It is one thing to lay a course even in the open sea, and it is quite another to follow it. Wind, waves, and currents often drive a vessel1 from the way she wishes to go; and all of these had acted on the wreck2-path, seemingly conspiring3 to make difficult the line of progress that Howard had mapped out. Again and again he had to make long detours4 to pass some insurmountable wreck that lay across his path, and finally he had to turn aside from it altogether to skirt a narrow but impassable channel of weed-grown water that corkscrewed unexpectedly across his path.
“It’s that hurricane we had a month agone,” explained Joyce. “It isn’t often they come here, but when they do, faith it’s the foine mix-up they make! I moind one of thim ten years agone! It split[201] the pack for miles back, and filled the hole up again with wrecks5 that would have made the fortune of a dime-museum man, so they would. The most of them were fair rotten with age, and sank as soon as they began to rub up against the strong new ships. The last storm wasn’t so bad, and, belike, it only split the pack here and there.”
Howard nodded. The explanation seemed very probable, as in no other way could he account for the open channel in the midst of the vessel-wrecks. Mere6 mutual7 attraction ought to have closed it up years before. It made him anxious, for the channel had already led him a mile deeper into the pack than he had intended to go, and still showed no signs of ending.
It might go on even to the heart of the wreckage9, where lay the ancient ships on which all food had rotted away centuries before. If a former storm had opened up a channel that far, so might a later one.
[202]That the cases were parallel was soon exhibited with startling proof. For some moments Howard had been noticing a great grey hull10, banded with tarnished11 gold, that loomed12 across the pack two or three ships ahead. As he drew nearer, he saw, with wonder, its strange architecture. Huge, round-bellied, with castle-like structures reared at stem and stern, it rose about the other wrecks, tier above tier, with lines of frowning ports from which protruded13 the mouths of old fashioned cannon14. No such ship had sailed the ocean for years—not since the days when Spain was in her glory and her rich fleets bore the riches of America to fill her already overflowing15 coffers. It must have lain screened in the heart of the ship-continent for at least two centuries, to be at last spewed forth16 in time to meet the curious gaze of an alien race.
From the topgallant poop of a modern sailing-ship, Howard studied it curiously17, while behind him the rest of the party looked on with amazement18.
[203]“Sure, and that’s the very spirit and image of them I was spakin’ about,” remarked Joyce, triumphantly20. “An’ what sort of a ship do you suppose she is, sor?”
“She’s a Spanish galleon21, beyond doubt,” rejoined Howard. “She’s the very type of those old treasure-ships. And there are more of the same kind behind her. Look!”
Along the open channel, far away to the sunset, stretched a file of ancient vessels22, now in single file, now in double. Not all were galleons23, but all plainly belonged to dead and gone ages. While the others of their kind had long ago perished from human sight, here, in this lost corner of the world, these had lingered on, slowly decaying, like the once mighty24 nation that sent them forth. Howard stared at them in wondering amaze.
But Joyce recalled him to himself. “Did you say treasure, sor?” he insinuated25.
[204]Howard laughed. “Oh, yes,” he answered, indifferently. “She’s a treasure-ship, all right, though that isn’t to say that she has treasure aboard. Still, it’s not unlikely. There may be a million apiece for all of us on her—if we could only carry it away. Hold on! Where are you going?”
Joyce was already climbing through one of the open ports of the galleon, but at Howard’s call he paused. “Sure, an’ I’m going to look after that million,” he returned, defiantly26.
Howard hesitated. Then he noticed a restless movement of the missionary27 and eager glances by the two women and laughed. “Go ahead and look for it,” he said. “But be careful. Remember the ship must be rotten through and through; I doubt whether her decks will bear your weight.”
Joyce disappeared, but a moment later stuck his head out of the port again. “She’s better nor she looks, sor,” he[205] averred28. “The planks29 are rotten, but I think they’ll hold. Perhaps your good lady would like to come aboard.”
Howard glanced at Dorothy.
“His good lady certainly would,” she smiled back. A moment later all stood on one of the galleon’s many decks.
Joyce was right. The deck, though rotted, seemed to be reasonably sound, and the stairway leading upward did not give way when Jackson mounted it. As he was the heaviest in the party, the rest felt safe in following him.
