The Voodoo Gold Trail Part 39

"The boss was a bit dumpish tonight," he said. "'Ee was bloomin' tired, an' 'ee's sleepin' sixty mile to the minute right now."

While we feasted on the bird, Norris pumped Hawkins for details of Duran's doings; and it was indeed little that was enlightening that he got out of the fellow. But he got loquacious with reminiscences of his own past life as a pickpocket; and while Norris pretended to get much amus.e.m.e.nt out of that poor, misguided human's escapades in crime, we were not sorry when he made his way off to the huts to seek his bed.

On the morrow we began the day with much the same employment. But the day was not far gone when things suddenly took on a changed aspect.

Norris, who (true to his nature) found the suspense unbearable, determined on a bold move. It was when Duran was returning from his first trip with a load, Norris followed him into that jungle on the far side of the clearing. He meant this time to see where Duran went for his gold. The rest of us lay in the shelter from which we had watched Duran the day before.

It was not ten minutes after Duran, and Norris on his trail, had been swallowed up in the growth over there, that Duran suddenly appeared again, this time without his pack. And he seemed to be in excitement.

And he made off, running down the path, directly disappearing from our

sight in a turning.

"I'll bet he saw Norris," said Robert.

"Come," I said.

And I set off, followed by Robert. When we got across that ridge, of which I have spoken, we got a view down the open s.p.a.ce. And there, nearing the top of his rope ladder, we saw Duran climbing.

In another moment he was hauling up his rope ladder; and quickly he got both ladder and halliard on the cliff-top.

CHAPTER XXVIII

WE ARE TRAPPED--THE BATTLE

We turned back, when Duran had pa.s.sed out of our view on the cliff-top.

Lest he should be watching, we still kept ourselves within the edge of the wood, till we had recrossed the ridge where the trees covered all of the ground. And there on the path we met the others and Norris, looking a little embarra.s.sed, I thought. Doubtless, he was conscious that he had in his impetuosity discovered himself to Duran, and so spilled the soup, as it were. He did not mention it, and no one taxed him with it; but I know the thought punished him, and made him for a time a bit humble.

"He pulled the ladder and all up with him," I reported.

"And where is the polecat running to, do you suppose?" queried Ray.

And no one had an answer to that which he thought fit to give voice to.

I doubt not, each one of us had pretty much the same thought, one that he dreaded to hear echoed by some other.

We were properly immured in this sink, of that we were all well a.s.sured.

For we had Andy Hawkins' story of the times--in the two years--that he had made the round of those craggy walls in search of a possible escape.

It was a silent cavalcade that marched back to the clearing, and up to where Hawkins and the black boy were busy in the diggings. We gave them the news of Duran's precipitate flight, and Hawkins gave it little more thought than to "'ope 'ee didn't carry hoff the brown stuff," (meaning the opium) and "Hi'd give my 'and to know where 'ee keeps it."

Carlos, I noticed, had some private word with the black boy, and the two soon were gone into the brush together. The lad soon came back, and I egged on Jean Marat to question him as to what Carlos might be up to.

For answer he led the two of us to where we found Carlos kneeling beside the skeleton of a human--it was in a patch of vines.

When finally Carlos discovered us, looking on wonderingly, he beckoned us. "My father," he said, in explanation. And he held up a gold cross that was on a chain that still hung on the ghastly figure.

And then Carlos got to his feet. "Duran--" he began, but the rest of the speech stuck in his throat. And I saw a look in his face that I had seen there before, and which boded ill for Duran.

With the black boy's help he had at last found the grave of his father.

And such a grave! It went indeed hard with the elder Brill. The spoiler of his mine, and his murderer, had not even given him decent burial. We sent for the others; and then and there we dug a grave, and Norris was able to summon out of his memory a few words of the burial service. We left Carlos kneeling beside the mound. And when he rejoined us, much comfort showed in his face.

That bit of experience somehow drove, in large part, the gloom from our spirits, and we went about our further doings with more semblance of cheer.

