstanding the fact that the captain had, for the present, closed his account with the treasure in the lake cave, and had determined not to give another thought to further drafts upon it, he could not prevent all sorts of vague and fragmentary plans for getting more of the gold from thrusting themselves upon him; but his hand was strong upon the tiller of his mind, and his course did not change a point. He now began to consider in what condition he should leave the caves. Once he thought he would go there and take away everything which might indicate that the caves had been inhabited, but this notion he discarded.

"There are a good many people," he thought, "who know that we lived there, and if that man who was there afterwards should come back, I would prefer that he should not notice any changes, unless, indeed,"—and his eyes glistened as a thought darted into his mind,—"unless, indeed, he should find a lake where he left a dry cave. Good! I'll try it."

With his hands in his pockets, the captain stood a few moments and thought, and then he went to work. From the useless little vessel which, had belonged to the Rackbirds he gathered some bits of old rope, and having cut these into short pieces, he proceeded to pick them into what sailors call oakum.

Early the next morning, his two canvas bags filled with this, he started for the caves. When he reached the top of the mound, and was just about to hold his lantern so as to take a final glance into its interior, he suddenly turned away his head and shut his eyes.

"No," he said. "If I do that, it is ten to one I'll jump inside, and what might happen next nobody knows."

He put the lantern aside, lifted the great lid into its place, and then, with a hammer and a little chisel which he had brought with him from the tools which had been used for the building of the pier, he packed the crevices about the lid with oakum. With a mariner's skill he worked, and when his job was finished, it would have been difficult for a drop of water to have found its way into the dome, no matter if it rose high above it.

It was like leaving behind a kingdom and a throne, the command of armies and vast navies, the domination of power, of human happenings; but he came away.

When he reached the portion of the cave near the great gap which opened to the sky opposite the entrance to the outer caves, the captain walked across the dry floor to the place where was situated the outlet through which the waters of the lake had poured out into the Rackbirds' valley.

The machine which controlled this outlet was situated under the overhanging ledge of the cave, and was in darkness, so that the captain was obliged to use his lantern. He soon found the great lever which he had clutched when he had swum to the rescue of Ralph, and which had gone down with him and so opened the valve and permitted egress of the water, and which now lay with its ten feet or more of length horizontally near the ground. Near by was the great pipe, with its circular blackness leading into the depths below.

"That stream outside," said the captain, "must run in here somewhere, although I cannot see nor hear it, and it must be stopped off by this valve or another one connected with it, so that if I can get this lever up again, I should shut it off from the stream outside and turn it in here. Then, if that fellow comes back, he will have to swim to the mound, and run a good chance of getting drowned if he does it, and if anybody else comes here, I think it will be as safe as the ancient Peruvians once made it."

With this he took hold of the great lever and attempted to raise it. But he found the operation a very difficult one. The massive bar was of metal, but probably not iron, and although it was not likely that it had rusted, it was very hard to move in its socket. The captain's weight had brought it down easily, but this weight could not now be applied, and he could only attempt to lift it.

When it had first been raised, it was likely that a dozen slaves had seized it and forced it into an upright position. The captain pushed up bravely, and, a few inches at a time, he elevated the end of the great lever. Frequently he stopped to rest, and it was over an hour before the bar stood up as it had been when first he felt it under the water.

When this was done, he went into the other caves, looked about to see that everything was in the condition in which he had found it, and that he had left nothing behind him during his many visits. When he was satisfied on these points, he went back to the lake cave to see if any water had run in. He found everything as dry as when he had left it, nor could he hear any sound of running or dripping water. Considering the matter, however, he concluded that there might be some sort of an outside reservoir which must probably fill up before the water ran into the cave, and so he came away.

"I will give it time," he thought, "and come back to-morrow to see if it is flooded."

That night, as he lay on his little pallet, looking through the open front of his tent at the utter darkness of the night, the idea struck him that it was strange that he was not afraid to stay here alone. He was a brave man,—he knew that very well,—and yet it seemed odd to him that, under the circumstances, he should have so little fear. But his reason soon gave him a good answer. He had known times when he had been very much afraid, and among these stood preeminent the time when he had expected an attack from the Rackbirds. But then his fear was for others. When he was by himself it was a different matter. It was not often that he did not feel able to take care of his own safety. If there were any danger now, it was in the daytime, when some stray Rackbirds might come back, or the pilferer of the mound might return with companions. But if any such came, he had his little fort, two pistols, and a repeating rifle. At night he felt absolutely safe. There was no danger that could come by land or sea through the blackness of the night.

Suddenly he sat up. His forehead was moist with perspiration. A shiver ran through him, not of cold, but of fear. Never in his life had he been so thoroughly frightened; never before had he felt his hands and legs tremble. Involuntarily he rose and stood up in the tent. He was terrified, not by anything real, but by the thought of what might happen if that lake cave should fill up with water, and if the ancient valves, perhaps weakened by his moving them backward and forward, should give way under the great pressure, and, for a second time, a torrent of water should come pouring down the Rackbirds' ravine!

As the captain trembled with fear, it was not for himself, for he could listen for the sound of the rushing waters, and could dash away to the higher ground behind him; but it was for his treasure-bags, his fortune, his future! His soul quaked. His first impulse was to rush out and carry every bag to higher ground. But this idea was absurd. The night was too dark, and the bags too heavy and too many. Then he thought of hurrying away to the caves to see if the lake had risen high enough to be dangerous. But what could he do if it had? In his excitement, he could not stand still and do nothing. He took hold of one end of his trunk and pulled it out of his tent, and, stumbling and floundering over the inequalities of the ground, he at last got it to a place which he supposed would be out of reach of a sudden flood, and the difficulties of this little piece of work assured him of the utter futility of attempting to move the bags in the darkness. He had a lantern, but that would be of little service on such a night and for such a work.

He went back into his tent, and tried to prevail upon himself that he ought to go to sleep—that it was ridiculous to beset himself with imaginary dangers, and to suffer from them as much as if they had been real ones. But such reasoning was vain, and he sat up or walked about near his tent all night, listening and listening, and trying to think of the best thing to do if he should hear a coming flood.

As soon as it was light, he hurried to the caves, and when he reached the old bed of the lake, he found there was not a drop of water in it.

"The thing doesn't work!" he cried joyfully. "Fool that I am, I might have known that although a man might open a valve two or three centuries old, he should not expect to shut it up again. I suppose I smashed it utterly."

His revulsion of feeling was so great that he began to laugh at his own absurdity, and then he laughed at his merriment.

"If any one should see me now," he thought, "they would surely think I had gone crazy over my wealth. Well, there is no danger from a flood, but, to make all things more than safe, I will pull down this handle, if it will come. Anyway, I do not want it seen."

The great bar came down much easier than it had gone up, moving, in fact, the captain thought, as if some of its detachments were broken, and when it was down as far as it would go, he came away.

"Now," said he, "I have done with this cave for this trip. If possible, I shall think of it no more."

When he was getting some water from the stream to make some coffee for his breakfast, he stopped and clenched his fist. "I am more of a fool than I thought I was," he said. "This solitary business is not good for me. If I had thought last night of coming here to see if this little stream were still running, and kept its height, I need not have troubled myself about the lake in the cave. Of course, if the water were running into the caves, it would not be running here until the lake had filled. And, besides, it would take days for that great lake to fill. Well, I am glad that nobody but myself knows what an idiot I have been."

When he had finished his breakfast, Captain Horn went to work. There was to be no more thinking, no more plans, no more fanciful anxieties, no more hopes of doing something better than he had done. Work he would, and when one thing was done, he would find another. The first thing he set about was the improvement of the pier which had been built for the landing of the guano. There was a good deal of timber left unused, and he drove down new piles, nailed on new planking, and extended the little pier considerably farther into the waters of the cove. When this was done, he went to work on the lighter, which was leaky, and bailed it out, and calked the seams, taking plenty of time, and doing his work in the most thorough manner. He determined that after this was done, and he could find nothing better to do, he would split up the little vessel which the Rackbirds had left rudderless, mastless, and useless, and make kindling-wood of it.

