Transcriber’s Note:

The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

Beyond the Great South Wall

THERE WAS A HUM AND A FLICK AS THE ROPE PARTED.
Page [220].

Beyond The Great South Wall:
The Secret of the Antarctic

By FRANK SAVILE

Author of “The Blessing of Esau,” “John Ship, Mariner,” Etc.

WITH SUNDRY GRAPHIC ILLUSTRATIONS PAINTED BY ONE ROBERT L. MASON

NEW AMSTERDAM BOOK COMPANY

156 Fifth Avenue : New York City : MCMI

Copyright, 1901,

BY

NEW AMSTERDAM BOOK COMPANY

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

BEYOND THE GREAT SOUTH WALL

CHAPTER I
A GREAT DEPRESSION

The purr and throb of London was quivering in stuffily through the open windows. The squeals of the “special” newsboys and the hansom-whistles of the early diners-out splashed across the blur and din, standing out against the immeasurable roar as against a silence. The heat of a London summer lay heavily over us; the undying rattle of wheels beat up to us wearily, the mid-season blare and hurry of town echoing irritatingly in their jingle and clatter as they streamed ceaselessly by. The stew and hubbub of the afternoon enclosed us as with a pall of depression.

By us I mean Gerry and myself. Flung back listlessly was I in my club chair, and watching him as he strolled monotonously up and down before the great bow-window that gave upon Pall Mall. His hands were scabbarded hilt high in his pockets. His brows and the corners of his eyes were hard and wrinkled. His gaze was cast steadfastly before his toes. He did a very sentry-go of moody vexation.

Each time he paused, as he turned against the light, every wrinkle and line was silhouetted mercilessly. Wretchedness covered his face as with a mask. My heart began to go out to him, bursting through its own crust of dejection. Wretched we both were, but I was seven years his senior. I began to commune with myself, seeking comfort for him out of my own hard-won store of disappointment, and trying to forget that our sorrows sat upon an even base.

Suddenly he turned towards me and broke the silence that had lasted between us the greater part of the afternoon.

“Well,” he said harshly, “that’s the end of most things for me.”

“Possibly,” answered I, “but probably not. The future’s very spacious yet, my dear boy. I don’t say it in any patronizing spirit, but you’re only twenty-four. Try to forget the ‘might-have-been,’ and buck yourself up into imagining the ‘maybe.’ It’s not all over yet.”

He grunted contemptuously, tramping off again upon his beat. A waiter who chanced in with the evening papers coughed ostentatiously, and with obvious intention towards the cloud of dust that followed hard upon his track. Gerry stared him down, and as the door closed behind him, brought himself to anchor before me again.

“That’s all rot, and you know it, Jack,” he said dogmatically. “Do you think I’m going to stay here and see Vi come back another man’s wife? I’m sick of it all—sick of the work, sick of the play. Deathly sick of the utter sameness of what we call life. I’m going to chuck it, I tell you. Hausa Police, Egyptian Army, Hong Kong Regiment—something of the kind I’m going to try. There’s nothing most assuredly to keep me any longer in her Majesty’s Foot Guards. I’m dipped, and I’ve lost the one thing that might have kept me to the collar. Great Heavens! what in the name of goodness should I stay for?”

I stared back at him answerless. I knew he was talking a cheap sentiment which a month or two later he would be the first to despise. I too was feeling in a modified form all he felt. To me had also come the animal desire for action that follows hard upon mental stress. But that seven years made the difference. Though that day had brought me the supreme discontent of my life, I was still aware that the world continued to wag, and that we should swing along with it. Yet how could I comfort without offending?

Now the reason of all this affliction was simple enough and old as time. To each of us had come the desire of his life, and to each had it been denied. That morning we had spent at the Albert Docks, and had seen a tall ship sail out for foreign lands, bearing upon her decks two maidens who were taking with them our hearts to the world’s end.

I never was much of a chap for lover’s rhapsodies, so I will make no effort to explain to you how sweet a girl was Gwen Delahay, nor why she held my heart in the hollow of her hand. She was one of the many good and beautiful women—God bless them—who walk this earth, and are to their lovers peerless. And as I worshipped her, so did Gerry worship Vi, her sister—a thing perhaps inexplicable, in that he had seen Gwen, but one to be truly thankful for, seeing that we were friends beyond the ordinary sympathies of life. And now were we left hopeless.

Plain Captain Dorinecourte was I, with a slender six hundred pounds beyond my pay, and Gerry, poor lad, had less. You will not exhaust yourself with wonder then, when I relate the fact that Lady Delahay declined on behalf of her daughters our attentions, contemned our eligibility, and hated poisonously the sight of our ingenuous faces. For all these things, I take it, a Society mother is bound by her allegiance to Society to do. Yet though we felt that she played the game as we understood it, none the less did we cry out upon our luck in being the losers. And now it seemed that we might well throw down our cards.

The fond mother’s fears of the blight which our undivided attentions might throw upon her daughters’ careers had culminated that morning. A month before an announcement in the Morning Post had spurred her to an action which her fear alone would never have conceived. It ran as follows—

“Among the passengers by the s.s. Madagascar, which sails on August 4 for her winter’s cruise around the world, will be the Earl of Denvarre. His lordship will be accompanied by his brother the Hon. Stephen Garlicke.”

This item of intelligence had caught the dutiful mother’s eye, and taken vigorous root in her somewhat languid intelligence. Two eligible young men were to be shut up for eight or nine months in a space not more than one hundred yards long by twenty wide. Walking lawlessly in London were two extremely ineligible youths, unchained, ready and willing to wreck her daughters’ happiness. Why not extract the victims from this hazardous propinquity, placing them at the same time in the financially commendable vicinitude of a live earl and his brother. Action was born only too rapidly from reflection. We had seen them off that very morning.

So there sat we in the desolation of a mere club, disconsolate amid the roar of the city, while the sunset became the twilight, the shadows of the lamp-posts lengthened, and darkness fell upon the town even as upon our hearts. And out of the plenitude of my regret I failed to find the word of sympathetic comfort for Gerry.

Lost in our heavy-hearted musings, it was past eight when we realized that food was yet a distasteful necessity of existence, and sought the club dinner. Silently we entered the dining-room, Gerry with the air of one who approached poisoned dishes, and chose a table apart. Though the soup and sherry warmed my companion to conversation, it had a bias of marked contempt.

Clubs, he showed beyond dispute, were traps for the unwary, committees were things of naught, secretaries insolent and overpaid. Waiters were plucked from the gutter to be trained in pot-houses, and cooks cherished the idea that to evolve a savoury it was but necessary to taint an olive with a decayed anchovy. Women who were guests of brother members—it was Wednesday night—were all dressed in seventeen tints of garish atrocity, and were of a mediocrity of feature which he plainly condemned. He mentioned the names of no less than six social resorts off which he purposed to take his name in the morning. This, of course, preparatory to stirring activities which would remove him beyond their sphere of usefulness. Still soured, but evidently relieved, he then retired behind the sheets of the Westminster, with which he screened himself from further intercourse with his fellows. Apathetically I proceeded with my repast.

Suddenly the decorum of the room received a shock. A sound burst from Gerry’s throat which I can only term a crow. He endeavored frantically and indecently to masticate the portion which he had placed between his teeth, beating the paper at me furiously. The sounds which continued to issue from his lips were such as no one could approve. He mouthed unutterable things.

Hastily I rose and thumped him on the back, and noticed that his finger continued to tap viciously upon a headline which he thrust into my face. As the distressing symptoms modified themselves he gradually found his breath, but ceased not to bulge his eyes upon me.

“Look, old man, look,” he insisted faintly, and I took the paper from his hand.

“We regret to announce the death of Viscount Heatherslie at Greytown, Central America. His lordship had lately been travelling in the vicinity, and his death is ascribed to malarial fever. As yet no details can be ascertained.”—Reuter.

The words turned red before my eyes as they danced up and down the green columns. Uncle Leonard was dead—was dead. And I—well, I had to think it very hard indeed before I dared repeat it silently even to myself—I was Lord Heatherslie. Only one thought had possession of my mind. Not a regret did I spare for the dead, not a single reflection as to what this thing meant to me or my prospects did I give beyond the fact that my luck—my cursed Irish luck—had been too late. That one idea had hold of me. A week earlier—a few hours earlier, and what might have been?—what might have been? A curse snarled from between my teeth as I sat down again to stare white-faced across at Gerry.

The excitement had died from his face. His sympathy was quicker than mine had been. He stretched his hand across the table and gripped mine hard.

“Frightful luck, old chap,” he murmured; “I know what you’re thinking. But—but it needn’t be too late yet, Jack.”

I shook my head. Things had become blurred in my brain, but one fact stood out bright as a searchlight to my mind’s eye. Gwen was going out of my life, going away from me as fast as breeze and steam would take her. And the thing that might have stayed our separation—have given her to me—was a week—nay, only a day—too late. I could have smitten my head against the wall in my agony of disappointment.

And yet I had resigned Gwen as fatalistically as any son of Islam. I had schooled myself to think of her as already belonging to another. I had bidden her good-bye without a quiver. Even the look she had given me at the last—a tender, questioning look it was too, and straight from her heart through her dear eyes—I had met with a smile that told of nothing. To me the hopelessness of it all had come home long days before, and I simply wouldn’t sadden the poor child and prolong the pain of parting. I meant that parting to be the absolute separation of our lives—one that should leave no dropped threads to be gathered up in future days of further hopelessness.

And now—now I had the right to win her, and honourably. Only a soldier I might be, but I had a place of my own to take a wife to. Nor would she come to me to sink into a nobody. Half a county would welcome Lady Heatherslie, though half that county might be in rags. Poor we should always have been, but not desperately. Modestly we should have had to live, but we could have kept our rank befittingly. And now the chance was gone. Away beyond the seas she would set herself to forget me, and Denvarre would show her how. The black curses fell over each other in their haste to reach my tongue, and the salt tears nigh fled out along with them. I made an effort and pulled myself together.

“Come along,” said I hoarsely to Gerry in a voice that I hardly knew myself, and blundered out of the room. Without another word I crept into the hansom the commissionaire called, and together we drove down the glaring streets to my rooms, Gerry offering no sympathy but a silence which I understood and was grateful for.

You know the heavy, choking pain that lies leaden in your throat when one you love has gone out into the emptiness—the desperate unbelief in your torture—the mad hope that insists that this thing is too horrible to bear. My suffering came home to me like that. I could only think of Gwen as of one dead and gone from me, but with the added agony of knowing that to me she might have been life and love itself. I felt that I could beat the air, wrestling with my fate for my desire. I gasped, unmanned with wretchedness.

Then Gerry rose and put his hand upon my shoulder. Here again his selfishness was seven years younger than mine. He could lose his sorrow in sympathy.

“God be good to you, dear old chap,” he said; “it’s desperate, desperate luck, but after all is it too late? You’ve the place, the title, and all that—and after all, you know, the old boy might have come home and married any day—why can’t you follow them? Surely you might drop in with them somewhere.”

“Too late? Of course it’s too late,” said I bitterly. “Is a girl to wait for ever? Besides, they can’t hear of it for weeks—very likely not at all. By then Denvarre will have settled matters, if he isn’t the most consummate idiot on earth.”

“That may be all very well about Denvarre,” quoth Gerry wisely, “though I don’t see that it is for certain, all the same. But what about Gwen? You don’t allow her much independence of thought. Why should he happen to meet her fancy? Do you think she doesn’t know you worship the ground she walks on?”

I stared at him, gnawing uneasily at my moustache, and with the sense that he spoke the truth. Gwen knew it—must know it, but she must have seen, as did I, the hopelessness of the business—must have known that the farewell of that morning was to be the end. And yet—and yet that look she gave me. Was it merely questioning, or did it tell me something? I fell into that moody, unhealthy mind when one forbids oneself to hope for very hope of being mistaken—assuring myself that I knew there could be nothing but despair for me in the future, trusting all the same that wanton fate would prove me wrong. Which is a phase of unreason, I take it, more wearing than an utter yielding to desperation.

“Now, old chap,” went on Gerry soberly, “if you begin to muse and wonder you’ll never sleep to-night. I believe this thing comes in the light of luck for both of us. I feel twice the man I did half-an-hour ago, and I’m going to whine no more. However matters go you’re very much better off than you were this morning, and, as I said before, what’s to prove that either Gwen or Vi may not come back to us again? Heaps of things may happen in a year. Why,” he went on smiling, “with the influence of the Heatherslies at my back I mean to get an attachéship and marry Vi myself. At any rate I believe now that the game’s not over. I’ll be your best man yet, unless we’re both married together, and I won’t say that’s not possible.”

It was good to hear him say it, but all the time I was telling myself frantically that it was rot—that I mustn’t listen to him, and I backed my inward despondency with the spoken word.