Once on the upper deck, the cause of the ship’s plight30 was evident. All about her, tumbled in inextricable confusion, lay the bones of men mingled31 with the rust-eaten remains32 of guns and pikes and sabres. In some places, doubtless where the nameless fight had raged most fiercely, the skeletons were heaped high upon each other. Flesh and clothing alike had long since disappeared, but parts of belts and buckles33 and fragments of the tinsel[206] of war remained to tell of the bitterness of the fight.
“Probably the work of buccaneers,” explained Howard. “They did not hesitate to attack ten times their number, and often won by the very fury of their assault. Evidently they did this time. Joyce, I’m afraid your million went to make a pirate holiday centuries ago.”
“Bad cess to thim, whoiver they were. But where would it be, sor, if it was on board?”
“I really don’t know. And yet—the hold under the captain’s cabin, aft there, would be a likely place. Suppose you look there.”
Joyce and Jackson hurried away, and soon the sound of dull hammering and the tear of rending34 wood came to the ears of the others, followed a moment later by a series of triumphant19 yells. Then Joyce appeared, fairly mad with excitement.
“Hurroush! Hurroush!” he screamed.[207] “We’ve found it! We’ve found it! Tons and tons of solid gold! Kathleen, mavourneen, we’re rich—we’re rich! We’ll go back to Galway and buy the little place beyant the hill, and——”
“Whist! Whist! Tim, man! An’ will you first be tellin’ me how you’re going to get yerself away, let alone your tons of gold?”
So absorbed was the party in the discovery of the gold that they forgot everything else—the danger from Forbes, the utter uselessness of the treasure, the necessity of crossing the channel and making their way to the southern coast. Even Dorothy, used to wealth as she was, caught the infection, and babbled35 away as excitedly as a child.
Howard was the first to recover his poise36 and to plan for the future. It was, he knew, utterly37 hopeless to try to tear Joyce and Jackson, or even the missionary away from the galleon until their excitement had spent itself. Indeed, he[208] himself felt positively38 ill at thought of abandoning the gold, unavoidable as such action undoubtedly39 was. By rough calculation, he estimated that there were twelve tons of the treasure, worth about six million dollars, under their very feet, free for them to carry away, and yet as utterly unavailable as so much sand. Indeed, in so far as unwillingness40 to leave it should delay movements of the party, it was a positive detriment41.
He turned and looked at the others. Joyce, Jackson, the missionary, and even Mother Joyce, were working as they had never worked before, taking from the hold the golden bars, each a load for a strong man, and staggering on deck with them in their arms. In vain, Howard tried to check them; they only glared at him, cursed, and hurried back for another load. Joyce and his wife, too old for such labor42, soon had to give way, crying like children as they did so; but the others toiled43 on, hot, black with the grime of ages, half ill from the smells[209] of the shut, musty hold. Their muscles cracked; their backs ached; the sweat streamed down their faces, but still they kept on.
Sick at heart, Howard turned from the scene and wandered to the side of the galleon, where he stood, looking east, hoping the end of the zigzag44 channel might be somewhere in sight. In vain! As far as his eyes could serve, it stretched away.
Disappointed, his glance dropped to the open water of the channel close at hand, and he stood transfixed. Close beside the galleon, moored45 strongly fore8 and aft, lay a slender, queer-shaped boat about sixty feet long. It needed not the trained knowledge of the naval46 officer to tell that it was a submarine.
Intensely modern in its lines, it was as much out of place in that ancient company as would be a rifle in the hands of Cæsar’s legionaries. Howard’s mouth fairly dropped open as he gazed at it.
[210]But in a moment understanding came. This was the means of escape that Forbes had spoken of: safe, quick, and easy for one with the necessary technical knowledge; the gold on the galleon was part of the fortune that he wanted to get home in safety. No wonder he had been eager to enlist48 Howard’s aid; and he could have had it—had it all, if he had not presumed on his power to grasp the girl, too! Now he would lose all.
Dorothy had tired of the gold and was standing47 on the deck, looking wonderingly around. Howard called her, and together they descended49 to the lower deck of the galleon, and, slipping out through a port opposite to that by which they had entered, stepped easily out upon the deck of the submarine, which floated high in the water. With trembling fingers, Howard pushed back the bolts that held the manhole cover in place, lifted it off, and peered into the darkness of the interior. “I’ll be back in a moment,” he promised,[211] glancing up at Dorothy as he swung himself downward.