But this was not necessary. He had barely finished his work on the lighter, when, one evening, he saw against the sun-lighted sky the topmasts of a vessel, and the next morning the Finland lay anchored off the cove, and two boats came ashore, out of one of which Maka was the first to jump.

In five hours the guano had been transferred to the ship, and, twenty minutes later, the Finland, with Captain Horn on board, had set sail for Acapulco. The captain might have been better pleased if his destination had been San Francisco, but, after all, it is doubtful if there could have been a man who was better pleased. He walked the deck of a good ship with a fellow-mariner with whom he could talk as much as he pleased, and under his feet were the bags containing the thousands of little bars for which he had worked so hard.



CHAPTER XXV

AT THE PALMETTO HOTEL

For about four months the persons who made up what might be considered as Captain Horn's adopted family had resided in the Palmetto Hotel, in San Francisco. At the time we look upon them, however, Mrs. Cliff was not with them, having left San Francisco some weeks previously.

Edna was now a very different being from the young woman she had been. Her face was smoother and fuller, and her eyes seemed to have gained a richer brown. The dark masses of her hair appeared to have wonderfully grown and thickened, but this was due to the loose fashion in which it was coiled upon her head, and it would have been impossible for any one who had known her before not to perceive that she was greatly changed. The lines upon her forehead, which had come, not from age, but from earnest purpose and necessity of action, together with a certain intensity of expression which would naturally come to a young woman who had to make her way in the world, not only for herself, but for her young brother, and a seriousness born of some doubts, some anxieties, and some ambiguous hopes, had all entirely disappeared as if they had been morning mists rolling away from a summer landscape. Under the rays of a sun of fortune, shining, indeed, but mildly, she had ripened into a physical beauty which was her own by right of birth, but of which a few more years of struggling responsibility would have forever deprived her.

After the receipt of her second remittance, Edna and her party had taken the best apartments in the hotel. The captain had requested this, for he did not know how long they might remain there, and he wanted them to have every comfort. He had sent them as much money as he could spare from the sale, in Lima, of the gold he had carried with him when lie first left the caves, but his expenses in hiring ships and buying guano were heavy. Edna, however, had received frequent remittances while the captain was at the Rackbirds' cove, through an agent in San Francisco. These, she supposed, came from further sales of gold, but, in fact, they had come from the sale of investments which the captain had made in the course of his fairly successful maritime career. In his last letter from Lima he had urged them all to live well on what he sent them, considering it as their share of the first division of the treasure in the mound. If his intended projects should succeed, the fortunes of all of them would be reconstructed upon a new basis as solid and as grand as any of them had ever had reason to hope for. But if he should fail, they, the party in San Francisco, would be as well off, or, perhaps, better circumstanced than when they had started for Valparaiso. He did not mention the fact that he himself would be poorer, for he had lost the Castor, in which he was part-owner, and had invested nearly all his share of the proceeds of the sale of the gold in ship hire, guano purchases, and other necessary expenses.

Edna was waiting in San Francisco to know what would be the next scene in the new drama of her life. Captain Horn had written before he sailed from Lima in the Chilian schooner for the guano islands and the Rackbirds' cove, and he had, to some extent, described his plans for carrying away treasure from the mound; but since that she had not heard from him until about ten days before, when he wrote from Acapulco, where he had arrived in safety with his bags of guano and their auriferous enrichments. He had written in high spirits, and had sent her a draft on San Francisco so large in amount that it had fairly startled her, for he wrote that he had merely disposed of some of the gold he had brought in his baggage, and had not yet done anything with that contained in the guano-bags. He had hired a storehouse, as if he were going regularly into business, and from which he would dispose of his stock of guano after he had restored it to its original condition. To do all this, and to convert the gold into negotiable bank deposits or money, would require time, prudence, and even diplomacy. He had already sold in the City of Mexico as much of the gold from his trunk as he could offer without giving rise to too many questions, and if he had not been known as a California trader, he might have found some difficulties even in that comparatively small transaction.

The captain had written that to do all he had to do he would be obliged to remain in Acapulco or the City of Mexico—how long he could not tell, for much of the treasure might have to be shipped to the United States, and his plans for all this business were not yet arranged.

Before this letter had been received, Mrs. Cliff had believed it to be undesirable to remain longer in San Francisco, and had gone to her home in a little town in Maine. With Edna and Ralph, she had waited and waited and waited, but at last had decided that Captain Horn was dead. In her mind, she had allowed him all the time that she thought was necessary to go to the caves, get gold, and come to San Francisco, and as that time had long elapsed, she had finally given him up as lost. She knew the captain was a brave man and an able sailor, but the adventure he had undertaken was strange and full of unknown perils, and if it should so happen that she should hear that he had gone to the bottom in a small boat overloaded with gold, she would not have been at all surprised.

Of course, she said nothing of these suspicions to Edna or Ralph, nor did she intend ever to mention them to any one. If Edna, who in so strange a way had been made a wife, should, in some manner perhaps equally extraordinary, be made a widow, she would come back to her, she would do everything she could to comfort her; but now she did not seem to be needed in San Francisco, and her New England home called to her through the many voices of her friends. As to the business which had taken Mrs. Cliff to South America, that must now be postponed, but it could not but be a satisfaction to her that she was going back with perhaps as much money as she would have had if her affairs in Valparaiso had been satisfactorily settled.

Edna and Ralph had come to be looked upon at the Palmetto Hotel as persons of distinction. They lived quietly, but they lived well, and their payments were always prompt. They were the wife and brother-in-law of Captain Philip Horn, who was known to be a successful man, and who might be a rich one. But what seemed more than anything else to distinguish them from the ordinary hotel guests was the fact that they were attended by two personal servants, who, although, of course, they could not be slaves, seemed to be bound to them as if they had been born into their service.

Cheditafa, in a highly respectable suit of clothes which might have been a cross between the habiliments of a Methodist minister and those of a butler, was a person of imposing aspect. Mrs. Cliff had insisted, when his new clothes were ordered, that there should be something in them which should indicate the clergyman, for the time might come when it would be necessary that he should be known in this character; and the butler element was added because it would harmonize in a degree with his duties as Edna's private attendant. The old negro, with his sober face, and woolly hair slightly touched with gray, was fully aware of the importance of his position as body-servant to Mrs. Horn, but his sense of the responsibility of that position far exceeded any other sentiments of which his mind was capable. Perhaps it was the fact that he had made Edna Mrs. Horn which gave him the feeling that he must never cease to watch over her and to serve her in every possible way. Had the hotel taken fire, he would have rushed through the flames to save her. Had robbers attacked her, they must have taken his life before they took her purse. When she drove out in the city or suburbs, he always sat by the side of the driver, and when she walked in the streets, he followed her at a respectful distance.

Proud as he was of the fact that he had been the officiating clergyman at the wedding of Captain Horn and this grand lady, he had never mentioned the matter to any one, for many times, and particularly just before she left San Francisco, Mrs. Cliff had told him, in her most impressive manner, that if he informed any one that he had married Captain Horn and Miss Markham, great trouble would come of it. What sort of trouble, it was not necessary to explain to him, but she was very earnest in assuring him that the marriage of a Christian by a heathen was something which was looked upon with great disfavor in this country, and unless Cheditafa could prove that he had a perfect right to perform the ceremony, it might be bad for him. When Captain Horn had settled his business affairs and should come back, everything would be made all right, and nobody need feel any more fear, but until then he must not speak of what he had done.

If Captain Horn should never come back, Mrs. Cliff thought that Edna would then be truly his widow, and his letters would prove it, but that she was really his wife until the two had marched off together to a regular clergyman, the good lady could not entirely admit. Her position was not logical, but she rested herself firmly upon it.