“But even now,” I demurred, “what am I but a pauper peer? Fifty thousand acres of bog are mine, and a few English farms. What’s that to Denvarre’s forty thousand pounds a year and Gleivdon? I’d take an offer of five thousand pounds a year for all I possess.”

He rose and slapped me on the back cheerily, smiling as he reached for his hat.

“There, there,” said he, “that’s quite enough, Jack. I’m off, and you’re going to tumble in. You’ll be twice the man in the morning. You’re upset with it all, and to-morrow when you’re a bit steadied you’ll see it all in another light. We’ll have a long collogue about it then, and you’ll know what you’re going to do. Night-night, old man, and don’t dream if you can help it,” and he passed across to his rooms whistling, though I could but notice it was a very reedy, quivering attempt.

In spite of Gerry’s veto I did dream that night, seeing Denvarre in many a heroic attitude save Gwen from desperate perils by flood and field—masterful deeds which I could only watch in restless helplessness. I rode a nightmare which trampled my every aspiration in the mud of desolation, leaving me to awake heavy-eyed and low-spirited, but yet, as Gerry predicted, with some of the hope that each new day brings. And after my bath—and what a mental as well as bodily tonic a cold bath is—I was chastened, maybe, but myself again. I filled my clothes without feeling three sizes too small for them, and ate my breakfast with appetite. As I was at it, Barker brought in a telegram. I ripped the dirty orange-colored paper and read, “Please call at your earliest convenience. Meadows and Crum.”

They are our lawyers—have been for generations. My former meetings with them had been, for the most part, embarrassing. Hunted by some pertinacious dun, I had occasionally fled to their chambers in Lincoln’s Inn Fields as to a sanctuary, and they had always responded nobly to my appeals. I smiled to think how continually and tactfully they had warned me against backing other men’s bills and such-like futilities. Well, at any rate that sort of thing was over. As a bachelor—I still assured myself that I should live and die celibate, with an eye to the possible fate which might be listening—I should not be so badly off. I could look forward to commanding the regiment some day without beggaring myself. Little rifts of sunlight like this began to break through the fog of my depression, and when I strolled forth to call upon my solicitors, I had pretty well regained the self-possession which that sudden announcement of a tardy good luck had knocked completely out of my system.

Crum received me. Meadows is an anachronistic figment of the imagination long deposited in a Hampstead vault. His partner continues the business with other partners, who are considered to be sufficiently dignified by the title of Co. He is a benignant old man, with an unblemished bald head and character. I believe a warm heart beats under his deliberation, and he has shown good faith and personal service to my family for more years than I dare say he cares to count. He welcomed me with a quaint subdued tolerance hovering on the outskirts of the chastened air he thought befitting the mournful occasion. For myself I will say frankly and at once that I could pretend no regret for the accident which led to my being Crum’s future client. I had never even seen my uncle since I was at Eton. In point of fact I felt the matter to be, personally, only one for self-gratulation.

“Desperately sudden, my lord,” quoth the old gentleman, making me twitch in my chair as I heard myself addressed by my title for the first time, “desperately sudden. We received advises from his late lordship on financial matters only a week ago, and now—it’s come like a thunderclap, I assure you.”

“These are matters of fate, my dear Mr. Crum,” said I piously. “I suppose there’s no doubt about the report?”

“None whatever, as I learn this morning. We cabled his lordship’s valet last night and got the press message confirmed. Death took place up-country, it seems. Baines, his man, talks of bringing the body to the coast and sailing next week by the Pacific Mail Steamer.”

“That of course is the only decent and orderly thing to do,” said I, “and no doubt you’ll kindly see to all these matters—arranging for the funeral and so forth. But what about funds now? I expect this horrible succession duty will make me as poor as a rat for the first year or two, won’t it?”

He lifted his pince-nez, regarding me with a curious expression. I immediately divined by a sort of intuition that he purposed giving himself the pleasure of surprising me. There was a decorously cunning light in the corner of his eye that made him appear not unlike a respectable and intelligent magpie.

“I think you and your uncle were comparatively strangers to each other, were you not? Ah, I thought so. You have the impression, doubtless, that he was restless by choice and temperament alone? I can assure you, in that case, that you are mistaken. Your uncle, for the last few years of his life at any rate, has been dominated by a very determined purpose.”

“Philanthropic or personal?” I queried. “Not the former I sincerely trust, or the pickings will be even less than I hope for. I know he’s been roaming the wide world mysteriously ever since I can remember, but I thought it was the inherited taint of travel. We’ve had a lot of sailors in the family, Mr. Crum.”

“That is very true,” answered the man of law impressively, “and in a certain indirect sense I won’t say you are altogether wrong. But the simplest way will be to put the whole matter before you as I learned it from your uncle. Excuse me a moment.”

He turned to where a row of tin boxes, shiny and white-lettered, lined the walls along a broad shelf. Taking down one labelled “Viscount Heatherslie,” he took up a key that had been lying handy upon the desk and opened it. He extracted a bundle of papers tied in red tape, and began sorting them with neat precision. I occupied myself in wondering with unaffected curiosity what on earth was coming next.

Of course Uncle Leonard had been a wanderer on the wide earth, but he had always been to me not so much a man as an impression. My poor dear mother used to remark occasionally, “I see your uncle’s wintering in Egypt,” or “Leonard’s in Japan again,” wondering always, as women do, what could induce him to leave the comforts of his native isle for such outlandish realms. But I had paid but slight attention. Uncle Leonard was nothing to me—I was his heir-at-law, of course, but then he had always been expected to marry late in life, as most of his ancestors had done, and I had never troubled about him. I remember his coming down one Fourth at Eton and stumbling across me, more by accident than intention, and tipping me a fiver. But that was a feat he had never followed up and improved upon in later life, so I had let him drop out of my calculations, and he—well, he never spent three weeks of the year in England, I suppose. Some men have the regular gypsy taint in the blood. They must move in aimless joy of moving, or they absolutely shrivel up for want of occupation. The mania in his case was more or less inherited, I knew. Half-a-dozen of our forebears have been adventurers—not to say buccaneers—in the past. They pop up in various capacities all across the pages of Elizabethan and eighteenth century history. So the fact that in my late uncle’s case there was more behind this activity than was his by birth and ancestry came to me truly as a surprise. I awaited developments pondering many possibilities.

Old Crum found what he wanted at last. Replacing all the papers but one—rather a musty-looking document—he kennelled his legs comfortably beneath his writing-table and began his revelation, tapping his fingers upon the dusty law books before him to emphasize his remarks.

I’ll give you the tale as he gave it to me. Then judge me if I was a consummate fool or not, in that I followed in the footsteps of my uncle.

CHAPTER II
THE TALE OF A COINCIDENCE

“The late Viscount Heatherslie,” said Mr. Crum, tapping the desk before him like a schoolmaster demanding silence for a lecture, “was a collector, and at the same time an economist. These you will probably think are walks in life entirely incompatible one with the other. I will explain further. Though he lived far within his income, he had the mania for collection and gratified it. But he did this by making it a rule never to buy what had a merely temporary or sentimental value, but only what was likely to be intrinsically marketable. I never knew a man with a sounder sense of finance or one who, without professional knowledge, made such use of unprofessional experience. I doubt if he ever struck a bad bargain in his life. You will to-day reap the benefit of his judgment. I do not think I exaggerate when I say that you may safely count on his treasures fetching a sum of not less than one hundred thousand pounds.”

I gasped in amazement, nearly bouncing from my chair. My excited shuffling upset a blob of ink from the inkstand before me. With an air of respectful deprecation Crum began to mop it up methodically, before answering the questions I fired at him like bullets.

“Great Heavens!” I exclaimed, “the leery old dog! You mean to tell me in sober earnest that he has amassed all that money by simple grubbing after curios, when we thought he just roamed around for mere amusement and love of travel. Where has he stuck them all? Not at Kilberran, I sincerely hope, or they’re all rotten with mildew by now. And what are they? Pictures, bronzes, china? Why, neither my mother nor my poor old dad had an inkling of it. Great Scott! One hundred thousand pounds. Now really, don’t you think you may be exaggerating, my dear Mr. Crum?”

“I may say that it is not a habit to which I am given, my lord,” he answered dryly, “but it will not be hard to convince you. The collection has been valued by more than one expert, and the lowest figure rendered by these gentlemen was a hundred and thirty thousand pounds, and the collection has been added to since then.”

“But what in the name of goodness can be worth all that money? Why, it would take a large gallery to house pictures up to that figure.”

“Certainly. But I may as well explain at once that the whole collection is within these walls. It is in a large safe in my cellars. It consists wholly of coins.”

“Coins!” I bawled delightedly, “then I hope the half of them have her Majesty’s face on them, God bless her. I see what you’re getting at. You mean the old boy was a miser.”

He drew himself back into his chair with an air of offence.

“I am not given to jest on business matters,” he said in his stateliest manner. “No; your uncle was simply one of the first numismatists of the century. His is the finest harvest of ancient coins ever made by any private individual. If you see fit to turn it to its marketable worth, you will create an excitement among collectors unparalleled for the last five decades. And till the catalogues are published, not one of them will have an idea of the treasures they will find listed there.”

“Well, as far as I am concerned, I don’t mind how soon they’re gratified and surprised,” said I; “but I should like to have a look at the lot now, if it’s not seriously inconveniencing you. Can we descend to visit them?” for I itched to view this astounding hoard with my very own eyes.

“Of course, my lord. It would be only natural that you should wish to inspect such an important part of your inheritance. But I have something more to say. It was not in mere zeal for collecting that your uncle had lately travelled so widely. I have another astonishment in store for you—not so entirely agreeable, no doubt, but out of the common, I think I may say absolutely out of the common.”

“Well, as we’re out of the range of coins this time then, I trust it’s nothing less than banknotes,” I answered. “But for goodness sake what is it?” I added impatiently, for his self-important deliberation began to get on my nerves.

He did not suffer himself to be in the slightest degree flurried by my impatience. His sentences, in fact, seemed to gather a yet more leisurely accent as he unfolded his tale.

“You must let me tell the thing in my own way, my lord. It will be far more conclusive than jerking it out at you in scraps. The facts in sequence were as follows—

“Among the family treasures which have come down the centuries—and I sincerely wish there had been more of them—was a certain amount of old coins which have been in the custody of my firm for at least five generations. They comprised for the most part specimens of the gold and silver coinage of most European countries during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Some were of great value. Some were by no means rare. Evidently one of your ancestors—probably, I should say, Sir John Dorinecourte, the famous Elizabethan admiral—had the craze of collection, which has since broken out in your late uncle’s case. At any rate the box contained moidores, zecchins, pesos, crowns, and every sort of currency of every known land—known to our ancestors of that time, at least—to a very considerable amount. The mere bullion, I should say, would be worth a considerable sum. Among them were, however, a couple of gold pieces placed apart, and these had no signification placed opposite them in the catalogue, and bore no sign either on the face or the reverse in any language known at the present day.”

“It sounds charmingly mysterious, my dear Mr. Crum,” I interrupted. “Now, you aren’t going to tell me that the secret still remains unfathomed?”

“My lord, my lord,” said the old fellow entreatingly, “you must allow me to tell you the thing methodically, or not at all. If I’m hurried I shall forget some detail, and I have given time and effort to memorize the matter completely.”

I apologized humbly, settling myself back in my chair resignedly to hear the thing out with no further interruption. Crum continued in his slow, modulated tones.

“I think that it was the sight of that hoard, when your uncle saw it at his accession to the title, which first woke in him the craze for collecting. He no doubt reflected that here was the nucleus of an exceedingly fine numismatic museum, and from that day he set himself steadily to add to it, with an increasing knowledge of his subject, of which you are now reaping the benefit. But those two unknown coins were always a sore mystery to him. Many a time have I seen him take them up—he used to visit me two or three times every year to place what he had possessed himself of in that time with the rest—and turn them over and over in his fingers wistfully, studying every line and figure as if there must be some concealed clue which he had missed. But it was only last year that he gained the trace which put him on the road to success, and also, as it has unfortunately turned out, to death as well.”

“What!” I shouted, nearly jumping out of my chair. “Do you mean to say——”

He held up his hand deprecatingly.

“Please, my lord, please restrain your impatience. You shall have every detail in good time, I assure you. I only mean to say that it was in pursuit of his intense desire to solve the origin of those coins that he was travelling in Central America, where he caught the fever which has been fatal to him. The rest I will tell you as shortly as possible.

“It was last year, as I was saying, that the first trace came to his hand by the merest accident. His lordship was in Portugal. From there I got a letter from him on business matters, and at the end—his lordship was aware that, of course in a modified form, I was interested in his quest—he remarked, ‘A most extraordinary thing has happened. I have found a dozen more of the unknown coins, and what is more an ancient document—no less than a letter written by Sir John Dorinecourte, my ancestor. I will tell you more on my return.’ It was some three weeks after that that his lordship came to see me.