Soon he was back again with radiant features. “She’s in perfect condition, so far as I can tell without starting the engines,” he announced, “and I guess they are all right. She’s almost the latest type in submarines—gas-engine for running at the surface, and an electric motor for use below. Her oil-tanks are full, and she has an extra supply in glass jars and plenty of other necessary stores. Unless there’s something wrong about her that I can’t see, she’ll get us all to land without the least difficulty.”
“Where did she come from?”
“Straight from heaven, I guess. At least, I can’t imagine how else she got into the sea. No, stop! I believe— Yes, by George, that’s it. Maybe you remember that a Spanish cruiser was lost at sea two or three years ago—disappeared in a big storm and was never heard of again? If I remember rightly, she had[212] a submarine on board. This may be it. Yes! See! Here’s its name—Tiburon; that’s Spanish for Seashark. That cruiser must have drifted in here with it on board.”
“But where is she? How did this boat get here—to this very place?”
“I don’t know, but I can guess. Forbes must have brought it here. He threw out hints about such a boat the first time I talked with him. Yes, he must have brought it here. How he managed it I don’t know, and I don’t much care. The boat is ours now by that same law of salvage50 by which he claimed the Queen and her contents. What’s sauce for the goose will do for the gander. But think how marvellous it is that we should have come here, straight as a homingbird—to here! the exact place where he had left his gold and his boat. And, yet, after all, it is not quite so marvellous as it seems, since he could hardly have kept her anywhere except up this channel, and we have been following the line of it for miles.”
[213]“Can we get away on her?”
“Certainly! All of us, and more, too, if necessary.”
“But how will we get through the weed?”
“We won’t go through it. We’ll go under it. The weed isn’t thick, you know—only a few feet at most; it grows on top of the water, which is two miles deep here, and we’ll simply dive under it.”
“Safe? Surely! I have been down many a time in boats much like this. Of course—I won’t deceive you—accidents are always possible, but there is really little risk, if the machinery52 works well. And we can’t tell about that till we try. Don’t be afraid, dear. God has been too good to us to let it all come to naught53 now.”
“I’m not afraid, Frank. I’m not afraid anywhere with you, my king of men.”
[214]Howard had something to say to this, but it is scarcely worth setting down; lovers’ confidences seldom are. By and by he started up. “I’m afraid we’re as mad one way as those people on the galleon are in another,” he smiled. “I’m wasting valuable time that should be used in getting you out of this before Forbes finds us. He’s sure to be looking up this place very soon.”
A thought struck Dorothy. “Oh, those poor people!” she exclaimed. “Can’t you take some of their gold for them, Frank? A little money will mean so much to the Joyces. They are too old to go to work again, and——”
“It would come in rather handy with me, too. But I don’t see— By George! Yes, I think I do! Let’s look.” He dived down again into the body of the submarine and soon reappeared, his face radiant.
“There is about five tons of detachable lead ballast in the bottom,” he cried,[215] joyously54. “We can take it out, and put gold in its place—two million dollars’ worth. If you will wait here. I’ll go and tell the others. Maybe they are tired enough to listen to reason now.”
They were! Howard found them all sitting glumly55 on the deck of the galleon, glaring despairingly at the great pile of gold bars they had extracted from the hold. One by one they had dropped their loads and sank down where they stood, when, with increasing weariness, the situation had at last dawned upon them. When Howard approached, they did not heed56 him further than to cast savage57 glances in his direction. Then they returned to contemplation of the gold.
Howard understood the situation without words. “You oughtn’t to have worked so hard,” he observed, in a matter-of-fact tone. “You, especially, Joyce. And you, Mrs. Joyce. You’ll feel this to-morrow. But now that you have gotten all the gold up here, I’m glad to tell[216] you that I’ve got a boat outside that will carry us, and just about this much gold besides—say a third of a million for each of us. The rest, I’m afraid, we’ll have to abandon.”