The other negro, Mok, could speak no more English than when we first met him, but he could understand some things which were said to him, and was very quick, indeed, to catch the meanings of signs, motions, and expressions of countenance. At first Edna did not know what to do with this negro, but Ralph solved the question by taking him as a valet, and day by day he became more useful to the youth, who often declared that he did not know how he used to get along without a valet. Mok was very fond of fine clothes, and Ralph liked to see him smartly dressed, and he frequently appeared of more importance than Cheditafa. He was devoted to his young master, and was so willing to serve him that Ralph often found great difficulty in finding him something to do.

Edna and Ralph had a private table, at which Cheditafa and Mok assisted in waiting, and Mrs. Cliff had taught both of them how to dust and keep rooms in order. Sometimes Ralph sent Mok to a circulating library. Having once been shown the place, and made to understand that he must deliver there the piece of paper and the books to be returned, he attended to the business as intelligently as if he had been a trained dog, and brought back the new books with a pride as great as if he had selected them. The fact that Mok was an absolute foreigner, having no knowledge whatever of English, and that he was possessed of an extraordinary activity, which enabled him, if the gate of the back yard of the hotel happened to be locked, to go over the eight-foot fence with the agility of a monkey, had a great effect in protecting him from impositions by other servants. When a black negro cannot speak English, but can bound like an india-rubber ball, it may not be safe to trifle with him. As for trifling with Cheditafa, no one would think of such a thing; his grave and reverend aspect was his most effectual protection.

As to Ralph, he had altered in appearance almost as much as his sister. His apparel no longer indicated the boy, and as he was tall and large for his years, the fashionable suit he wore, his gay scarf with its sparkling pin, and his brightly polished boots, did not appear out of place upon him. But Edna often declared that she had thought him a great deal better-looking in the scanty, well-worn, but more graceful garments in which he had disported himself on the sands of Peru.



CHAPTER XXVI

THE CAPTAIN'S LETTER

On a sofa in her well-furnished parlor reclined Edna, and on a table near by lay several sheets of closely written letter-paper. She had been reading, and now she was thinking—thinking very intently, which in these days was an unusual occupation with her. During her residence in San Francisco she had lived quietly but cheerfully. She had supplied herself abundantly with books, she had visited theatres and concerts, she had driven around the city, she had taken water excursions, she had visited interesting places in the neighborhood, and she had wandered among the shops, purchasing, in moderation, things that pleased her. For company she had relied chiefly on her own little party, although there had been calls from persons who knew Captain Horn. Some of these people were interesting, and some were not, but they all went away thinking that the captain was a wonderfully fortunate man.

One thing which used to be a pleasure to Edna she refrained from altogether, and that was the making of plans. She had put her past life entirely behind her. She was beginning a new existence—what sort of an existence she could not tell, but she was now living with the determinate purpose of getting the greatest good out of her life, whatever it might be.

Already she had had much, but in every respect her good fortunes were but preliminary to something else. Her marriage was but the raising of the curtain—the play had not yet begun. The money she was spending was but an earnest of something more expected. Her newly developed physical beauty, which she could not fail to appreciate, would fade away again, did it not continue to be nourished by that which gave it birth. But what she had, she had, and that she would enjoy. When Captain Horn should return, she would know what would happen next. This could not be a repetition of the life she was leading at the Palmetto Hotel, but whatever the new life might be, she would get from it all that it might contain for her. She did not in the least doubt the captain's return, for she believed in him so thoroughly that she felt—she knew—he would come back and tell her of his failure or his success, and what she was to do next. But now she was thinking. She could not help it, for her tranquil mind had been ruffled.

Her cogitations were interrupted by the entrance of Ralph.

"I say, Edna," said he, throwing himself into an easy-chair, and placing his hat upon another near by, "was that a returned manuscript that Cheditafa brought you this morning? You haven't been writing for the magazines, have you?"

"That was a letter from Captain Horn," she said.

"Whew!" he exclaimed. "It must be a whopper! What does he say? When is he coming here? Give me some of the points of it. But, by the way, Edna, before you begin, I will say that I think it is about time he should write. Since the letter in which he told about the guano-bags and sent you that lot of money—let me see, how long ago was that?"

"It was ten days ago," said his sister.

"Is that so? I thought it was longer than that. But no matter. Since that letter came, I have been completely upset. I want to know what I am to do, and, whatever I am to do, I want to get at it. From what the captain wrote, and from what I remember of the size and weight of those gold bars, he must have got away with more than a million dollars—perhaps a million and a half. Now, what part of that is mine? What am I to do with it? When am I to begin to prepare myself for the life I am to lead when I get it? All this I want to know, and, more than that, I want to know what you are going to do. Now, if I had got to Acapulco, or any other civilized spot, with a million dollars in solid gold, it would not have been ten days before I should have written to my family,—for I suppose that is what we are,—and should have told them what I was going to do, and how much they might count on. But I hope now that letter does tell?"

"The best thing to do," said Edna, taking up the letter from the table, "is to read it to you. But before I begin I want to say something, and that is that it is very wrong of you to get into these habits of calculating about what may come to you. What is to come will come, and you might as well wait for it without upsetting your mind by all sorts of wild anticipations; and, besides this, you must remember that you are not of age, and that I am your guardian, and whatever fortune may now come to you will be under my charge until you are twenty-one."

"Oh, I don't care about that," said Ralph. "We will have no trouble about agreeing what is the best thing for me to do. But now go ahead with the letter."

"'I am going to tell you'" (at the beginning of the second paragraph) "'of a very strange thing which happened to me since I last wrote. I will first state that after my guano-bags had all been safely stored in the warerooms I have hired, I had a heavy piece of work getting the packages of gold out of the bags, and in packing the bars in small, stout boxes I found in the City of Mexico and had sent down here. In looking around for boxes which would suit my purpose, I discovered these, which had been used for stereotype plates. They were stamped on the outside, and just what I wanted, being about as heavy after I packed them with gold as they were when they were filled with type-metal. This packing I had to do principally at night, when I was supposed to be working in a little office attached to the rooms. As soon as this was done, I sent all the boxes to a safe-deposit bank in Mexico, and there the greater part of them are yet. Some I have shipped to the mint in San Francisco, some have gone North, and I am getting rid of the rest as fast as I can.

"'The gold bars, cast in a form novel to all dealers, have excited a good deal of surprise and questioning, but for this I care very little. My main object is to get the gold separated as many miles as possible from the guano, for if the two should be connected in the mind of any one who knew where the guano was last shipped from, I might have cause for anxiety. But as the bars bear no sort of mark to indicate that they were cast by ancient Peruvians, and, so far as I can remember,—and I have visited several museums in South America,—these castings are not like any others that have come down to us from the times of the Incas, the gold must have been cast in this simple form merely for convenience in transportation and packing. Some people may think it is California gold, some may think it comes from South America, but, whatever they think, they know it is pure gold, and they have no right to doubt that it belongs to me. Of course, if I were a stranger it might be different, but wherever I have dealt I am known, or I send a good reference. And now I will come to the point of this letter.

"'Three days ago I was in my office, waiting to see a man to whom I hoped to sell my stock of guano, when a man came in,—but not the one I expected to see,—and if a ghost had appeared before me, I could not have been more surprised. I do not know whether or not you remember the two American sailors who were the first to go out prospecting, after Mr. Rynders and his men left us, and who did not return. This man was one of them—Edward Shirley by name.'"

"I remember him perfectly!" cried Ralph. "And the other fellow was George Burke. On board the Castor I used to talk to them more than to any of the other sailors."