“Nearly his first words to me were, ‘Well, Mr. Crum, the mystery of the coins is pretty well solved, but a greater mystery has arisen on the ashes of the first. The gold pieces are Mayan.’ The word Mayan, I must confess, conveyed nothing to me at the time, but he very soon explained it. The Mayans inhabit—though perhaps your lordship knows as much—the land of Yucatan to the south of Mexico. They are a wild and savage race, but there is every reason to believe that centuries ago theirs was a mighty empire. The coins dated from this extinct civilization of long ago. And now for the method by which your uncle ascertained as much.

“He was wandering along the side-streets of Lisbon one afternoon, when he espied a small curio shop. Outside the window were displayed various articles of furniture, china, etc., for sale, and among these was a curious cameo brooch which rather took his fancy. He entered to make a bid for it, and managed to secure it for what he considered a fair price. He wandered listlessly about the shop, as the woman in charge was placing it in a box for him, and suddenly came upon a glass-covered box full of coins. You may imagine his surprise when, among the rows of copper and silver pieces, he saw staring up at him no less than twelve gold replicas of these mysterious coins of his own. His astonishment was great, but he managed to conceal it from the shop-keeper when he asked her the price she demanded for these ‘medals,’ as he prudently called them.

“She named one very little higher than their simple worth as bullion, intimating at the same time that as they did not seem to commemorate any special event, customers for them had been few. She went on to relate how she came to possess them. A strange story indeed. With some pride she told your uncle that her husband was really of noble blood, but sunk to a narrow pittance beyond the keeping up of his title. Ruined by the failure of vintage after vintage, he had at last compounded with his creditors by giving up his landed possessions, and she and he were now living by the sale of art curios, a good proportion of which she sadly explained was from their own dwindling inheritance.

“Further inquiry elicited the fact that the ‘medals’ had been discovered in an ancient box of cedar wood, which had been left to rot and moulder in an attic of their former mansion, where, wrapped in papers covered with writing in a foreign tongue, nigh fifty of them had been found strung together on a slender chain. She pointed out that all of them had a small hole beside the rim, and your uncle remembered that the same thing was noticeable in those he possessed himself.

“The first and most natural thing was to inquire for the paper wrappings, but for some time these could not be discovered, and it was feared they were lost. However, the next day his lordship received a message from the woman to the effect that she had found them thrust away among a heap of similar refuse and that they were at his service if he chose to purchase them for a small sum. Your uncle did not dally in returning to the shop, as you may suppose. You may also imagine his surprise when he found that one of the documents was not only in English, but absolutely signed by his own ancestor. You shall see the original, so I will not stop to describe it. It is of the other document that I wish particularly to speak.

“It was inscribed on a peculiar yellow-looking fabric, more of the nature of linen than of paper or parchment, and experts have since decided that the coloring matter used as ink is the fluid emitted by the octopus. But the most curious part was the writing, if writing it can properly be called. It consisted of squares, oblongs, parallels, and other geometric figures ranged in a sequence which was not easy to understand, but the chief point of interest was that these figures resembled in every particular the figures on the coins. His lordship immediately and willingly paid what was asked for them, took his passage straightway home to England, and armed with his document paid a visit to the British Museum to get what expert help he could in translating them.

“It is an extraordinary thing how circumstances dovetail into one another. No sooner had he entered the department, where he had so often been before to get light on his coins, than he was greeted with the following question by Professor Barstock, the head, before he had even mentioned his errand.

“‘I am particularly pleased to see you, Lord Heatherslie,’ said the Professor, ‘because information has lately come to hand which I think will settle the origin of your coins, which we have so often pored over. Monsieur Lessaution of Paris, the well-known Egyptologist, has discovered that there is a connecting link between the ancient Egyptian script and that on the monuments of Yucatan. It seems absurd, considering that they are divided by five thousand miles of sea, but he puts his points very plausibly, and I think you should see him.’

“When you have seen the other paper which your uncle discovered—the one in English—I think you will understand that these words came as a most astounding confirmation of his suspicion that he was on the right track at last. He simply opened his bag and spread the mysterious scroll before Professor Barstock, laying one of the coins beside it.

“You may imagine the astonishment of the latter on seeing not only the coin with which he was familiar, but the scroll covered with similar symbols. Nor did he fail to astonish your uncle in his turn. Taking him to another part of the building he showed him some grey, fibrous-looking slabs of dried pulp, and they too were covered with the oblong, square, and parallel figures of the document, only that instead of being raised they were indented. They were, as Mr. Barstock explained, squeezings, taken from the temple facade at Chichitza, where M. Lessaution was now conducting his investigations.

“The Frenchman’s theory was that by comparing the Egyptian symbol with that in Yucatan, and using the grammar and accidence of the former language as a guide to the latter, these inscriptions, which have as yet been undecipherable, would be made clear, and much would be learned about the Mayan civilization of long ago.

“This was quite enough for your uncle. He decided that he would not wait for M. Lessaution’s return, which was not expected for another six months, but would cross the Atlantic and interview him on the spot where he was conducting his experiments. After reading the letter left by your ancestor, I can quite understand that to a man of leisure like his lordship, and a man with a taste for wandering to boot, the fascination of such a quest would be great. At any rate he sailed for Greytown about five months ago, and with the exception of a single letter purely on business matters I have heard no word from him since. You can imagine that his death has come as a shock.”

“Well,” said I, “I am certainly astonished, but I cannot say I am greatly moved by your tale, Mr. Crum. It would certainly never have occurred to me to cross three or four thousand miles of ocean to interview a foreign savant about a coin or a document. But then, you see, I am not made that way.”

“Very likely, my lord,” submitted the lawyer, “but you will pardon me if I say that you have not seen the letter by Admiral Sir John. That sheds a very curious light on the question, and certainly adds vastly to the interest one of your family must take in it. But I will show it to you at your leisure.”

“I am as leisured now as I am likely to be for the rest of time,” said I, “but before I see the letter I should just like to squint at the coins, if you are not particularly occupied for the next hour.”

He rose at once and preceded me to the outer office, where a door opened on to a flight of stone steps. Down these he guided me, ushering me at last into a broad, whitewashed cellar, wherein not less than half-a-dozen great safes faced each other from wall to wall. He clicked a key in the lock of one, and turned a handle. The great door swung back and showed row upon row of numbered sliding drawers, lined with velvet, and covered—every square inch of them—with coins of every degree of dirt, ancientry, and denomination. One drawer alone was nearly empty, and this held two gold pieces, and placed beside them on the velvet a sheet of ancient paper, covered with crabbed writing and faint with the dust of ages. The lawyer took it up and unfolded it carefully, and then I saw for the first time the screed that sent my uncle speeding across the ocean at its behest, and which was to leave its mark on my life also.

CHAPTER III
THE TESTIMONY OF SIR JOHN DORINECOURTE, KNT.

The lawyer pushed back the drawers methodically, clanged to the safe door, and turned to me as I laboured toilsomely to decipher the faint scratchy handwriting. He held the two coins in his hand.

“I think,” he said slowly, “if you will permit me to read this document out to you, you will find it much easier to interpret if you desire to read it yourself a second time. I may say that I have conned it pretty thoroughly—it took time to master it, I confess—and faint and yellow as it is, I can decipher it at sight.”

I was only too glad to accept this benevolent offer, and we returned to the upper office again. Here I settled myself back in my chair, old Crum found and very deliberately donned his spectacles, unfolded and smoothed the sheets of dirty parchment, and then began to expound the writing as follows—

“I, John Dorinecourte, of the parish of Sellwood, in the county of Somerset, here make oath and declare that the writing hereto, to which I have set my hand and seal, is the very truth, so help me God.

“On the seventeenth day of August, in the year of our Lord one thousand five hundred and seventy-eight, being in command of the ship Pride of Barnstaple, and Captain Fowler of that port and Dom Pedro da Suhares of Maceira being my fellow adventurers, we were in mid-ocean, having passed the straits discovered by the Admiral Magellan about two days, and were bearing north along the coasts of the Indies. It happened then that one of the ship’s company at mast-head hailed the deck, declaring a ship to approach; whereat we, as was but reasonable, supposed the same to be some Spanish craft, and beat to quarters, tricing up boarding nettings and getting powder on deck. But as we approached nearer to the strange sail, we perceived it to be a lateen and under no control of steering, for she yawed and came about, and then of a sudden fell away upon the other tack, being water-logged, and as it seemed deserted. So, calling to me the crew of the pinnace, I set to board her, which, the day being calm, we accomplished easily enough. Then were we horribly astonished to find upon her decks no living man save one, and him at the point of death. Six bodies there were, and one living soul, and the men were a fair and noble company, but like to no other men whom I have seen. Now Da Suhares, who hath been in Mexico—for being renegade he joined our vessel at La Guayra after slaying the nephew of the governor in duello—protested that in most respects these unfortunates resembled the inhabitants of that ill-fated empire, now ravished and enslaved by the devil-serving Spaniards. Which might be like enough, for the men were covered with gold ornaments, and bedecked with the plumage of bright tropic birds, such as is the custom of these tribes as I have always understood. ’Twas evidently thirst that had brought them all to their death, for no drop of sweet water could we find upon the craft, and the tongue of the living man swelled forth from his lips, forcing his jaws asunder, and his sweatless skin cracked as tense parchment. We hasted therefore to bring our surgeon, and water with a little wine. With difficulty he swallowed it and revived, though but slightly. He gazed upon us as one affrighted, and shuddered, placing his hand upon his breast as if holding there what he would fain conceal. By which, I take it, he imagined us Spaniards, and expected their deviltries, as well he might. But we spoke to him gently, and tended him, taking sails to make him a couch to lie upon. Yet he rallied but little, murmuring we knew not what, nor could Da Suhares understand him, though he had knowledge of some few words of Mexican.

“Then the poor wretch raised his finger slowly and pointed towards us, and afterward held up his open hand many times, which we took to mean that he had been of a numerous company; making gesture also to our ship which swung, heaved to, some quarter of a mile away, he swept his hands abroad wildly towards the waste of waters, implying doubtless that his was one of a great fleet of vessels.

“As in a flash came to me then the tale which was at that time a by-word in the South Seas, of the great expedition of the natives which had set sail from the coasts of Southern Mexico, the which was witnessed by the Spanish forces advancing from the north, yet could in no way be prevented of them. Mayax is the name of the land whence they sailed, and the fiendish warfare of the Spaniards—ravishers of women and slaughterers of babes as they be—had so prevailed by terror upon these simple folk, that they had committed themselves to the deep to escape their villainies, and had vanished, forty sail or more, no man knew whither.

“The memory of this tale came back to me, as I say, vividly—and indeed it had been the common talk of every port along the coasts of the Southern Indies this two months past—and I pointed inquiringly to the poor fellow as he languished and lay dying at my feet, and then swept my finger northward as if determining that to be the direction whence he came. Whereat he nodded, and then swung his hand southward again, as if to say that now he sailed from the opposite direction. Then reluctantly, as it were, he drew from his breast the scroll which I have here set aside for your care and consideration, and I beheld for the first time those symbols and the presentation of that wondrous beast which are to me now as the alphabet for familiarity. As he gave me the relic, he feebly took from his wrist the golden bracelet which hung haggard thereon, and from his neck a string of gold pieces. The armlet he gave to me, and the necklet to Da Suhares, as if in thanks for our consideration which came thus too late. Then with the last throb of strength left in his withered frame he raised himself from the loins, and turning, faced the sun which sank cloud-free and ruddy into the open main. Bowing himself towards its fading glories, he spread abroad his hands with a single word and fell back and died, unconquered remnant of a conquered race. And for a space we stared silently at the dumb dead, wondering, half afraid, but full of pity for his sad case, and of admiration for his uncomplaining end.

“Then did Da Suhares, Master Fowler, and I take counsel together upon the matter to imagine what this might mean. For I called to their memory the tale of the escaping Mayans, and Da Suhares vouched for the truth of the same. For his own brother had been of the company of conquistadores that had advanced south from Mexico, had seen the men of the escaping fleet fare out into the deep, and had with others made strenuous effort to overtake and capture them before they launched forth to sea. For report went that they carried with them the ancient treasures of that hapless race for centuries back. Adding that within a month an expedition of adventurers had set forth to track them along the southern coasts, but had returned empty and rewardless. And common talk held that he who should find that company would also find wealth beyond desire or conception. Here he doubted not that we had one of them. For when we came to examine their barque there was great store of gold upon her, not as treasure indeed for the most part, but put to plain uses; for though the ornaments upon each corpse were of gold, yet were the very baling vessels made of wood shod with golden bands and held with strips of golden metal. Upon each man’s breast also was a medal, or some such decoration, bearing upon it the similitude of the same wondrous beast that appears upon the mystic scroll which you have herewith. So we reasoned upon the matter, and in much thought the solution thereof came to us.