Norris volunteered to go down and watch for Duran's possible return. I guessed his thought; that he felt that his bungling, in allowing himself to be discovered, had made him deserve this less agreeable task. The rest of us set ourselves to the business of searching out Duran's hidden storehouse. In spite of our zeal and numbers, the afternoon was nearly gone, and we no nearer the solution. We explored that cavern that Andy Hawkins had told us of; and moved forward in a pa.s.sage that went upward in its windings. I marvelled at the singular freshness of the air, till--having traversed some couple of hundred yards--I discovered the reason. The cave had but the one gallery, and that ended in a chimney, just over our heads where we now stood, and through which showed the light of day. That little opening, in which a hat would have stuck, was high in the cliff-side, as we were to learn.

Ray and I hurried down the path in the dark, to Norris, to report our failure and to relieve him on watch. But he refused to budge from the place.

"I gave us all away," he said, "and now I'm going to make it up somehow.

I'm going to make that skunk show us where he's got the stuff. And he'll do it, too, when I tell him a few of the things I've seen done to carca.s.ses like him."

When he would not leave the watch to us, we decided to remain with him.

He was not cheerful.

"You see," began Ray, then, "you'll have us to prove things by, when you're trying to convince that polecat. You'll say 'Isn't that so, Ray?'

And I'll answer, 'Yes, that's so, Norris.' And then Wayne, here, he'll say, 'Yes, Norris, that's right, I know, because you never tell--'"

"Hist!" I interrupted him. "Listen."

Some little time back I thought I heard a thing like thunder, far back in the mountains. But it had been momentary, and I set it down as an illusion. While Ray prattled his nonsense, I seemed to hear it again. We c.o.c.ked our ears, but heard not even so much as the trill of a tree-toad.

"Ah, say," began Ray, "What--" And this time he interrupted himself, to listen.

There was that quavering, rolling, rumble that we had heard weeks before. Each succeeding wave of sound seemed to join with, and accentuate, the preceding. And then came a decadency, like a wagon rolling out of ear-shot. And again--we could not tell just the moment we began to hear the sound--there came from afar that eerie rumble, swelling, slowly to die away once more.

"The voodoo drum," said Ray. "Some more voodoo doings--that's what he went for."

"Yes," said Norris, "and I'm afraid we'll have a _taste_ of some more voodoo doings before we get through."

Neither of us cared to ask Norris what he meant. We continued to give ear to that weird music for long; and to each of us it seemed full of a portent; and each dreaded to hear another put it in words.

I do not know how many hours we three continued to squat there, at the edge of the wood; seldom talking, and then avoiding the thought uppermost in our minds. But at last it came, and we heard voices over by the cliff wall. They were coming down the rope ladder.

We rose to our feet, and scurried off in the edge of the wood, till we crossed the ridge and came to the beginning of the path. And there we crouched in the brush and waited.

At last came the stealthy, black figures, moving in silence, and in single file. We counted twenty as they went by us, and each carried some kind of gun. My heart pounded with the emotion; I have never before nor since experienced such fear as gripped me at sight of the martial array.

When they had pa.s.sed, we got over across the stream to our friends, and gave them our ill news. The coming of those twenty dusky voodoos could have but the one explanation: Duran had brought them to hunt down, and destroy, the six of us. He would madden them with rum, mixed with the blood of fowls, and sick them on to us. And he made sure of us, since there was but the one exit from this vale; and there he doubtless had stationed some trusty black at the cliff-top, to keep the ladder and the halliard, till he should have need of it--when the work shall have been completed.

We trapped ones, got our heads together for some talk of our situation.

How we lamented our lack of foresight, in leaving behind our arms and ammunition! Norris's lone rifle, with but a handful of cartridges, would but delay for a little the inevitable end. But for a time I had had my mind full of a wild thought. And I pulled Norris to one side, and opened the thing to him. My plan was so desperate that I hadn't the courage to tell it to anyone less bold spirited than he. It was no less than to employ that under-water way that Duran had used to transport the gold--to sink into the stream and be carried through that hole, and fetch up within that cavern; and so out to our camp in the forest, and return with the three rifles and the ammunition by way of the ladder--that was the plan.

Norris seized me by the arms. "The very thing!" he said, "----if it can be done. We'll find out!"

When we told the others of the plan, they took it without enthusiasm; declared it impossible--suicidal.

"You've no idea how far it is in to the cave," said Ray.