"'But astonished as I was,'" Edna went on to read, "'Shirley did not seem at all surprised, but came forward and shook hands most heartily. He said he had read in a newspaper that I had been rescued, and was doing business in Acapulco, and he had come down on purpose to find me. I told him how we had given up him and his mate for lost, and then, as he had read a very slim account of our adventures, I told him the whole story, taking great care, as you may guess, not to say anything about the treasure mound. He did not ask any questions as to why I did not come back with the rest of you, but was greatly troubled when he heard of the murders of every man of our crew except himself and Burke and Maka.

"'When I had finished, he told me his story, which I will condense as much as possible. When he and Burke started out, they first began to make their way along the slope of the rocky ridge which ended in our caves, but they found this very hard work, so they soon went down to the sandy country to the north. Here they shot some little beast or other, and while they were hunting another one, up hill and down dale, they found night was coming on, and they were afraid to retrace their steps for fear they might come to trouble in the darkness. So they ate what they had with them, and camped, and the next morning the mountains to the east seemed to be so near them that they thought it much easier to push on instead of coming back to us. They thought that when they got to the fertile country they would find a settlement, and then they might be able to do something for the rest of the party, and it would be much wiser to go ahead than to turn back. But they found themselves greatly mistaken. Mountains in the distance, seen over a plain, appear very much nearer than they are, and these two poor fellows walked and walked, until they were pretty nearly dead. The story is a long one as Shirley told it to me, but just as they were about giving up entirely, they were found by a little party of natives, who had seen them from a long distance and had come to them.

"'After a great deal of trouble,—I believe they had to carry Burke a good part of the way,—the natives got them to their huts at the foot of the mountains, and took care of them. These people told Shirley—he knows a little Spanish—that it was a piece of rare good luck that they found them, for it was very seldom they went so far out into the desert.

"'In a day or two the two men went on to a little village in the mountains, and there they tried to get up an expedition to come to our assistance. They knew that we had food enough to last for a week or two, but after that we must be starved out. But nobody would do anything, and then they went on to another town to see what they could do there.'"

"Good fellows!" exclaimed Ralph.

"Indeed, they were," said Edna. "But wait until you hear what they did next.

"'Nobody in this small town,'" she read on, "'was willing to join Burke and Shirley in their proposed expedition, and no wonder; for crossing those deserts is a dangerous thing, and most people said it would be useless anyway, as it would be easier for us to get away by sea than by land. At this time Burke was taken sick, and for a week or two Shirley thought he was going to die. Of course, they had to stay where they were, and it was a long time before Burke was able to move about. Then they might have gone into the interior until they came to a railroad, and so have got away, for they had money with them, but Shirley told me they could not bear to do that without knowing what had become of us. They did not believe there was any hope for us, unless the mate had come back with assistance, and they had not much faith in that, for if a storm had come up, such as had wrecked the Castor, it would be all over with Mr. Rynders's boat.

"'But even if we had perished on that desolate coast, they wanted to know it and carry the news to our friends, and so they both determined, if the thing could be done, to get back to the coast and find out what had become of us. They went again to the little village where they had been taken by the natives who found them, and there, by promises of big pay,—at least, large for those poor Peruvians,—they induced six of them to join in an expedition to the caves. They did not think they had any reason to suppose they would find any one alive, but still, besides the provisions necessary for the party there and back, they carried something extra.

"'Well, they journeyed for two days, and then there came up a wind-storm, hot and dry, filling the air with sand and dust, so that they could not see where they were going, and the natives said they ought all to go back, for it was dangerous to try to keep on in such a storm. But our two men would not give up so soon, and they made a camp in a sheltered place, and determined to press on in the morning, when they might expect the storm to be over. But in the morning they found that every native had deserted them. The wind had gone down, and the fellows must have started back before it was light. Then Shirley and Burke did not know what to do. They believed that they were nearer the coast than the mountains, and as they had plenty of provisions,—for the natives had left them nearly everything,—they thought they would try to push on, for a while at least.

"'There was a bit of rising ground to the east, and they thought if they could get on the top of that they might get a sight of the ocean, and then discover how far away it was. They reached the top of the rising ground, and they did not see the ocean, but a little ahead of them, in a smooth stretch of sand, was something which amazed them a good deal more than if it had been the sea. It was a pair of shoes sticking up out of the sand. They were an old pair, and appeared to have legs to them. They went to the spot, and found that these shoes belonged to a man who was entirely covered by sand, with the exception of his feet, and dead, of course. They got the sand off of him, and found he was a white man, in sailor's clothes. First they had thought he might be one of our party, but they soon perceived that this was a mistake, for they had never seen the man before. He was dried up until he was nothing but a skeleton with skin over it, but they could have recognized him if they had known him before. From what they had heard of the rainless climate of the Peruvian coast, and the way it had of drying up dead animals of all sorts, they imagined that this man might have been there for years. He was lying on his back, with his arms folded around a bundle, and when they tried to move this bundle, they found it was very heavy. It was something wrapped up in a blanket and tied with a cord, and when they opened the bundle, they were pretty nearly struck dumb; for they saw it held, as Shirley expressed it, about a peck of little hunks of gold.

"'They were utterly astounded by this discovery, and utterly unable to make head or tail of it. What that man, apparently an English sailor, had been doing out in the middle of this desert with a bundle of gold, and where he got it, and who he was, and where he was going to, and how long he had been dead, were things beyond their guessing. They dragged the body out of its burrow in the sand, and examined the pockets, but there was nothing in the trousers but an old knife. In the pocket of the shirt, however, were about a dozen matches, wrapped up in an old envelope. This was addressed, in a very bad hand, to A. McLeish, Callao, Peru, but they could not make out the date of the postmark. These things were all there was about the man that could possibly identify him, for his few clothes were such as any sailor would wear, and were very old and dirty.

"'But the gold was there. They examined it and scraped it, and they were sure it was pure gold. There was no doubt in their minds as to what they would do about this. They would certainly carry it away with them. But before they did so, Burke wanted to hunt around and see if they could not find more of it, for the mass of metal was so heavy he did not believe the sailor could have carried it very far. But after examining the country as far as the eye could reach, Shirley would not agree to this. They could see nothing but wide-stretching sands, and no place where it seemed worth while to risk their lives hunting for treasure. Their best plan was to get away with what they had found, and now the point was whether or not they should press on to the coast or go back; but as they could see no signs of the sea, they soon came to the conclusion that the best thing to do if they wanted to save their lives and their treasure was to get back to the mountains.

"'I forgot to say that as soon as Shirley began to talk about the dead man and his gold, I left the warehouse in charge of Maka, and took him to my hotel, where he told me the rest of his story in a room with the door locked. I must try to take as many reefs in what followed as I can. I don't believe that the finding of the gold made any difference in their plans, for, of course, it would have been foolish for them to try to get to us by themselves. They cut the blanket in half and made up the gold into two packages, and then they started back for the mountains, taking with them all the provisions they could carry in addition to the gold, and leaving their guns behind them. Shirley said their loads got heavier and heavier as they ploughed through the sand, and it took them three days to cover the ground they had gone over before in two. When they got to the village, they found scarcely a man in the place, for the fellows who had deserted them were frightened, and kept out of sight. They stayed there all night, and then they went on with their bundles to the next village, where they succeeded in getting a couple of travelling-bags, into which they put their gold, so that they might appear to be carrying their clothes.

"'After a good deal of travel they reached Callao, and there they made inquiries for A. McLeish, but nobody knew of him. Of course, he was a sailor who had had a letter sent there. They went up to Lima and sold a few pieces of the gold, but, before they did it, they got a heavy hammer and pounded them up, so that no one would know what their original shape was. Shirley said he could not say exactly why they did this, but that they thought, on the whole, it would be safer. Then they went to San Francisco on the first vessel that sailed. They must have had a good deal of talk on the voyage in regard to the gold, and it was in consequence of their discussions that Shirley wanted so much to find me. They had calculated, judging by the pieces they had sold, that the gold they had with them was worth about twelve thousand dollars, and they both thought they ought to do the right thing about it. In the first place, they tried in San Francisco to find out something about McLeish, but no one knew of such a man. They then began to consider some persons they did know about. They had heard in Lima that some of the people of the Castor had been rescued, and if any of them were hard up, as most likely they were, Shirley and Burke thought that by rights they ought to have some of the treasure that they had found. Shirley said at first they had gone on the idea that each of them would have six thousand dollars and could go into business for himself, but after a while they thought this would be a mean thing to do. They had all been shipwrecked together, and two of them had had a rare piece of good luck, and they thought it no more than honorable to share this good luck with the others, so they concluded the best thing to do was to see me about it. Burke left this business to Shirley, because he wanted to go to see his sister who lives in St. Louis.