“The expedition had sailed, and had come to some secure sanctuary as they had desired. Now they sent back this small company to advise their fellows left in bondage of the same, that they too might leave their own land, over-run by the Spaniards, and come also to safety and a sure dwelling-place. And the more we thought on this, the more the truth of it came home to our minds.

“Now this I write in the glorious year of our Lord, one thousand five hundred and eighty-eight, when the Lord hath, by the destruction of the Spanish oppressor, so signally shown His favour to His children who hope in Him. The news of which final deliverance hath come to us long months after by chance of our meeting Captain Bostock of Bristol, who saileth in the Guinea and West India Trade. Ten years have I and my comrades, Da Suhares and Captain Fowler, sought wearily for this people, and naught hath come to us in reward. Yet have we gotten to ourselves sufficient of this world’s goods, in that we have taken more than one of his Catholic Majesty’s treasure galleons, and three years agone five of his pearling fleet which we fell upon when they were storm-sundered from their fellows. Rich are we therefore in possessions, but not yet in knowledge, and the madness of the quest hath bitten into the souls of all of us. Not an island, not a bay, not a single river’s mouth, have we missed for nigh two thousand weary miles, but unavailingly. And now I draw into years, but I cannot rest from it.

“Thus have I put down the matter plainly for my children to wot of, and if I come not back to them, a charge do I lay upon them. Ten years have I sought, and wrought, and toiled, sparing none of mine and least of all myself, and it may well be that from this last adventure I come not back. Ten years, therefore, do I lay upon you that come after me, ten years each of you unto the tenth generation, and the blessing of the Almighty be with you in your search. Do the matter diligently, but in secret, lest it come to the ears of the Spanish folk, and they triumph at the last. If ye find this people (and of a verity I know in my soul that they still walk God’s earth) be to them a safeguard from their enemies, using the might of England to bulwark them from their foes, and get to your race and family great honour. So do, and my blessing be upon you. Forego this quest, any one of you, and my curse rest with you unceasingly. To which charge I put my hand and seal this nineteenth day of December in the Annus Mirabilis, one thousand five hundred and eighty-eight.

“John Dorinecourte, Knt.”

Crum placed the musty sheets of lettering on the table before him, solemnly took off his spectacles and wiped them, and then stared across quietly at me without a word, as if he would let this astonishing balderdash sink deeply into my all too shallow soul. There was a silence in the office, unbroken save by the buzzing of the blue-bottles at the windows and the distant roar of the Strand, filtered by intervening acres of brickwork. For my part I found no words to express my emotions. For really it came upon me as a shock to think what crack-brained enthusiasts our fathers were. Here was a sound, apparently intelligent, old British seaman, who had knocked about the world more than a little, worrying himself to set curses on the heads of his unborn descendants if they should fail to be just such fools as himself. He meets a half-dozen of forlorn savages in mid-ocean, by purely circumstantial evidence connects them with another band of niggers of whom he has only got word by hearsay, and proceeds to spend ten years of his life in tracking the latter to a lair which probably never existed. And not satisfied, as I say, with this astounding waste of time and energy, but he expects ten other fools to do the same. I stared, therefore, at the good Crum with these unvoiced musings extremely vivid in my brain, the while I thanked God softly below my breath for civilization and common sense.

It was the lawyer who broke the silence before it got strained.

“I may say, my lord,” he remarked, “that we have compared this writing with the signature of your ancestor’s marriage record in Sellwood church. It is identical, and there seems to be no doubt that it is authentic. I would remind you that it is beyond question that he spent many years in what was called ‘The Indies’ at that date—the Southern Seas of America, in point of fact—where he left the reputation of a valiant sailor—I’m afraid I must say buccaneer. But you must remember that times were different,” he added hastily, feeling that as a supporter of the law he must not seem to favour equivocal methods.

“That I believe is entirely true,” I conceded. “Tradition has it that he was one of the most energetic old pirates of his day. But may I ask how you propose to explain his document getting to Lisbon into the shop of the local rubbish dealer, or whatever he may have been? Why did it not come home to those for whom it was intended? My unfortunate forefathers for twelve generations have had these curses hanging over them, and have lived in comfortable ignorance.”

“I don’t think there is much difficulty in finding explanation,” he replied deliberately. “You know that Sir John did perish out there, and to this day no news has been heard of his ultimate fate. My own suspicions are that Da Suhares—by the way, the people from whom your uncle purchased these documents bore the name of Soares—very possibly brought him treacherously to his death to possess the wealth that they had reaped in company. It is a very possible solution of the mystery, and we are not likely at this time of day to find a better one. But I must say, my lord, that to my mind the authenticity of the document is absolutely determined, and I have had experience of similar matters, I may say, for over half-a-century.”

“It’s plausible enough,” said I, shifting my ground, “but not good enough in my discretion to send a man fussing over to Yucatan for further explanations. Supposing the thing is absolutely correct, both in itself and in its deductions, what good is to be made of it at this time of day? Surely my uncle did not expect to find this unknown race after they have been lost three centuries or more? At any rate I shouldn’t have thought it of him. He showed no signs of brain softening ten years ago—or twelve, was it?—when I last interviewed him.”

He leant his elbows on the table, and drew the tips of his fingers together in a judicial attitude before he made answer in his intolerably cautious accent. Then he delivered himself of his opinions weightily.

“I think you are forgetting the other scroll—the one in symbol which was purchased with the one now before you. Recollect that if this could be interpreted, the mystery in all probability was one no longer. Your uncle was a man of leisure, fond of travel, and with the collecting mania. I am bound to say that under these circumstances I can understand his attitude. He knew that in Central America was the one man who could translate—if anybody could—this extremely recondite document. He also knew that in any case at his journey’s end he would find a vast field of interest in the lately discovered monuments of Yucatan. I must say that considering these things I should have been surprised if he had not gone. If you think of the astounding possibilities opened up to him in discovery if he did find a meaning to this scroll, and remember the enthusiastic nature of his temperament on matters of this kind, no room for wonder is left—at any rate not to my mind.”

I was fairly dumfounded. To think that a little cut-and-dried old solicitor could absolutely find, not only excuses for this absurd conduct, but a positive encouragement, was more than I could have believed possible. I gaped upon him.

“My dear Mr. Crum,” said I pityingly, “we are not in the sixteenth century. I can conceive a rampant adventurer like Sir Walter Raleigh, let us say—a man with the heart of a lion and the brains of a four-year-old child—setting out on some such wild-goose chase, but that a British peer, of good health and wealth, nigh threescore years of age——”

He interrupted. His spectacles were tilted rakishly on the bridge of his nose, and his eyes positively glinted behind them. He absolutely barked an exclamation at me.

“Yes, my lord; he was all you say. And I am not ashamed to add, that in his case, and with his opportunity, I should have done the same!”

“You!” I shouted—yelled, in fact, so taken aback was I. “You would have gone to this unspeakable climate, to seek out a forsaken French adventurer, to get a clue to a fudged-up cryptogram three musty centuries old! Mr. Crum, Mr. Crum, I should have as soon believed it of the Lord Chancellor.”

He had regained his aplomb by now, and arranged his papers methodically in front of him before he ventured another word. Then he looked up again, his calm and judicial air entirely regained.

“I have no wish to pose as a sentimentalist, or to have it thought that the mere glamour of a mystery would carry me outside the realms of common sense. But I must say, my lord, with all due deference, that it seems to me that your uncle was simply guided by weight of evidence in what he did. From the facts connected with its finding and those since elicited, I should say there can be no doubt that the document before you was written by Sir John Dorinecourte, and that the matters detailed in it were true. The good knight’s supposition about the identity of the persons he encountered seems to me extremely reasonable. Your uncle had nothing in his life to check his desires for adventure and discovery. It would have been marvellous to me if he had let such an opportunity escape him. I can see too,” he went on with a smile, “that our temperaments differ, my lord, and that though you are the soldier and I the lawyer, our blood flows with an irregularity that is not in sympathy with our professions.”

It is not pleasant to be called a coward by your own lawyer, I confess, and I will own that I flew into a rage. I rose and took my hat.

“Thanks, Mr. Crum,” I said coldly, “it is more than probable that I am in every particular the absolute inferior of my late uncle. However, I fear I am using your valuable time for reflections and deductions which are not professional” (put him back in his place there, thinks I). “Is there any other business you wish to see me about this morning?”

The old chap flushed as he rose in his turn.

“I—I’m sure I trust I have not been offensive or indiscreet, my lord,” he stammered. “I only wished to prove that in my poor opinion your uncle was justified in the course he took. There is naturally much I should like to talk over with your lordship in connection with the estate, but it can wait till the will is proved. But perhaps you will not consider it necessary to employ me further.”

I saw I had hurt the worthy old chap badly, and could do no less than make immediate amends.

“Is thy servant a dog,” said I, holding out my hand, “that he should do this thing? No, my dear Mr. Crum, though I may be of a slow-blooded, not to say poltroon-like spirit, and you are still in the midst of the middle ages, if you will excuse my saying so, as far as the practicalities of life go, I’m sure we shall get on together as well as two thorough opposites always do, and I can’t say more than that.” Then I wrung his hand heartily, and fled, but for the life of me I couldn’t say for certain that I was right and he was wrong.

CHAPTER IV
WHAT BAINES KNEW

It was three weeks after my first interview with Crum that I found myself travelling down to Liverpool to meet Baines, my uncle’s man, who was bringing home his body. It was a dull, rainy, depressing day as I stood upon the dock-side above the landing-stage, and watched the tender come sidling up with the crowd of umbrellaed passengers upon her deck, and my errand was not of a kind to elevate the spirits. Beyond the mournful circumstances that had brought me there, I had a sense of foreboding as if undefined evil was coming to me with the dead, though, considering my very slender acquaintanceship with my uncle, it seemed extremely unreasonable. But there it was all the same. I put it down to the weather and the worry of the last three weeks. For really I had had a very trying time. Gerry was more or less at the bottom of it, and Crum and my own conscience helped largely. The fact was that in a moment of weakness I had detailed to Gerry the story of the screed and the two mysterious coins left by my old buccaneer ancestor. He had fastened upon the thing like a dog chewing a meaty bone, and rested not day nor night dinning into me his opinion that my bounden duty was to investigate the affair “up to the hilt,” as he inappositely remarked. And in another astoundingly weak phase of absent-mindedness I had taken him with me on one of my visits to Crum. The two had managed somehow to get on the subject of the mystery, and then had started in full cry together to browbeat me for my lack of enthusiasm, proving—Gerry with terse vulgarity and the lawyer with deliberate decorum—that I was throwing away the chance of a lifetime, failing in my duty to myself, my honor, and my nation, and showing forth a pusillanimity and poverty of imagination which was a disgrace to the name of Dorinecourte. And out of their badgerings a wild and hasty promise had grown—wrung from me by pure bullying—that should any further news of the ancient scroll of hieroglyphics come to hand, or perchance the scroll itself, I would not fail to do my utmost to obtain translation for the same, even to the extent of crossing the Atlantic myself and interviewing Professor Lessaution. Pondering, therefore, this rash mortgaging of my future happiness and freedom of movement, I stared down upon the snapping little steamboat with melancholy eyes, reflecting that she possibly bore to me a cargo of worry and unrest which would shadow my life with unmerited discontent.

There was the usual fuss when the dripping passengers landed, the usual rush for the customs, the grating of the rolling-luggage stage, the interchange of impudence between the dock porters and the crowd, in fact the everyday hurly-burly of a liner’s incoming, and it was not till after an hour’s patient toil and the signing of various detestable documents, that Baines and I were permitted to load our burden upon the hearse that waited, and get it to the railway-station. I had no chance in the crowded train of conversing with the man in any sort of privacy, so arranged that he should call at my rooms that evening, and that there he should tell me all there was to tell. Fortunately Crum had notified a firm of undertakers to meet us at Euston, and there take charge of the coffin, and finally I was at liberty to make my way home, change, and eat with what appetite I could. Then lighting my pipe I set myself to await Baines and his revelations with all the apathy I could command.

And then Gerry saw fit to drop in. He was brimful of inquiry and investigation regarding the day’s doings, and showed unbounded disappointment that as yet no further developments had ensued. He hinted, in fact, that I was burking all further knowledge of the subject, and sat arguing and discussing like an embodied British Association. It was in vain that I tacitly agreed to all his premises, and passed over his insults. He sat and sat, and there he was when Baines arrived, and then I knew that the game was fairly up. Under Gerry’s encouraging cross-examination I felt sure that the worthy valet would have seen and heard marvels which no man could gainsay, and would be guided into revelations of my uncle’s last words and messages which might bear any sort of meaning that Gerry chose to apply to them. I groaned as the smooth-faced, dapper little chap was ushered in by Barker, and Gerry’s face of enthusiastic delight was a picture.