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1
vessel
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| n.船舶；容器，器皿；管，导管，血管 | |
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wreck
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| n.失事，遇难；沉船；vt.(船等)失事，遇难 | |
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conspiring
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| 密谋( conspire的现在分词 )； 搞阴谋； （事件等）巧合； 共同导致 | |
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detours
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| 绕行的路( detour的名词复数 )； 绕道，兜圈子 | |
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5
wrecks
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| n.沉船( wreck的名词复数 )；（事故中）遭严重毁坏的汽车（或飞机等）；（身体或精神上）受到严重损伤的人；状况非常糟糕的车辆（或建筑物等）v.毁坏[毁灭]某物( wreck的第三人称单数 )；使（船舶）失事，使遇难，使下沉 | |
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6
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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7
mutual
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| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
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8
fore
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| adv.在前面；adj.先前的；在前部的；n.前部 | |
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wreckage
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| n.（失事飞机等的）残骸，破坏，毁坏 | |
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hull
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| n.船身；(果、实等的)外壳；vt.去(谷物等)壳 | |
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11
tarnished
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| （通常指金属）（使）失去光泽，（使）变灰暗( tarnish的过去式和过去分词 )； 玷污，败坏 | |
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12
loomed
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| v.隐约出现，阴森地逼近( loom的过去式和过去分词 )；隐约出现，阴森地逼近 | |
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protruded
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| v.（使某物）伸出，（使某物）突出( protrude的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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cannon
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| n.大炮，火炮；飞机上的机关炮 | |
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15
overflowing
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| n. 溢出物,溢流 adj. 充沛的，充满的 动词overflow的现在分词形式 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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amazement
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| n.惊奇，惊讶 | |
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triumphant
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| adj.胜利的，成功的；狂欢的，喜悦的 | |
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triumphantly
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| ad.得意洋洋地；得胜地；成功地 | |
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galleon
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| n.大帆船 | |
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vessels
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| n.血管( vessel的名词复数 )；船；容器；（具有特殊品质或接受特殊品质的）人 | |
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galleons
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| n.大型帆船( galleon的名词复数 ) | |
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mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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25
insinuated
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| v.暗示( insinuate的过去式和过去分词 )；巧妙或迂回地潜入；（使）缓慢进入；慢慢伸入 | |
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defiantly
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| adv.挑战地，大胆对抗地 | |
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missionary
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| adj.教会的，传教(士)的；n.传教士 | |
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averred
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| v.断言( aver的过去式和过去分词 )；证实；证明…属实；作为事实提出 | |
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planks
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| （厚）木板( plank的名词复数 )； 政纲条目，政策要点 | |
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plight
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| n.困境，境况，誓约，艰难；vt.宣誓，保证，约定 | |
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mingled
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| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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buckles
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| 搭扣，扣环( buckle的名词复数 ) | |
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rending
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| v.撕碎( rend的现在分词 )；分裂；（因愤怒、痛苦等而）揪扯（衣服或头发等）；（声音等）刺破 | |
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35
babbled
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| v.喋喋不休( babble的过去式和过去分词 )；作潺潺声（如流水）；含糊不清地说话；泄漏秘密 | |
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36
poise
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| vt./vi. 平衡，保持平衡；n.泰然自若，自信 | |
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utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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undoubtedly
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| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
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40
unwillingness
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| n. 不愿意，不情愿 | |
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41
detriment
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| n.损害；损害物，造成损害的根源 | |
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42
labor
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| n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦 | |
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43
toiled
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| 长时间或辛苦地工作( toil的过去式和过去分词 )； 艰难缓慢地移动，跋涉 | |
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44
zigzag
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| n.曲折，之字形；adj.曲折的，锯齿形的；adv.曲折地，成锯齿形地；vt.使曲折；vi.曲折前行 | |
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45
moored
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| adj. 系泊的 动词moor的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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46
naval
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| adj.海军的，军舰的，船的 | |
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47
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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48
enlist
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| vt.谋取(支持等)，赢得；征募；vi.入伍 | |
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49
descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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50
salvage
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| v.救助，营救，援救；n.救助，营救 | |
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51
shuddered
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| v.战栗( shudder的过去式和过去分词 )；发抖；（机器、车辆等）突然震动；颤动 | |
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52
machinery
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| n.(总称)机械，机器；机构 | |
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53
naught
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| n.无，零 [=nought] | |
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54
joyously
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| ad.快乐地, 高兴地 | |
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glumly
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| adv.忧郁地，闷闷不乐地；阴郁地 | |
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56
heed
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| v.注意，留意；n.注意，留心 | |
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57
savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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