"'They had not formed any fixed plan of division, but they believed that, as they had had the trouble, and, in fact, the danger, of getting the gold, they should have the main share, but they considered that they had enough to help out any of the original party who might be hard up for money." Of course, we must always remember," said Shirley, in finishing up his story, "that if we can find the heirs of McLeish, the money belongs to them. But, even in that case, Burke and I think we ought to keep a good share of it to pay us for getting it away from that beastly desert." Here I interrupted him. "Don't you trouble yourself any more about McLeish," I said. "That money did not belong to him. He stole it." "How do you know that, and who did he steal it from?" cried Shirley. "He stole it from me," said I.

"'At this point Shirley gave such a big jump backward that his chair broke beneath him, and he went crashing to the floor. He had made a start a good deal like that when I told him how the Rackbirds had been swept out of existence when I had opened the flood-gate that let out the waters of the lake, and I had heard the chair crack then. Now, while he had been telling me about his finding that man in the sand, with his load of gold, I had been listening, but I had also been thinking, and almost any man can think faster than another one can talk, and so by this time I had made up my mind what I was going to say to Shirley. I would tell him all about my finding the gold in the mound. It touched me to think that these poor fellows, who did all that they could to help us escape, and then, when they got safely home, started immediately to find us in order that they might give us some of that paltry twelve thousand dollars—give to us, who are actually millionaires, and who may be richer yet! It would not do to let any of the crew get ahead of their captain in fair dealing, and that was one reason why I determined to tell him. Then, there was another point. Ever since I have been here, selling and storing the gold I brought away, I have had a heavy load on my mind, and that was the thought of leaving all the rest of the gold in that mound for the next person who might come along and find it.

"'I devised plan after plan of getting more of it, but none of them would work. Two things were certain: One was that I could not get any more away by myself. I had already done the best I could and all I could in that line. And the second thing was that if I should try for any more of the treasure, I must have people to help me. The plan that suited me best was to buy a small vessel, man it, go down there, load up with the gold, and sail away. There would be no reasonable chance that any one would be there to hinder me, and I would take in the cargo just as if it were guano, or anything else. Then I would go boldly to Europe. I have looked into the matter, and I have found that the best thing I can do, if I should get that gold, would be to transport it to Paris, where I could distribute it better than I could from any other point. But the trouble was, where could I get the crew to help me? I have four black men, and I think I could trust them, as far as honesty goes, but they would not be enough to work the ship, and I could not think of any white men with whom I would trust my life and that gold in the same vessel. But now they seemed to pop up right in front of me.

"'I knew Shirley and Burke pretty well when they were on the Castor, and after what Shirley told me I knew them better, and I believed they were my men. To be sure, they might fail me, for they are only human, but I had to have somebody to help me, and I did not believe there were any other two men who would be less likely to fail me. So by the time Shirley had finished his yarn I was ready to tell him the whole thing, and propose to him and Burke to join me in going down after the rest of the treasure and taking it to France.'"

At this point Ralph sprang to his feet, his eyes flashing. "Edna!" he cried, "I say that your Captain Horn is treating me shamefully. In the first place, he let me come up here to dawdle about, doing nothing, when I ought to have been down there helping him get more of that treasure. I fancy he might have trusted me, and if I had been with him, we should have brought away nearly twice as much gold, and at this minute we should be twice as well off as we are. But this last is a thousand times worse. Here he is, going off on one of the most glorious adventures of this century, and he leaves me out. What does he take me for? Does he think I am a girl? When he was thinking of somebody to go with him, why didn't he think of me, and why doesn't he think of me now? He has no right to leave me out!"

"I look at the matter in a different light," said his sister. "Captain Horn has no right to take you off on such a dangerous adventure, and, more than that, he has no right to take you from me, and leave me alone in the world. He once made you the guardian of all that treasure, and now he considers you as my guardian. You did not desert the first trust, and I am sorry to think you want to desert the other."

"That's all very fine," said Ralph. "You blow hot and you blow cold at the same time. When you want me to keep quiet and do what I am told, you tell me I am not of age, and that you are my guardian; and when you want me to stay here and make myself useful, you tell me I am wonderfully trusty, and that I must be your guardian."

Edna smiled. "That is pretty good reasoning," she said, "but there isn't any reasoning needed in this case. No matter what Captain Horn may say or do, I would not let you go away from me."

Ralph sat down again. "There is some sense in what you say," he said. "If the captain should come to grief, and I were with him, we would both be gone. Then you would have nobody left to you. But that does not entirely clear him. Even if he thought I ought not to go with him, he ought to have said something about it, and put in a word or so about his being sorry. Is there any more of the letter?"

"Yes," said Edna, "there is more of it," and she began to read again:

"'I intended to stop here and give you the rest of the matter in another letter, but now, as I have a good chance to write, I think it is better to keep on, although this letter is already as long as the pay-roll of the navy. When I told Shirley about the gold, he made a bounce pretty nearly as big as the others, but this time I had him in a stout arm-chair, and he did no damage. He had in his pocket one of the gold bars he spoke of, and I had one of mine in my trunk, and when we put them together they were as like as two peas. What I told him dazed him at first, and he did not seem properly to understand what it all meant, but, after a little, a fair view of it came to him, and for hours we talked over the matter. Who the man was who had gone there after we left did not matter, for he could never come hack again.

"'We decided that what we should do was to go and get that gold as soon as possible, and Shirley agreed to go with me. He believed we could trust Burke to join us, and, with my four black men,—who have really become good sailors,—we would have a crew of seven men altogether, with which we could work a fair-sized brig to Havre or some other French port. Before he went away our business was settled. He agreed to go with me as first mate, to do his best to help me get that gold to France, to consider the whole treasure as mine, because I had discovered it,—I explained the reason to him, as I did to you,—and to accept as regular pay one hundred dollars a day, from then until we should land the cargo in a European port, and then to leave it to me how much more I would give him. I told him there were a lot of people to be considered, and I was going to try to make the division as fair as possible, and he said he was willing to trust it to me.

"'If we did not get the gold, he was to have eighteen dollars a month for the time he sailed with me, and if we got safely back, I would give him his share of what I had already secured. He was quite sure that Burke would make the same agreement, and we telegraphed him to come immediately. I am going to be very careful about Burke, however, and sound him well before I tell him anything.

"'Yesterday we found our vessel. She arrived in port a few days ago, and is now unloading. She is a small brig, and I think she will do; in fact, she has got to do. By the time Burke gets here I think we shall be ready to sail. Up to that time we shall be as busy as men can be, and it will be impossible for me to go to San Francisco. I must attend to the shipping of the treasure I have stored in the City of Mexico. I shall send some to one place and some to another, but want it all turned into coin or bonds before I start. Besides, I must be on hand to see Burke the moment he arrives. I am not yet quite sure about him, and if Shirley should let anything slip while I was away our looked-for fortune might be lost to us.'

"And that," said Edna, "is all of the letter that I need read, except that he tells me he expects to write again before he starts, and that his address after he sails will be Wraxton, Fuguet & Co., American bankers in Paris."



CHAPTER XXVII

EDNA MAKES HER PLANS

When she had finished reading the many pages of the letter, Edna leaned back on the sofa and closed her eyes. Ralph sat upright in his chair and gazed intently before him.