Baines stood in an uncertain sort of attitude near the door, fingering his hat, and waiting, after the first good-evening had passed between us, for me to speak. I motioned him to sit down, and as he deposited himself gingerly on the edge of a chair I rose, and straddling across the hearthrug, began my interrogation.

“Well, Baines,” said I, “it has been a sad time for you. Can you give us any details of your master’s illness?”

“It was very short and sudden, my lord,” said Baines, with a terseness for which I blessed him. “It came on at ’Uanac, where we were camped; ’is lordship went about much as usual for the first day; the second he was very bad, and we sent on down to Greytown for a doctor, but by the next day ’is lordship was delirious, and died the day after. The doctor came too late. I nursed him all the time, my lord,” and Baines’s eyes shone mistily for a moment in the candle-light, “and I think all was done that could be done, but there was no help for it. They tell me these malarial fevers always are like that, but ’is lordship was never what I should call robust, my lord.”

“Do you think he knew that he was dying?” I queried, as he paused. “At least, was he delirious all the time, or was there an interval of consciousness?” I added hopefully.

“Oh yes, my lord. He was quite calm at the last, and knew he was going. I think what vexed him most was that he hadn’t finished the business he’d come for.”

“And what was that?” demanded Gerry and I as with a single voice.

Baines looked at Gerry a little uncertainly, shuffling his hat between his hands, and glanced at me interrogatively before he made answer. I understood what he meant, and hastened to put him at his ease.

“You can speak freely before Mr. Carver,” said I. “I have no secrets from him.”

“Well, my lord,” said Baines, with a sort of apologetic hesitation, “I cannot think that ’is lordship was altogether himself these last two or three months. He had possessed himself of a piece of paper covered with what you’d call ‘jommetry’—at least that’s what I believe it’s called, my lord—when we were in Lisbon, and for hours together he would pore over this when we were going out to Greytown, and mutter away to himself in a really most extraordinary manner. Then when we got to Greytown he wouldn’t stop there a day—and they say you should always take a day or two to get acclimatized before you go up-country—but got mules together and started at once for Chichitza——”

“Chichitza?” I exclaimed, remembering Crum’s story, “are you quite sure that was the name?”

“I know it only too well, my lord, considering we spent nigh a month there. A horrible place too. Uncanny, I called it.”

“Uncanny. Why?”

“Oh, it was all shut in with trees, my lord, and there was nothing but great ruins all covered with figures and carving that looked diabolical I thought, even in the day-time, and as for night—well, I never dared stir from my tent. There was moans and rustlings going on in them all the time. ’Is lordship used to say that it was only the monkeys and sloths that lodged among them, but I didn’t care to go and find out. I kept pretty close in camp after dark, I can tell you.”

“And what did my uncle do all the time?”

“His company and conversation was reserved pretty much all the time for the French gentleman we found there,” said Baines, with an air of some contempt. “He seemed to find a good deal to say to him, my lord. Then when they weren’t examining and digging among the temples and things, they used to press lumps of squashy stuff on the carvings, and pick them off when they dried. Really, my lord, without meaning any offence, I think I should have had to give notice if we’d stayed there much longer. The dulness and the bad food, and one thing and another, was too much for any ordinary Christian as wasn’t concerned in carvings and such like.”

“When did they give up?”

“Just about six days before ’is lordship was taken ill. They’d packed up and were going down-country to camp a little way—about two days’ journey, I think they said—outside Greytown. There they wanted to stay another three weeks or month, I understood, to see something of the natives. And what there was to see, I can’t say at all, my lord. A dirtier, horrider set of ruffians I never come across, and I’ve been with ’is late lordship in a good many countries before now.”

“What was the cause of the illness, d’you think?” I queried. “Bad food? Bad water? Anything of that kind?”

“Just the pure reek and stink of the places, I consider,” said Baines impressively. “There was a white mist that rose at night which fairly got one in the chest, my lord. And up at the ruins it was worse than anywhere. I only wonder I didn’t go down with it too. Only I was more careful at night than ’is lordship.”

“Well, Baines, what did his lordship say when he was conscious? Did he send any message to any one, or give any directions?”

“Yes, my lord,” replied Baines with a promptitude that made Gerry heave in his chair with unrestrained excitement, “he sent your lordship a message which perhaps you’ll understand, for I must confess I didn’t.”

It is not advisable to wear your emotions upon your sleeve before a servant, and it was a stonily indifferent face I turned to Baines and an unquivering voice in which I bade him deliver his word from the dead, but I will own that discomfort and nervous expectancy had me by the throat. Gerry’s face expressed nothing but unstinted and tremulous glee and triumph.

“‘Go and see Captain Dorinecourte,’ he said, ‘when you get home, Baines. Mr. Crum will have told him why I’m out here. Then say to him from me that if he’s worthy of the name he bears’—I’m only repeating it as he said it, my lord,” interposed Baines apologetically—“‘that he’ll continue with Monsieur Lessaution what I’ve begun, and what’s nearly done too,’ he added. He was getting weaker all the time, my lord, and I don’t think I caught all he said, but there was a lot about the alphabet, and the ruins at Chichitza, and that the French gentleman had nearly got it all—all of what I don’t know, my lord—and things of that kind, when I think he must have been wandering, but just at the last he sat up on his cot and spoke quite loud and clear. ‘After all these generations, when I had it in my grasp, it’s gone to Jack. It’s the cursedest luck in the world, Baines,’ he said, turning to me very wild-like and passionate, ‘the cursedest luck, and if Jack throws away his chance, I’ll—I’ll——’ and then a sort of cough or sob took him sudden in the throat, and he fell back gasping. I held his head, my lord,” went on Baines, his voice getting perceptibly unsteadier, “but it was no use. He turned his eyes to me, and I’m sure he took me for some one else, for he smiled so beautiful and glad that it made him look quite different and like some other person. His lips moved again, but I couldn’t hear any sound. He just breathed deep and quiet-like two or three times, and then was still, and I’m sure he had no pain,” and as he concluded his simple tragedy a large tear rolled over the brim of the faithful valet’s eye and fell with quite a sparkle on the carpet.

The silence held complete possession of the room for a good minute after Baines had finished speaking. I ruminated sadly over the confirmation and support that would be given to the wild theories of Crum and Gerry by this unfortunate testimony from the dead. Baines was lost in pathetic reminiscence of the end of a master whom in his way he had loved, and to whom he had given nigh a score of years of faithful service; while Gerry a single glance showed to be indulging in fantastic dreams of triumph which only a certain feeble sense of decency prevented him divulging to us on the moment.

“What about Monsieur Lessaution, Baines?” I queried to break a silence which was getting heavy with foreboding. “Did he stay in Greytown, as he didn’t cross with you?”

Baines flushed suddenly and looked yet unhappier.

“No, my lord, he went back to Chichitza—at least so I understood.”

“Why?”

Baines stammered, and fumbled his hat diffidently before he answered, striving evidently to use chosen words in describing a disagreeable incident. At last he burst forth incontinent, forbearing circumlocutions.

“He was very impudent to me, my lord—I can’t describe it in any other way. He wanted to possess himself of one or two of his lordship’s papers—particularly the one with the signs on it, that I’ve spoken of—and was quite passionate to me about it. Of course I knew my duty, and wouldn’t let him have it, and he used dreadful language to me in French—at least I’m not a scholar, my lord, but it sounded almost devilish. At the end he rounded on me. ‘Well, pig of pigs,’ he said, ‘take it to England then. It but remains for you to bring it back when you get there. Tell the new Lord Heatherslie that I await him at Chichitza till Christmas. After that I shall work on my own account,’ and that was all I got out of him after that, my lord.”

There was a gurgle of unrepressed delight from Gerry’s corner, followed by a murmur of “No getting out of it, my boy.” I quelled him with a glance, and proceeded with my interrogation.

“And that was the last word you had with him, Baines?”

“That was the last word he spoke to me, my lord,” answered Baines guiltily.

I understood. “You should not have answered a gentleman back,” said I severely. “What did you say to him, Baines?”

He grew perceptibly hotter, but answered honestly.

“Well, my lord, I didn’t expect ever to see the gentleman again, and he was very outrageous about the papers. I only said that you came of an obliging family, my lord, and if he meant to wait all that time in America, your lordship was just the man to do as much in England. He didn’t make any answer, my lord, but just bit at his knuckles, and went away dancing.”

Gerry walked to the window and looked gravely into the night. I assumed a sphinxlike expression, answering with sedateness.

“It was an unpardonable reply, Baines,” said I sadly, “but it cannot be helped now. I must write and apologize to M. Lessaution for it. I think that will do for the present. Of course I shall continue to pay your wages till affairs are settled, and shall probably want to see you again more than once. Lodge as near as you can. My man will give you a glass of wine,” and I rang the bell and delivered him into Barker’s hands, the latter’s usual impassivity being marred by a bubbling excitement as he received this travelled confrère, who might be expected to entertain him with astounding histories of adventure by flood and field.

“A peculiarly pleasant gentleman, Mr. Baines,” said Gerry, turning pink-complexioned from the window as the door closed. “So versatile and gifted in the lighter arts of conversation and repartee. Now, old chap, do you realize that you’ve got to go through with this thing? Not only is it proved beyond a doubt that there is something to be looked into, but it appears more than likely that the investigation thereof may become amusing. What more could any reasonable person desire? We’re both of us down in the mouth, and require relaxation and a tonic for diseased minds. Here is an unexampled chance ready to our hands. Apply, therefore, for leave; run over to Chichitza, and interview the good Lessaution before he is tired of waiting. And I tell you what I’ll do—I’ll come and look after you.”

“You overwhelm me with your consideration,” I sneered, “I can’t possibly permit myself to trespass on your kindness.”

“Don’t trouble yourself to be sarcastic, old man,” said Gerry composedly. “If you desire it, I’ll openly avow that I’m crazy to go and forget all the brooding and whining of the last month, and therefore I mean to make your life a burden till you consent. That’s all for to-night; but to-morrow we’ll go and see Crum again, and hear what he has to say. So goodnight, old man.”

I suffered myself to be led an unwilling captive to Crum’s office the next day, and the old man heard our version of Baines’s story patiently. And thus he made answer, speaking didactically.

“I must say,” said he, leaning forward and tapping the points of his fingers ceaselessly together, “that what Baines has to tell us seems to me to be most conclusive that your uncle, in conjunction with M. Lessaution, has lighted on some further clue to this mysterious document. Though apparently they have not solved it in its entirety, they have satisfied themselves that it is Mayan in character, and has some bearing on the adventure described by Sir John Dorinecourte. The French gentleman evidently has accumulated knowledge which makes him the only authority on this subject, and it is to him you must address yourself if you would go further in the matter. I think, my lord, that you would very possibly find it interesting so to do, but it rests with you. It is regrettable that M. Lessaution is not returning to Europe at once, and that he remains at Chichitza. It is also evident that he has—or thinks he has—information which may make him independent of you in this question, or, on the other hand, his threat of working without you may be merely a piece of bluff to induce you to go and interview him. In conclusion, I must say, that all things considered, it is the only course I see open to you, my lord, if, as I say, you think the matter of sufficient interest to be inquired into.”

“And of that there is no possible, probable doubt, no shadow of doubt whatever,” interposed Gerry. “But don’t you think we should have a look at the thing which has been at the bottom of all the excitement? It’s among the boxes which have been deposited here, Mr. Crum.”

Crum smiled. “I have so far expected this visit, that I made bold—in my character of executor—to open your late uncle’s dispatch-box, which was deposited here last night. I have found the thing in question, and, speaking for myself, am of the opinion that there can be no question but that the coins and the document are in the same symbol,” and opening his writing-table drawer he produced a tin case. Out of it he took a sheet of yellow, rough-looking material wrapped in tissue paper. He spread it out before us.

It was mouldering and musty, and emitted a faint, incense-like odour of perfumed wax. It was covered, as Baines had described, with “geometry” of sorts, namely squares, and oblongs twisted and welded together with intricacy, but with apparent method. The long lines of them ran across it in ordered rows from top to bottom, though which was the beginning, it would have been hard to say, except that at the end appeared a drawing—the presentment of as diabolical a looking monster as I have ever seen. It was of the nature of a huge lizard, with a long, sinuous neck doubled into terrifying contortions and flung back upon its thick and lumpish body. The lines which radiated from its eye evidently represented the baleful glare which was supposed to proceed from that organ. But it was portrayed with a rough skill which was more or less admirable.

“Well,” said I after a pause, when we had ceased to gape upon this absurdity, “I think you are driving me into an escapade worthy of the worst kind of lunatic, but as you are all against me I give in. We sail for Chichitza, but while I say it, I am calling myself fool, fool, and again fool, and there is no other word to characterize every one of us.”

And so amid Gerry’s shouts of acclamation was set on foot that outrageous adventure which brought us to the Great South Wall.

CHAPTER V
PROFESSOR LESSAUTION’S OPINION

It was a hot, damp, oppressive October evening when our little coasting steamer deposited us at Greytown, whither we had come after being landed by the Pacific Mail at Colon. Gerry and I fought our way ashore amid the crowd of niggers and half-castes of varying degree, while the melancholy Baines brought up the rear, eyeing doubtfully the all too easy porterage afforded our baggage by the longshore loafers who had annexed it tumultuously.

Baines had accompanied us under strong compulsion, and only by the promise of a stipend that many a weary curate would have deemed beyond the dreams of avarice. When the point was mooted—and we felt that his experience was a thing worth struggling for—he had met our proposals with a flat refusal. He had explained emphatically that he had already had sufficient, for one life at least, of irruptions into the tangle of primeval forests where the dark green abyss of jungle made twilight eternally. Where, as he forcibly expressed it, the crawling beasts of peculiar noisomeness were thick as flies upon a butcher’s stall; where the water was soup and the soup water; where the grey mists of malaria enveloped one as with a blanket of ague germs. All these things, as I say, were contrary to him. But the financial allurements held out to him, and the magic of Gerry’s silver tongue had prevailed, and now he conducted us personally, though lugubriously. He it was who hustled a way eventually for us to the wretched inn, and set himself to prepare our morrow’s transport.

Nothing, we ascertained, had been seen or heard of M. Lessaution, and it was therefore to be supposed that he was still encamped amid the ruins of Chichitza. By noon the next day we had accumulated our carriers, and set forth a half-day’s stage in that direction before evening, full of excitement in our quest, and of hopes of adventure in the attaining of it. For now that we found ourselves in these tropic wilds, visions of encounters with savage man and beast loomed largely before our mind’s eye.

A greater disappointment than the reality I have seldom, if ever, had to undergo. Instead of varied and delightful travel, enlivened by brilliant experiences of peril at the hands of the aborigines, or the claws of the forest denizens, the advance was simply one long, perpetual grind. Eternally we hewed our devious way through the thickest brush which exists, as I believe, on this earth. Every moment of the day and night were we devoured by mosquitoes and other noxious beasts, including “jiggers,” which lamed us both for the best part of a week. Nothing did we eat save cassava bread and the perpetual monkey and porcupine steak, and over every portion of our bodies were we covered with enormous tropical boils, by reason of which we rested not day nor night. So in stupendous misery did we proceed to Chichitza, seeing neither man nor beast of the slightest import during the whole ten days we spent in the transit.

Well do I remember our arrival at the ruins. The last few miles we had stumbled on a faint track among the creeping lianas and spiky aloes, and Gerry and I, hearing that the end of our quest was only a matter of an hour or two, had begun to head the party with some small show of élan. Thus as we strode hopefully through the endless gloom, we saw a ray of blessed sunlight flicker down between the masses of dense foliage about a quarter of a mile ahead, and yelled with pure delight at the sight, the monkeys and parrots answering back defiantly. Then we took to our heels and ran like lamplighters down the aisles of rotting logs that lay between us and the gladsome shaft of brightness, shouting uproariously.

Still sprinting we emerged suddenly into an encampment where white civilized tents gleamed in the noon-day sun—oh, the loveliness of open skies—and tripped with startled outcry upon their pegs, rolling at the feet of a little wan, wizened, black-bearded man, who stared down upon us with timorous amazement.

It did not take his invocation of the sacred name of a pig to convince me that we had in very truth stumbled upon our man. I rose and bowed to him with dignity.

“I believe,” said I in French, “that I have the honour to address M. le Professeur Lessaution? Allow me to introduce myself as Lord Heatherslie, and this gentleman as Mr. Gerald Carver, of her Majesty’s Regiment of Foot Guards.”

He flung up his arms ecstatically. “But what a joy!” he shrieked in his native tongue. “Monsieur has not failed me. But I convinced myself that a gentleman of monsieur’s blood would not. I said no, it is not possible that any Englishman with his native love of adventure will forsake this so great quest. Monsieur, I have the honor to embrace you with all my heart,” and he’d have done it too, not only with his heart, but with his lean little arms, if I had not dexterously caught his tempestuous hands and wrung them with an effusion that left him too exhausted for more familiar demonstrations.

When Gerry had also evaded the luscious raptures that the good little man in the fulness of his soul would have inflicted on him also, and the ingenuous abandon had somewhat subsided, we proceeded to explain ourselves, detailing under what circumstances we had received his message, how we had been affected thereby, and how our purpose to visit him had grown into fulfilment. Then tremblingly he demanded if we had with us the original document, and satisfied about this by its exhibition beneath his sparkling eyes, turned to evolve an entertainment worthy of the occasion. Meanwhile we sought changes of raiment—by this time our carriers had overtaken us—baths, and such-like luxuries which we had been without for ten long and weary days.

As we emerged again into the sunlight—and how we revelled in it, hot as it was—we found our host in the full ardour of hospitality. He was dashing about from tent to tent, cuffing relentlessly those of his servants who failed exactly to meet his behests, personally superintending the cook, and flitting from saucepan to saucepan with strange bottles and jars of piquancies like a very cordon-bleu. The result, when we sat ourselves down before it half-an-hour later, was in every way a success.

Finally, as the coffee circulated in choice little cups, and pipes and cigars were lit, and contentment sat upon every brow, the little chap proceeded to open the conference, speaking as one who conducted a very rite, rather than a mere discussion.

“In the first place,” said the little man, speaking in French, “I have to ask your pardon, M. de Heatherslie, for the attempt I made to deprive your uncle’s servant, the good Baines, of the contents of the dispatch-box with which he charged himself so rigorously. My action was inexcusable, I admit. But, on the other hand, put yourself in my place. Look you that your uncle and I together had toiled months—weeks, at the least—to elucidate the symbol of this document—this so ancient document in which many things of the most curious may be recorded. And understand also that we are very near the conclusion of the matter. At this precise moment Monsieur Baines takes from beneath my eyes the prize for which I have toiled so laboriously. Do you not imagine, therefore, that I feel a distress that is cruel—that I bemoan his obstinacy—that I endeavour by any means to alter his decision? Tell me this, and at the same time accord me your forgiveness for my hastiness.”

“I think,” said I, beaming upon him benignantly, “that you must have exercised great restraint, my dear Monsieur Lessaution, in refraining from destroying him and rifling his body. Let us forget this absurd incident. Happily we have returned to you the means of doing so. Here is the paper, and here are we, boiling over with curiosity to get a translation. Are you now in a position to give it?”

He bowed impressively, his soft little brown eyes gleaming gratefully at me from behind his spectacles. Then he continued his discourse.

“It may have come to your ears, my friends, that I have for some time convinced myself that the interpretation of the Mayan cabalistics, which you see here graven upon these mighty ruins”—and he waved his arms solemnly towards the grey walls that showed dimly through the foliage—“is to be found by comparing them with the ancient Egyptian symbol. This I have now proved beyond a doubt to be correct. But this being so, only half the battle is won. I arrive at the language spoken some centuries ago by the inhabitants of the Mayan Empire. To translate this language I must find its connecting link with the Mayan of the present day—and this is but a bastard patois of the original, being corrupted with Indian. But by familiarizing myself with Mayan, as the people of the country speak it to-day, I have made long strides in solving the twisted carvings of these ancient monuments. It was at the point where your late uncle and I had decided that some knowledge of colloquial Mayan was necessary to further our plans that he unfortunately contracted the illness which proved fatal to him. During the last two months I have familiarized myself with this language. I say it with due humility, but I believe with some certainty that in the course of a short time I shall decipher the document. But supposing this done, shall you be guided by the result?”

“That’s just a little too previous a question,” said I. “Don’t you think you had better get the answer to the Mayan conundrum before you embarrass us with plans which have as yet no basis to start from?”

“But surely you have seen the letter of your great ancestor, who was the original discoverer of this document? Naturally the translation will show us where to seek this lost people.”

He was so serious about it, not to say so cock-sure, that I nearly imperilled our friendship by laughing in his face. To my stolid British mind, the conclusive way in which he took my romancing old ancestor’s yarn as gospel truth struck me as humorous. But I preserved a staid demeanor as I answered.

“Let me assure you, monsieur,” said I, “that I shall feel it my duty to be guided in this matter by your advice. But before we discuss hypothetical questions, let us endeavour to deal with facts. Take then this paper and apply to it your knowledge. I have great pleasure in handing it over to your care.”

It might have been an insignia of knighthood at the least, judging by the reverence with which he received the musty relic. In a very fury of grateful protestation he bore it to his tent and surrounded himself with a mass of papers, books, and references. And there through the live-long day he continued to sit amid his piled accumulations of literary matter. The door of his tent was ever open, and our view of his actions unimpeded. Fatigued by the stress of ten days’ marching, Gerry and I were only too glad to rest beneath the shade of a great granadillo tree and smoke the pipe of peace, and the sight of the little man’s energy was a restful tonic to our jaded constitutions. He flung himself upon his task like a navvy. From book to book he flew, and from note to note. He dodged about from one heap of manuscript to another like a little robin picking crumbs in the snow. He jerked his little head from side to side as he annotated and compared with the eager, intelligent air of a fox-terrier before a rabbit-hole. He sweated, he tore his hair, he seized his head between his hands in a very travail of mental effort. The sheets of foolscap flew beneath the touch of his practised fingers. Symbol after symbol gave up its secret as he travelled down the lines of interwoven cabalistics. The copper-plate of his translation grew in volume steadily; the pace increased rapidly as he neared the end. Not a word did we offer, not a suggestion did we make. Apathetically we listened to his curses or smiled at his squeals of triumph as the figures alternately obstructed or fell before him. Finally, as the tropic night closed in with the swiftness of a curtain’s dropping, he gave a yell of frantic joy and bounded out of his lair, waving the completed copy with terrific gesticulation. He thrust it into my hand, still shouting.

“Aha, aha! it is done, it is complete. I have them, the great race of Maya. Before the world we shall present them. We shall say, Behold the glories of so long ago, and to us will be the honour—the so great honor of the discovery. Read, then, read, and say if I have not succeeded,” and with his eyes aflame he hovered round me, waving his ten fingers ecstatically.

Here is what I found writ down in artistic French, and render into my own bald native tongue:

“From Huanhac, leader of the migration of the people of Cay, greeting to Camazmag, priest of Cay and overlord of the people who remain in the land of Mayax.

“This to inform you that to the people of the migration is come prosperity and great honour, for indeed we have found the habitation of the god Cay himself. For having put out into the deep after our departure, behold a great tempest arose swiftly bearing us south, and for the space of fifteen days we saw naught but water and a sky of doom. On the sixteenth day, when both water and victual were vanished from among us, we came to regions of much ice—ice in comparison with which that upon the mountains of the Northland is as naught, at the which were we dismayed, expecting death by cold and hunger, but the purpose of the god was upon us. For as we drifted through the lanes of ice, a great wall rose before us, high and implacable, nor could we anywhere perceive a break therein. So for some hours we were tossed by changing currents, fearing instant destruction against the frowning crags. Then of a sudden Carfag, of the tribe of Xibalab, being in the leading ship, called aloud, saying that round a jutting peak of rock before him a bay was opening, which passage was exceeding intricate, and might pass unnoticed. So following Carfag we rounded the cape and found still water and a sandy sloping beach. There we landed amidst a crowd of sitting sea-birds and sea-beasts of surprising magnitude, the which were not scaled as fish, but furred as foxes. Yet all was rock and pebbles, nor had we means to light a fire, save with such lumber from the ships as we could spare.

“But as we wandered further up the foreshore, there ran ridge-like across the face of rock a line of black stone having the similitude of wood, and with the marks of ferns therein. This some of us knew would burn, having seen the like in the Northland.

“Then lit we fires, and smote over unresisting some of the great birds which without fear sat upon the sand, and roasted them to make a meal therefrom. As the fume of their roasting went up savorily upon the air, and all prepared to satisfy their hunger, behold one lifted up his eyes towards the land and cried aloud in awe and great terror, for thence came down towards us the god Cay himself in flesh apparent, his mouth agape as if demanding sacrifice. Then consulted we hurriedly upon the honor which had thus befallen us of the migration—shown now of a surety to be in direct favor of the god—and selecting Alfa, daughter of Halmac, as fairest, bound her for sacrifice. Her we thrust forth into the path of the god, though Hardal, to whom the maid was promised, would have stayed us. Then came Cay in his bodily shape, and did take the maid, and did eat her in token of blessing and acceptance to us his faithful people, and Hardal, seeing his bride rent and dismembered, ran forth to the feet of the god, and was himself devoured also. After which did Cay withdraw himself from our reverent and astonished eyes, and we gave thanks that he in his mercy had guided us to his own abode, though verily the land is passing savage and barren of every growing thing.