"So we are not to see the captain again," he said presently. "But I suppose that when a man has a thing to do, the best thing is to go and do it."

"Yes," said his sister, "that is the best thing."

"And what are we to do?"

"I am now trying to decide," she answered.

"Doesn't he say anything about it?"

"Not a word," replied Edna. "I suppose he considered he had made his letter long enough."

About an hour after this, when the two met again, Edna said: "I have been writing to Captain Horn, and am going to write to Mrs. Cliff. I have decided what we shall do. I am going to France."

"To France!" cried Ralph. "Both of us?"

"Yes, both of us. I made up my mind about this since I saw you."

"What are you going to France for?" he exclaimed. "Come, let us have it all—quick."

"I am going to France," said his sister, "because Captain Horn is going there, and when he arrives, I wish to be there to meet him. There is no reason for our staying here—"

"Indeed, there is not," interpolated Ralph, earnestly.

"If we must go anywhere to wait," continued his sister, "I should prefer Paris."

"Edna," cried Ralph, "you are a woman of solid sense, and if the captain wants his gold divided up, he should get you to do it. And now, when are we going, and is Mrs. Cliff to go? What are you going to do with the two darkies?"

"We shall start East as soon as the captain sails," replied his sister, "and I do not know what Mrs. Cliff will do until I hear from her, and as for Cheditafa and Mok, we shall take them with us."

"Hurrah!" cried Ralph. "Mok for my valet in Paris. That's the best thing I have got out of the caves yet."

Captain Horn was a strong man, prompt in action, and no one could know him long without being assured of these facts. But although Edna's outward personality was not apt to indicate quickness of decision and vigor of purpose, that quickness and vigor were hers quite as much as the captain's when occasion demanded, and occasion demanded them now. The captain had given no indication of what he would wish her to do during the time which would be occupied by his voyage to Peru, his work there, and his subsequent long cruise around South America to Europe. She expected that in his next letter he would say something about this, but she wished first to say something herself.

She did not know this bold sailor as well as she loved him, and she was not at all sure that the plans he might make for her during his absence would suit her disposition or her purposes. Consequently, she resolved to submit her plans to him before he should write again. Above everything else, she wished to be in that part of the world at which Captain Horn might be expected to arrive when his present adventure should be accomplished. She did not wish to be sent for to go to France. She did not wish to be told that he was coming to America. Wherever he might land, there she would be.

The point that he might be unsuccessful, and might never leave South America, did not enter into her consideration. She was acting on the basis that he was a man who was likely to succeed in his endeavors. If she should come to know that he had not succeeded, then her actions would be based upon the new circumstances.

Furthermore, she had now begun to make plans for her future life. She had been waiting for Captain Horn to come to her, and to find out what he intended to do. Now she knew he was not coming to her for a long time, and was aware of what he intended to do, and she made her own plans. Of course, she dealt only with the near future. All beyond that was vague, and she could not touch it even with her thoughts. When sending his remittances, the captain had written that she and Mrs. Cliff must consider the money he sent her as income to be expended, not as principal to be put away or invested. He had made provisions for the future of all of them, in case he should not succeed in his present project, and what he had not set aside with that view he had devoted to his own operations, and to the maintenance, for a year, of Edna, Ralph, and Mrs. Cliff, in such liberal and generous fashion as might please them, and he had apportioned the remittances in a way which he deemed suitable. As Edna disbursed the funds, she knew that this proportion was three quarters for herself and Ralph, and one quarter for Mrs. Cliff.

"He divides everything into four parts," she thought, "and gives me his share."

Acting on her principle of getting every good thing out of life that life could give her, and getting it while life was able to give it to her, there was no doubt in regard to her desires. Apart from her wish to go where the captain expected to go, she considered that every day now spent in America was a day lost. If her further good fortune should never arrive, and the money in hand should be gone, she wished, before that time came, to engraft upon her existence a period of life in Europe—life of such freedom and opportunity as never before she had had a right to dream of.

Across this golden outlook there came a shadow. If he had wished to come to her, she would have waited for him anywhere, or if he had wished her to go to him, she would have gone anywhere. But it seemed as if that mass of gold, which brought them together, must keep them apart, a long time certainly, perhaps always. Nothing that had happened had had any element of certainty about it, and the future was still less certain. If he had come to her before undertaking the perilous voyage now before him, there would have been a certainty in her life which would have satisfied her forever. But he did not come. It was plainly his intention to have nothing to do with the present until the future should be settled, so far as he could settle it.

In a few days after she had written to Captain Horn, informing him of the plans she had made to go to France, Edna received an answer which somewhat disappointed her. If the captain's concurrence in her proposed foreign sojourn had not been so unqualified and complete, if he had proposed even some slight modification, if he had said anything which would indicate that he felt he had authority to oppose her movements if he did not approve of them,—in fact, even if he had opposed her plan,—she would have been better pleased. But he wrote as if he were her financial agent, and nothing more. The tone of his letter was kind, the arrangements he said he had made in regard to the money deposited in San Francisco showed a careful concern for her pleasure and convenience, but nothing in his letter indicated that he believed himself possessed in any way of the slightest control over her actions. There was nothing like a sting in that kind and generous letter, but when she had read it, the great longing of Edna's heart turned and stung her. But she would give no sign of this wound. She was a brave woman, and could wait still longer.

The captain informed her that everything was going well with his enterprise—that Burke had arrived, and had agreed to take part in the expedition, and that he expected that his brig, the Miranda, would be ready in less than a week. He mentioned again that he was extremely busy with his operations, but he did not say that he was sorry he was unable to come to take leave of her. He detailed in full the arrangements he had made, and then placed in her hands the entire conduct of the financial affairs of the party until she should hear from him again. When he arrived in France, he would address her in care of his bankers, but in regard to two points only did he now say anything which seemed like a definite injunction or even request. He asked Edna to urge upon Mrs. Cliff the necessity of saying nothing about the discovery of the gold, for if it should become known anywhere from Greenland to Patagonia, he might find a steamer lying off the Rackbirds' cove when his slow sailing-vessel should arrive there. The other request was that Edna keep the two negroes with her if this would not prove inconvenient. But if this plan would at all trouble her, he asked that they be sent to him immediately.

In answer to this letter, Edna merely telegraphed the captain, informing him that she would remain in San Francisco until she had heard that he had sailed when she would immediately start for the East, and for France, with Ralph and the two negroes.

Three days after this she received a telegram from Captain Horn, stating that he would sail in an hour, and the next day she and her little party took a train for New York.



CHAPTER XXVIII

"HOME, SWEET HOME"

On the high-street of the little town of Plainton, Maine, stood the neat white house of Mrs. Cliff, with its green shutters, its porchless front door, its pretty bit of flower-garden at the front and side, and its neat back yard, sacred once a week to that virtue which is next to godliness.

Mrs. Cliff's husband had been the leading merchant in Plainton, and having saved some money, he had invested it in an enterprise of a friend who had gone into business in Valparaiso. On Mr. Cliff's death his widow had found herself with an income smaller than she had expected, and that it was necessary to change in a degree her style of living. The hospitalities of her table, once so well known throughout the circle of her friends, must be curtailed, and the spare bedroom must be less frequently occupied. The two cows and the horse were sold, and in every way possible the household was placed on a more economical basis. She had a good house, and an income on which, with care and prudence, she could live, but this was all.

In this condition of her finances it was not strange that Mrs. Cliff had thought a good deal about the investments in Valparaiso, from which she had not heard for a long time. Her husband had been dead for three years, and although she had written several times to Valparaiso, she had received no answer whatever, and being a woman of energy, she had finally made up her mind that the proper thing to do was to go down and see after her affairs. It had not been easy for her to get together the money for this long journey,—in fact, she had borrowed some of it,—and so, to lessen her expenses, she had taken passage in the Castor from San Francisco.