“So we hasted and collected of our stores and put them on our best ship, and have sent unto you Migdal and six of our bravest youth, that you too may come to the land which Cay himself hath deigned to bless. In witness whereof hereunto I subscribe the sign of the god, fervently desiring that to you may be given his protection until you also come to his own seat.

“Huanhac, priest of Cay, and chief

of the migration.”

I handed the paper on to Gerry without a word of comment, and then turned to Lessaution with questioning eyes. He was sitting opposite me chuckling and bubbling away in an indescribable manner. He beat his little hands together, digging at the soft earth with his restless heels while Gerry also digested this astounding rigmarole, evidently bursting with the desire to speak, but restraining himself till he could spring his fatuous surprises upon us both together. For the next five minutes he made the most hideous and unconscious faces at me, winking and smirking meaningly as he caught the emotions flitting swiftly across Gerry’s features, and finally, as the latter laid down the paper with a low whistle of astonishment and incredulity, he poured forth his abounding triumph boisterously.

“You see, my friends, you see?” he shouted. “It is as plain—but yes—as plain as the great temple behind you. You have heard, you have read of the great wall of the unknown lands of the Antarctic? You have remembered what M. Borchgrevink has told? Of the great cliff that stands up unclimbable from the ocean? There they have gone. It is there they have founded their new empire in the land that no man has discovered. It is all in one with the letter of the good Sir Dorinecourte of long ago. Where but there could it be? Where is the ice? Where else the great cliffs? We will go to them. We will discover them again. To the world we will present this ancient race, and to us will be a glory that we cannot as yet dream of. We shall be the great ones of the century. The discoverers of the peoples of yesterday. What do you say? Hein? Hein? Hein?” and he grunted like an inquiring pig.

“My dear Professor,” said I patiently, “you don’t really mean to imply that you believe that this race exists to the present day? Why, they’ve perished long ago by cold and hunger; or been eaten by their god. I must say that I think I may safely take this document to be—let us say—an allegory, written by some mendacious old priest for wicked purposes of his own. The story of the god Cay is quite sufficient to show the absurdity of it. How on earth could such a monstrous impossibility have ever walked the earth either in the Antarctic or anywhere else?”

“My friend, my friend,” he babbled, his words nearly tripping over each other in his hurry, “it is not so; I assure you of it. Let us even allow that the race is dead. But the remains of the wonderful people exist. We can go, we can dig, we can find the traces. And remember the gold. We go not for honor alone—though for me, I am French, and it is enough—but there will be the gold. Think of the very baling-vessels made of gold in the letter of the great Sir Dorinecourte. There will be wealth, and the fame—oh, the very great, magnificent fame.”

I tried to be tolerant with the enthusiastic little ass, but I will own that his credulity was altogether too much for me.

“You have not yet answered my question about the god Cay,” I replied. “How do you propose to explain that very obvious falsehood?”

“And you think all this is a lie,” he bawled, “just because this priest wove a little religion into his message? And who are we to say that it is not true? Have we been behind that wall of rock where these people remain either alive or dead? How then can we decide what is there or has been there? It will be time enough to say what exists or does not exist when we have made examination.”

Now did one ever hear such nonsense? There may be a queer thing or two loose about the earth, but to ask one to believe that a terror such as that depicted at the foot of the Mayan scroll was alive and being worshipped not much more than three centuries ago was a trifle too much. I said so with no uncertain sound.

“M. de Heatherslie,” answered the little man gravely, “you speak of what you do not know. What is that your poet says? There are more things in heaven and earth than your poor little philosophy thinks of. Why, tell me, are you convinced that such a monster cannot have existed? You but repeat what the ignorant said to M. de Chaillu about the gorilla.”

“Humbug,” said I, getting warm. “Monkeys there always have been, and monkeys there always will be. If this monster was like anything that nature ever invented there might possibly be something in it. But it’s a thing utterly outrageous. Who ever saw a hippopotamus with the neck of a giraffe and the legs of a lizard? and that is practically what the mythological god Cay is, both on the scroll and on the ruins here,” for we had found more representations of the loathsome divinity studded into the twisted inscriptions on the facades and walls of the temples.

As the discussion grew he began to light up as well. “Monsieur,” he squealed, with glowing eyes, “I endeavor to say it with courtesy, but you are ignorant and obstinate. You have slept away your life in the fogs of England; you think that there is nothing worth considering in the world that has not the cachet of Piccadilly. I tell you—I affirm to you—that I believe that far away in the unknown South much may have happened—much may still be happening. We are ignorant, you and I, but there is no reason that we should not learn. I have translated to you this document. I give to you my opinions on it. I say that it should be investigated, and to your family is due the first chance of investigation, if only out of respect to the honour of your uncle, who is unfortunately dead. But if you throw away this chance, then I claim the right to give this honor to France—my country. But I beg you to remember that I beseech you to make use of your knowledge first, that afterwards there may be no recriminations.”

I bowed sneeringly. “You do me too much honor,” I replied sarcastically, “for I can imagine that every savant in France is yearning to stand in my shoes. Why, heavens, man! do you think there’s a fool big enough to back you anywhere between Dunkirk and Marseilles?”

He glowered at me malignantly, flapping his hands against the turf. “Monsieur wishes me to infer then that I am a fool?” he queried coldly. “I accept monsieur’s compliment in the spirit in which it is dealt to me. But let me tell monsieur this. He may have the wealth, he may have the courage, he may think he has the wisdom of the century at his back, but he has no spirituality, and, I say it with assurance, but little intellectuality. He is crusted in conservative unbelief like an oyster in his shell. With all his practical qualities I pity him,” and he swept his hands abroad with a wave of disdain that was dramatic in its haughtiness.

You will perceive that the makings of a good quarrel were here, however absurd the subject. A sentence or two more and I and the little ass would have been, figuratively, at each other’s throats. Here Gerry stepped into the breach.

“Jack, you’re in the wrong; and what’s more, when you’re cool, you’ll own it. What’s the good of looking black at another gentleman simply because he differs from you in a matter of opinion? The remedy lies in your own hands. M. Lessaution tells you that if you sail in a certain direction he has good reason to believe that you will find certain things, or the remains of certain things, which he judges to be of importance. Well, sail there. We’ve a very great desire for something exciting to do just at present, and here you have an ancient family quest ready to your hand. I can’t imagine anything that could possibly improve upon such a providentially given chance. You’ve got the money for it, and the health, and last, but not least, you’ve got two companions ready to accompany you. If you’ve any spirit left in you, go,” and as he concluded his lecture he smote me resoundingly on the back.

I failed to see sense in this any more than in the Frenchman’s hare-brained purposes, but a sudden thought had come with glowing swiftness into my mind. I turned hastily to Lessaution, who was regarding me with anxious inquiry, and asked him a question.

“Supposing,” said I, “only supposing, we were to sail due south to the land which you believe to exist beyond Cape Horn, how should we proceed?”

“We should of course make the Falkland Islands our base, and steer a directly southern course from there. They would be the nearest inhabited land.”

I pondered this information silently, ruminating various matters in my mind. Finally I turned benignantly towards the Professor, and seized his hand.

“Monsieur Lessaution,” said I, “I will say frankly that I do not believe that we shall find a vestige of this extinct race, and I am inclined to think that both the English letter and the Mayan document are frauds. But I want relaxation and excitement, and I believe the cruise may possibly do me all the good in the world. We will return to England and find out the cost of equipping a yacht for sailing in these latitudes. If my man of business advises me that I am in a position to undertake it, I shall do so. And I request the pleasure of your company if this proposal becomes an accomplished fact.”

His sallow little cheeks flushed up with pleasure, and he shook my proffered hand violently.

“I was not mistaken in you, Monsieur de Heatherslie,” he said, with dignity. “I felt that no man of your adventurous race would fail at a chance like this. Receive my congratulations on your decision, and my regrets that I used unpardonable adjectives to goad you into it. You will find me, I trust, not unworthy of the honour you have done me.”

Gerry used less set terms in his address. “Thanks, old man,” he remarked complacently; “I should like to come, though you haven’t asked me. And now all’s settled peacefully, let’s have a drink,” and he headed the procession which advanced with much unanimity upon the dining tent.

But I felt a hypocrite and a pretender. For what had influenced my decision was simply a sentence culled from the published itinerary of the s.s. Madagascar’s winter’s cruise. And it ran thus—

“On or about February 6, Port Lewis in the Falkland Isles, previous to her return home.”

CHAPTER VI
WE SAIL SOUTH

It was the end of October before we were back in London again, and had begun our preparations for the expedition to which I had pledged myself. Crum gave me no financial excuse for departing from my promise. In his management things had looked up during my uncle’s tenure of the title, and I was a deal better off than I had believed possible. Farms were in good condition and well let. Bog and heather in Ireland had found tenants for shooting, if not for grazing. Investments of accumulations had prospered marvellously. And above all was the wonderful collection of coins which was to be sold as soon as it could be accurately catalogued. I was well to do, it seemed, when all I had expected was a bare escape from penury.

“Your lordship need have no fear of lack of funds,” said the old man, as he finished listening to the tale which I had to tell on our return from America. “The twentieth part of what the collection will fetch in the open market will be ample to meet every expense. And if your lordship will permit me, I should be glad to help you in your choice of a ship. This is no case for a mere yacht.”

“You, Mr. Crum!” I questioned amazedly, “pardon my surprise; but the practice of the law does not as usual induce experience in ship-rigging or building.”

“No,” said the old fellow meekly, “not as a rule. But in this particular instance it has been one old lawyer’s hobby. My pleasure all my life has been yachting, my lord, and I have many friends who go down to the sea in ships.”

This was a bolt from the blue and no mistake, and a blessing which I was not slow to avail myself of. I gave Crum a free hand with the greatest delight, and the result was in every way admirable. Not only did he bring to his task a wealth of finicky little details such as are dear to the yachtsman’s heart, but took to him retired master mariners and other sea-going veterans of his acquaintance, who possessed more than his amateur capacity for judging good lines and fittings. And thus did they bring their kindly toil to a conclusion.

The Racoon, formerly of the American whaling trade, barque built, and with stout timbers and bulkheads to resist ice, was for sale. With cautious advances Crum became her purchaser. She was of five hundred tons burden, had an auxiliary screw with one hundred and eighty indicated horse-power, and was reputed a first-class sea-boat. We had the greasy try-works swept from her decks, and a skylight fixed therein, which gave light to a spacious saloon partitioned out of the barrel deck below. Aft this we fashioned a cosy smoke-room, round which were four cabins for ourselves and the captain. Other cabins below the main-deck housed the mates and the engineer, while forward the crew and stokers had the best of quarters. We took aboard much provision, supplied us by a famous firm of caterers, together with liquid in due proportion. Coal we took a large stock of; not that we expected to steam more than we could help, but we wished to be independent of coaling stations. Mr. Waller of the R.N.R. and the merchant marine came with many certificates of various sorts to be our captain, and Mr. Janson of the same service to be his second in command. Mr. Rafferty, sometime of Cork City, was boatswain, and the engineer, stokers, and deck-hands were all British; the first whole-colored, single-tongued crew that Waller had ever commanded, as he feelingly remarked.

Under these favorable auspices we sailed from Southampton on November 22nd, and thus the adventure to the Great South Wall was fairly started.

I am not going to give you the wearisome repetitions which my log shows as indications of what monotonous things we did during the next six weeks. We had the usual toss as we threshed our way across the Bay, we took the usual pleasure in sighting the Canaries and Madeira, and we shipped the usual turtle at Ascension. After the fogs we had left in England, we found the eternal heat of the line bearable for about six hours, and then cursed it with the usual malevolence after experiencing it for six hours more. We got very much bored with each other’s company, and found conversation languish after the first week. We got huffy with one another more than once, and finally settled down to the voyage, shaking, each of us, into his allotted place automatically. And we grew fat and bilious.

Lessaution was by far the most energetic. His curiosity was abnormal, and he left no inquiry unmade that would tend to satisfy it. He was as sick as it is possible for a full-bodied Frenchman to be sick for the first three or four days, and after that seemed to renew his youth. Not that he was by any means daunted during the period named. He crawled about the deck in paroxysms of the most terrible description, interrupting the crew with queries on every and any conceivable subject; he attempted to mount the bridge, and was hurled back disconsolate as a green sea thundered aboard; he ventured into the cook’s department and endeavored to complete that worthy’s education during the height of a gale; finally he was rescued from imminent death on the bed-plates of the engine-room, where he was explaining the superiority of French boilers to the contemptuous chief, Eccles. When the winds and the sea had calmed down, he proceeded to bring out his gear which he had accumulated for the adventure, and overhaul it with pardonable pride.

He had certainly not forgotten anything that was likely to be of any possible use. Ice-axes there were in profusion. Climbing-irons, portable ladders, ropes, chisels. These to be used in the attack upon the precipice of rock or ice which he convinced himself would lie between us and our desire. He had also provided for further feats when the first difficulties had been surmounted. Toboggans or sleds he had two or three of; no less than six pairs of snow-shoes, and, wonder of wonders, a pair of skates!

He explained when taken to task on the subject that he belonged to that gathering of the elect the Cercle des Patineurs, though as yet he had not attained the style which he desired to affect, and was in consequence unable to cut the figure he would like in the beau monde. Now he thought an opportunity of instructing himself in this health-giving and aristocratic pursuit would be afforded him. He would be able to win the plaudits of all on his return, for, let us mark, he had brought with him a book of self-instruction on the subject, and would perfect himself in intricacies unbelievable. Yes, it would not do to spend the whole of the time on industry; we must not let our search deprive us of all thoughts of relaxation. At times he would unbend—he would sport. As an exercise this skating, let us remember, was without a peer.

Careless of our rude pleasantries, he proceeded to unveil further treasures. He had a perfect armory of offensive and defensive weapons. Bowie-knives were sown throughout his baggage like plums in a pudding. Revolvers decorated his cabin walls in pairs. A rifle flanked a shot-gun on each side of his cot. A tomahawk was precariously affixed to the deck above, whence it fell perilously every time we broached to between the great Atlantic surges. It was evident he was prepared for the worst that the future might have in store.

We rallied him gently on his warlike preparations, but he met us with logical arguments. It was understood, was it not, that we went to discover a new people. Let the memory of the old conquistadores be in our hearts. By the magic of their perfected weapons they had prevailed upon the ancestors of this very people we went to seek, and from them we might learn a lesson. It was not to be expected that we should be greeted peacefully at first. A display of force—only a display, let us certainly hope—would be necessary. He, Emil Saiger Lessaution, would give that display, and inaugurate a reconstruction of their mediæval empire. Met by a dispute of his data, in that we refused to acknowledge the possibility of any such race surviving in the desolation of the Antarctic, he turned our flank by remarking happily, that at any rate animals of a ferocious disposition would abound, and would need to be captured or quelled. He promised himself many trophies of fur and feather, which would make the eyes of members of the shooting club he patronized bulge out with envy.

Gerry had brought a pair of guns and a rifle, with some vague idea of sealing, and found encouragement therein from Mr. Rafferty, who had sailed in whalers. I gave it to be understood, however, that I did not purpose wasting time in the chase, and should not allow us to stay our course short of our destination. One circumstance, however, came to light, which turned the laugh strongly against the Frenchman. It was while he was examining with a depreciatory air Gerry’s guns, that it suddenly occurred to him that with all his store of weapons, he had no means of loading them. In the excitement of departure he had left all such practicalities as cartridges to the last, being filled with the loftiest ideas for using them. The consequence was that he was absolutely dependent on Gerry’s slender store, and Gerry, with all the good nature in the world, found that the barrels were of different bore, his being twelve and the Professor’s sixteen. After which discovery we had a morning’s unavailing gnashing of teeth, and then the little man forgot his troubles in a new excitement.

This was the first ice. We had sighted Bovet’s Island a few days before, when we saw it—a solemn, stately ice-hill, floating along island-like on a calm and unrippled sea. There’s something rather overpowering and awesome about a big berg. The deathly blue-whiteness of it, the silence that broods about it, the great grottoes that pierce its sides like tombs of the lost, the glassy radiance that does not cheer but repels one—these things have a very depressing effect on me. I realized for the first time the sort of business we were going in for, and confessed to myself that a very little of this sort of thing would go a very long way. But it acted on the Professor’s spirits in quite another manner.

We had rigged the crow’s-nest the day before, and he was up in it before you could wink an eye. He leaned out over the edge of this eyrie, waggling his hands ecstatically, and singing songs of victory, welcoming this indication that we were approaching our goal with a hubbub that resounded indecently among the echoes of the bergs.

That was the only one we saw that evening, but next morning there were rows and rows of them, great pyramids of sheeny white, coming along in stately columns and companies, overhanging the blue sea, crashing now and again against each other, and hustling and grinding the floe-ice that dotted the wide sea-lanes between.

We steamed cautiously down the aisles, dodging from one sheet of open water to another. Now and again some unsteady pinnacle, loosening from the side of its parent berg in the heat of the sun, would plunge thunderously down the smooth slopes, and roar into the sea, sending great waves of curling foam to right and left, the rainbow rays dancing in the flying spray. The cascades poured continually from basin to basin in the laps of the ice-hills, tinkling and plashing as they fell. Here and there, on the bare, smooth base of some mighty piece of glacier, rows of seals lay and basked in the sun, staring at us as we slid by them with stupid, curious, brown eyes. Every now and again a sea-lion rose with a snort from some pool beneath the shadow of the shining crags, and played and tossed happily among the ripples. The birds, tame as chickens, unaccustomed to the sight of men, flew and swung and whirled and circled above us in clouds, tern wailing to tern, and gull to gull in plaintive outcry. And over all the sun shone with the strength of the Antarctic summer, now just beginning in its full vigor and brightness.

It certainly was an uplifting day, and quite swept out of my head the despondent horrors of the evening before. I climbed to the crow’s-nest with Lessaution, and stayed beside him there hour after hour, drinking in all the glories of the scene, and listening lazily to his babble, taking pleasure in the mere joy of living.

We rolled slowly down the lessening passages all that day, and at sunset lay to with springs on our cables, for the floe-ice surged upon us ceaselessly, making it too dangerous to charge in among the pack without the help of daylight. In fact, we had to keep watch and watch about and fend off with poles, as the great splinters tangled round us, and ride out and back more than once as a berg moved upon us ponderously.

With the dawn we were under steam again, and wound our way in and out and about till, at mid-day, a shout from aloft proclaimed land in sight. And then we saw it. Far away, gray and shadowy through the haze it ran across the horizon, a long wall of rock or ice-faced cliff, reaching from east to west and dying into the dimness of the ice-strewn sea.

As we drew nearer, down the long corridors between the floes, it seemed to grow higher and more implacable at every mile. Sheer, ledgeless, and ice-smooth it was, never an approach or opening to its summit visible.

The shadows beneath hung duskly over the ripples, making the blue of the outer ocean seem to have an edge of mourning on its brightness. Here and there a berg clanged and butted against it restlessly, grinding away huge masses of its flanks in showers of twinkling splinters.

Along its sea-level the pack-ice heaved, eternally smoothing and planing its surface. About its face the sea-birds swirled, dipping and shrilling in their clouds. From many a little channel on its summit the rivulets from the melting glaciers fell in sparkling cascades, like the swishing tails of a stabled squadron. And far beyond it, smiting up haughtily into the empty blue, a giant range of mountains reared their heads, grim, white, and glancing in the sunlight.

We slowed when we were within a mile of it, and then began to wear a way slowly along parallel to the land, waiting till we should see some sign of a break or cranny in the relentless cliff. But never a sign of one was there. Early in the afternoon we raised islands to the northeast, and threw the lead, finding fifteen fathoms. We crept into the channel which ran between this archipelago and the mainland, and found a larger space of open water. Here, then, at Lessaution’s earnest request I anchored, and dropped a boat down for him; with a crew of six we put off, and rowed down the narrow, changing passages towards the crags.

The little Frenchman was sanguine that a nearer investigation would show a means of scaling the heights, but try as we would, and strain our eyes, as we did, to the uttermost, no vestige of a split or crevice in those endless walls of rock could we see. We rowed and rowed, but the result was ever the same. The sea-lanes between the floating lumps of floe stretched endlessly across the sea like the meshes of a spider’s web. We seemed to grope in an eternal maze, which had no appointed outlet. Only now and again could we approach the wall of ice and stone that overhung us. We had to be on guard continuously. The pack would spring and close like the jaws of a trap, and we had to back and row, and row and back, without cessation, to avoid its ever-waiting grip. One very sharp escape we had. We were lying on our oars, while the Professor examined some of the lichen which covered the cliff in patches, when we were suddenly aware, that what a moment before had been a sheet of water, clear for an acre around, was a fast thinning streak of sea. There was a yell from Rafferty, who steered, and then by backing furiously we managed to crawl into a pool between two sturdy bergs, and wind our way out into the less crowded channels. But as we saw the floe surge down upon the rock, and grate and grind upon it lingeringly, scoring away its own edges by the ton, we shuddered to think what an eggshell our boat would have been between that mighty hammer and that granite anvil.

That day was but the precursor of many. The yacht, with banked fires, perpetually corkscrewed her way along about a mile from shore, and day by day we took our boat and wandered continually in the shadow of the frowning wall. In Lessaution’s breast hope burnt eternally, but only to be quenched at night. His plans were numerous, and some of them ludicrously ingenious. He suggested that a kite should be flown with a knotted rope attached, which might perchance catch in some crevice on the top, and permit him to give us a gymnastic display. He wondered if the carpenter could not manufacture a hundred-foot ladder, and then anchoring the good ship Racoon below the precipice, enable us to place the highest rung against the top. He even proposed that Gerry should throw his cartridges into the common stock—this I am convinced was partly from jealousy at Gerry’s owning these useful articles, which he had forgotten—that they should be opened, and that the resulting powder should be used to blast a way from point to point, and thus a path be won over these disgraceful rocks at which he shook his fist perpetually.

These futile proposals meeting the contempt they deserved, he became gloomy and morose, hinting strongly that our hearts were not really in this quest, and affirming that he, with his unquenchable French valor, was perfectly prepared to be left upon an iceberg with such provision as we could spare, if we thought it advisable to give up the adventure through our want of spirit.

After about three weeks of this sort of thing I ventured to interpose. I explained to him carefully that I did not purpose giving up the expedition altogether, but that I must plead for an interval in it. I affirmed mendaciously that I had arranged with the worthy Crum to call at the Falkland Isles in case there should be matters of importance to be telegraphed or otherwise sent—I had not the least idea if there was a telegraph station, and had a notion the post went once a year—and I must beg to be allowed to proceed there for this purpose, to re-coal, and to get further store of provision.

The unfortunate little man lamented desperately. Once let us get away when we were thus on the spot, and it was inevitable that we should never return. Might we not have one more week—nay, a day? That very evening as we knocked off work he had viewed a break in the top-line of these unbending crags, of which he had the brightest hopes. How could we find the spot again? He must implore—he must entreat.

For once I was adamant. I explained that if we were to be detained here by any accident with our slender supply of fuel and provision, things might be very awkward. I showed how necessary it was for a man in my position to be in touch with his lawyer every few months. I reiterated my assurance that we should return, using every oath and affirmation that I thought convincing. But it was a sorrow-stricken face that the poor little man hung over the stern the next morning as we turned our prow northwards, and the cliffs drew down into the veil of the haze.

Gerry had at first shown unbounded astonishment at this sudden change of plan, but during my discussion with the Professor a light seemed to strike him. He retired to the saloon, and through the skylight I saw him consulting a manuscript note or two which I could have sworn were in a feminine hand. He came on deck with an unclouded brow.

“To-day’s the 29th, isn’t it?” he queried cheerily. Then turning to Waller he demanded, “How long shall we take to steam to Port Lewis, captain?”

“About a week, sir,” responded that functionary readily, and my young friend faced me with a grin splitting his ingenuous countenance.

“You old humbug,” he chuckled. “Coal indeed; provisions running short, are they? Go on,” and on we went.

CHAPTER VII
A LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS

I received Gerry’s more explicit congratulations in private. The poor little Professor continued to bemoan our desertion of the quest with such heart-breaking insistence, that the merest suspicion that it was no stern necessity that bade us sail north would, we felt sure, induce paroxysms of fury. We cheered him to the best of our ability, by picturing our early return refreshed for deeds of high emprise in rock climbing, and with perfected means for their accomplishment. But he continued to bewail himself.

It was about six days after we had turned our backs upon the great rock wall, that the wind began to get up strongly from the north, and we had to thrust our way slowly enough through the great surges that rolled down upon us mercilessly from the Atlantic, with four thousand miles of gathered impact at their back.

Our good little boat cleft her way through their white manes with a sturdy shove and shake of her prow, sending the spray swinging in jets before her cutwater, and flooding her decks as she dipped to the rollers and sent them roaring down beneath the bridge.

Two men had to be lashed to the wheel, and the crew took their stations between watch and watch, only by the activity with which they dodged the incoming billows. Two of our boats were swept from the davits, and half the deck-house windows were smashed before we got them battened over. The cook kept a fire in the galley by the display of the most extraordinary agility, and our meals were snappy and disconnected. Nor did we take much pleasure in them. Gerry and I had found our sealegs to a certain extent, but poor little Lessaution was a terrible sufferer, and we found it hard to take a neighborly interest in his behavior—he would insist in coming on deck, though he had to be lashed there—and afterwards find appetite for the cook’s hastily improvised dainties.