She was a housewife of high degree, and would not have thought of leaving—perhaps for months—her immaculate window-panes and her spotless floors and furniture, had she not also left some one to take care of them. A distant cousin, Miss Willy Croup, had lived with her since her husband's death, and though this lady was willing to stay during Mrs. Cliff's absence, Mrs. Cliff considered her too quiet and inoffensive to be left in entire charge of her possessions, and Miss Betty Handshall, a worthy maiden of fifty, a little older than Willy, and a much more determined character, was asked to come and live in Mrs. Cliffs house until her return.

Betty was the only person in Plainton who lived on an annuity, and she was rather proud of her independent fortune, but as her annuity was very small, and as this invitation meant a considerable reduction in her expenses, she was very glad to accept it. Consequently, Mrs. Cliff had gone away feeling that she had left her house in the hands of two women almost as neat as herself and even more frugal.

When Mrs. Cliff left Edna and Ralph in San Francisco, and went home, nearly all the people in the little town who were worth considering gathered in and around her house to bid her welcome. They had heard of her shipwreck, but the details had been scanty and unsatisfactory, and the soul of the town throbbed with curiosity to know what had really happened to her. For the first few hours of her return Mrs. Cliff was in a state of heavenly ecstasy. Everything was so tidy, everything was so clean, every face beamed with such genial amity, her native air was so intoxicating, that she seemed to be in a sort of paradise. But when her friends and neighbors began to ask questions, she felt herself gradually descending into a region which, for all she knew, might resemble purgatory.

Of course, there was a great deal that was wonderful and startling to relate, and as Mrs. Cliff was a good story-teller, she thrilled the nerves of her hearers with her descriptions of the tornado at sea and the Rackbirds on land, and afterwards filled the eyes of many of the women with tears of relief as she told of their escapes, their quiet life at the caves, and their subsequent rescue by the Mary Bartlett. But it was the cross-examinations which caused the soul of the narrator to sink. Of course, she had been very careful to avoid all mention of the gold mound, but this omission in her narrative proved to be a defect which she had not anticipated. As she had told that she had lost everything except a few effects she had carried with her from the Castor, it was natural enough that people should want to know how she had been enabled to come home in such good fashion.

They had expected her to return in a shabby, or even needy, condition, and now they had stories of delightful weeks at a hotel in San Francisco, and beheld their poor shipwrecked neighbor dressed more handsomely than they had ever seen her, and with a new trunk standing in the lower hall which must contain something.

Mrs. Cliff began by telling the truth, and from this course she did not intend to depart. She said that the captain of the Castor was a just and generous man, and, as far as was in his power, he had reimbursed the unfortunate passengers for their losses. But as every one knows the richest steamship companies are seldom so generous to persons who may be cast away during transportation as to offer them long sojourns at hotels, with private parlors and private servants, and to send them home in drawing-room cars, with cloaks trimmed with real sealskin, the questions became more and more direct, and all Mrs. Cliff could do was to stand with her back against the captain's generosity, as if it had been a rock, and rely upon it for defence.

But when the neighbors had all gone home, and the trunk had to be opened, so that it could be lightened before being carried up-stairs, the remarks of Willy and Betty cut clean to the soul of the unfortunate possessor of its contents. Of course, the captain had not actually given her this thing, and that thing, and the other, or the next one, but he had allowed her a sum of money, and she had expended it according to her own discretion. How much that sum of money might have been, Willy and Betty did not dare to ask,—for there were limits to Mrs. Cliff's forbearance,—but when they went to bed, they consulted together.

If it had not been for the private parlor and the drawing-room car, they would have limited Captain Horn's generosity to one hundred dollars. But, under the circumstances, that sum would have been insufficient. It must have been nearly, if not quite, two hundred. As for Mrs. Cliff, she went to bed regretting that her reservations had not been more extended, and that she had not given the gold mound in the cave more company. She hated prevarications and concealments, but if she must conceal something, she should have concealed more. When the time came when she would be free to tell of her good fortune, even if it should be no more than she already possessed, then she would explain everything, and proudly demand of her friends and neighbors to put their fingers on a single untruth that she had told them.

For the next day or two, Mrs. Cliff's joy in living again in her own home banished all other feelings, and as she was careful to say nothing to provoke more questions, and as those which were still asked became uncertain of aim and scattering, her regrets at her want of reticence began to fade. But, no matter what she did, where she went, or what she looked at, Mrs. Cliff carried about with her a millstone. It did not hang from her neck, but it was in her pocket. It was not very heavy, but it was a burden to her. It was her money—which she wanted to spend, but dared not.

On leaving San Francisco, Edna had wished to give her the full amount which the captain had so far sent her, but Mrs. Cliff declined to receive the whole. She did not see any strong reason to believe that the captain would ever send any more, and as she had a home, and Ralph and Edna had not, she would not take all the money that was due her, feeling that they might come to need it more than she would. But even with this generous self-denial she found herself in Plainton with a balance of some thousands of dollars in her possession, and as much more in Edna's hands, which the latter had insisted that she would hold subject to order. What would the neighbors think of Captain Horn's abnormal bounteousness if they knew this?

With what a yearning, aching heart Mrs. Cliff looked upon the little picket-fence which ran across the front of her property! How beautiful that fence would be with a new coat of paint, and how perfectly well she could afford it! And there was the little shed that should be over the back door, which would keep the sun from the kitchen in summer, and in winter the snow. There was this in one room, and that in another. There were new dishes which could exist only in her mind. How much domestic gratification there was within her reach, but toward which she did not dare to stretch out her hand!

There was poor old Mrs. Bradley, who must shortly leave the home in which she had lived nearly all her life, because she could no longer afford to pay the rent. There had been an attempt to raise enough money by subscription to give the old lady her home for another year, but this had not been very successful. Mrs. Cliff could easily have supplied the deficit, and it would have given her real pleasure to do so,—for she had almost an affection for the old lady,—but when she asked to be allowed to subscribe, she did not dare to give more than one dollar, which was the largest sum upon the list, and even then Betty had said that, under the circumstances, she could not have been expected to give anything.

When she went out into the little barn at the rear of the house, and saw the empty cow-stable, how she longed for fresh cream, and butter of her own making! And when she gazed upon her little phaeton, which she had not sold because no one wanted it, and reflected that her good, brown horse could doubtless be bought back for a moderate sum, she almost wished that she had come home as poor as people thought she ought to be.

Now and then she ordered something done or spent some money in a way that excited the astonishment of Willy Croup—the sharper-witted Betty had gone home, for, of course, Mrs. Cliff could not be expected to be able to afford her company now. But in attempting to account for these inconsiderable extravagances, Mrs. Cliff was often obliged to content herself with admitting that while she had been abroad she might have acquired some of those habits of prodigality peculiar to our Western country. This might be a sufficient excuse for the new bottom step to the side door, but how could she account for the pair of soft, warm Californian blankets which were at the bottom of the trunk, and which she had not yet taken out even to air?

Matters had gone on in this way for nearly a month,—every day Mrs. Cliff had thought of some new expenditure which she could well afford, and every night she wished that she dared to put her money in the town bank and so be relieved from the necessity of thinking so much about door-locks and window-fastenings,—when there came a letter from Edna, informing her of the captain's safe arrival in Acapulco with the cargo of guano and gold, and inclosing a draft which first made Mrs. Cliff turn pale, and then compelled her to sit down on the floor and cry. The letter related in brief the captain's adventures, and stated his intention of returning for the gold.

"To think of it!" softly sobbed Mrs. Cliff, after she had carefully closed her bedroom door. "With this and what I am to get, I believe I could buy the bank, and yet I can only sit here and try to think of some place to hide this dangerous piece of paper."

The draft was drawn by a San Francisco house upon a Boston bank, and Edna had suggested that it might be well for Mrs. Cliff to open an account in the latter city. But the poor lady knew that would never do. A bank-account in Boston would soon become known to the people of Plainton, and what was the use of having an account anywhere if she could not draw from it? Edna had not failed to reiterate the necessity of keeping the gold discovery an absolute secret, and every word she said upon this point increased Mrs. Cliff's depression.

"If it were only for a fixed time, a month or three months, or even six months," the poor lady said to herself, "I might stand it. It would be hard to do without all the things I want, and be afraid even to pay the money I borrowed to go to South America, but if I knew when the day was certainly coming when I could hold up my head and let everybody know just what I am, and take my proper place in the community, then I might wait. But nobody knows how long it will take the captain to get away with that gold. He may have to make ever so many voyages. He may meet with wrecks, and dear knows what. It may be years before they are ready to tell me I am a free woman, and may do what I please with my own. I may die in poverty, and leave Mr. Cliff's nephews to get all the good of the draft and the money in my trunk up-stairs. I suppose they would think it came from Valparaiso, and that I had been hoarding it. It's all very well for Edna. She is going to Europe, where Ralph will be educated, I suppose, and where she can live as she pleases, and nobody will ask her any questions, and she need not answer them, if they should. But I must stay here, in debt, and in actual want of the comforts of life, making believe to pinch and to save, until a sea-captain thousands and thousands of miles away shall feel that he is ready to let me put my hand in my pocket and spend my riches."



CHAPTER XXIX

A COMMITTEE OF LADIES

It was about a week after the receipt of Edna's letter that Willy Croup came to Mrs. Cliff's bedroom, where that lady had been taking a surreptitious glance at her Californian blankets, to tell her that there were three ladies down in the parlor who wished to see her.

"It's the minister's wife, and Mrs. Hembold, and old Miss Shott," said Willy. "They are all dressed up, and I suppose they have come for something particular, so you'd better fix up a little afore you go down."

In her present state of mind, Mrs. Cliff was ready to believe that anybody who came to see her would certainly want to know something which she could not tell them, and she went down fearfully. But these ladies did not come to ask questions. They came to make statements. Mrs. Perley, the minister's wife, opened the interview by stating that, while she was sorry to see Mrs. Cliff looking so pale and worried, she was very glad, at the same time, to be able to say something which might, in some degree, relieve her anxiety and comfort her mind, by showing her that she was surrounded by friends who could give her their heartfelt sympathy in her troubles, and perhaps do a little more.

"We all know," said Mrs. Perley, "that you have had misfortunes, and that they have been of a peculiar kind, and none of them owing to your own fault."

"We can't agree exactly to that," interpolated Miss Shott, "but I won't interrupt."

"We all know," continued Mrs. Perley, "that it was a great loss and disappointment to you not to be able to get down to Valparaiso and settle your affairs there, for we are aware that you need whatever money is due you from that quarter. And we understand, too, what a great blow it was to you to be shipwrecked, and lose all your baggage except a hand-bag."

Miss Shott was about to say something here, but Mrs. Hembold touched her on the arm, and she waited.

"It grieves us very much," continued the minister's wife, "to think that our dear friend and neighbor should come home from her wanderings and perils and privations, and find herself in what must be, although we do not wish to pry into your private affairs, something of an embarrassed condition. We have all stayed at home with our friends and our families, and we have had no special prosperity, but neither have we met with losses, and it grieves us to think that you, who were once as prosperous as any of us, should now feel—I should say experience—in any manner the pressure of privation."

"I don't understand," said Mrs. Cliff, sitting up very straight in her chair. "Privation? What does that mean?"

"It may not be exactly that," said Mrs. Perley, quickly, "and we all know very well, Mrs. Cliff, that you are naturally sensitive on a point like this. But you have come back shipwrecked and disappointed in your business, and we want to show you that, while we would not hurt your feelings for anything in the world, we would like to help you a little, if we can, just as we would hope you would help us if we were in any embarrassment."

"I must say, however—" remarked Miss Shott; but she was again silenced by Mrs. Hembold, and the minister's wife went on.

"To come straight to the point," said she, "for a good while we have been wanting to do something, and we did not know what to do. But a few days ago we became aware, through Miss Willy Croup, that what was most needed in this house is blankets. She said, in fact, that the blankets you had were the same you bought when you were first married, that some of them had been worn out and given to your poorer neighbors, and that now you were very short of blankets, and, with cold weather coming on, she did not consider that the clothing on your own bed was sufficient. She even went so far as to say that the blankets she used were very thin, and that she did not think they were warm enough for winter. So, some of us have agreed together that we would testify our friendship and our sympathy by presenting you with a pair of good, warm blankets for your own bed; then those you have could go to Willy Croup, and you both would be comfortable all winter. Of course, what we have done has not been upon an expensive scale. We have had many calls upon us,—poor old Mrs. Bradley, for one,—and we could not afford to spend much money. But we have bought you a good pair of blankets, which are warm and serviceable, and we hope you will not be offended, and we do not believe that you will be, for you know our motives, and all that we ask is that when you are warm and comfortable under our little gift, you will sometimes think of us. The blankets are out in the hall, and I have no doubt that Miss Willy Croup will bring them in."

Mrs. Cliff's eyes filled with tears. She wanted to speak, but how could she speak! But she was saved from further embarrassment, for when Willy, who had been standing in the doorway, had gone to get the blankets, Miss Shott could be restrained no longer.

"I am bound to say," she began, "that, while I put my money in with the rest to get those blankets,—and am very glad to be able to do it, Mrs. Cliff,—I don't think that we ought to do anything which would look as if we were giving our countenances to useless extravagances in persons, even if they are our friends, who, with but small means, think they must live like rich people, simply because they happen to be travelling among them. It is not for me to allude to hotels in towns where there are good boarding-houses, to vestibule cars and fur-trimmed cloaks; but I will say that when I am called upon to help my friends who need it, I will do it as quick as anybody, but I also feel called upon by my conscience to lift up my voice against spending for useless things what little money a person may have, when that person needs that money for—well, for things I shall not mention. And now that I have said my say, I am just as glad to help give you those blankets, Mrs. Cliff, as anybody else is."

Every one in the room knew that the thing she would not mention was the money Mrs. Cliff had borrowed for her passage. Miss Shott had not lent any of it, but her brother, a retired carpenter and builder, had, and as his sister expected to outlive him, although he was twelve years younger than she was, she naturally felt a little sore upon this point.

Now Mrs. Cliff was herself again. She was not embarrassed. She was neither pale nor trembling. With a stern severity, not unknown to her friends and neighbors in former days, she rose to her feet.

"Nancy Shott," said she, "I don't know anything that makes me feel more at home than to hear you talk like that. You are the same woman that never could kiss a baby without wanting to spank it at the same time. I know what is the matter with you. You are thinking of that money I borrowed from your brother. Well, I borrowed that for a year, and the time is not up yet; but when it is, I'll pay it, every cent of it, and interest added. I knew what I was about when I borrowed it, and I know what I am about now, and if I get angry and pay it before it becomes due, he will lose that much interest, and he can charge it to you. That is all I have to say to you.

"As for you, Mrs. Perley, and the other persons who gave me these blankets, I want you to feel that I am just as grateful as if—just as grateful as I can be, and far more for the friendliness than for the goods. I won't say anything more about that, and it isn't necessary, but I must say one thing. I am ready to take the blankets, and to thank you from the bottom of my heart, but I will not have them unless the money Miss Shott put in is given back to her. Whatever that was, I will make it up myself, and I hope I may be excused for saying that I don't believe it will break me."

Now there was a scene. Miss Shott rose in anger and marched out of the house. Mrs. Perley and the other lady expostulated with Mrs. Cliff for a time, but they knew her very well, and soon desisted. Twenty-five cents was handed to Mrs. Perley to take the place of the sum contributed by Miss Shott, and the ladies departed, and the blankets were taken up-stairs. Mrs. Cliff gave one glance at them as Willy Croup spread them out.