"He would have said a lot, and some of it would have been unfit for print. Why speculate? This is hardly the place, is it?"
"Oh," said I, "one place is as good as another for a man who has played the fool. Don't you see that we may have alarmed them on the ship. If Mary were not on board——"
He laughed.
"Well, do you think she'll have the vapours? Leave Mary out of it, if you please, my boy. What you're thinking of is neither my sister nor the ship. You are trying to tell yourself that there might be somebody on the hills after all. Now, isn't it so?"
I would not answer him, afraid to speak of foolish fancies and yet unable to deny them. The idea that we were not alone in that wild place had forced itself upon my mind directly the ship had been lost to our view; and it recurred now when I took up the oars and began to pull the dinghy through the chasm. But, naturally, I said nothing to Roderick about it, and I believed that it would trouble me no more so soon as we came out upon the lake.
The great chasm, you should know, is nearly a quarter of a mile long, and the seaway twists and turns like the canals in Venice. It is so narrow in places that a horse might leap across, if he could find foothold; but his rider would have to search afar, for the walls of it are often sheer and sometimes they overhang like the eaves of a mediæval city. The upper end of it, where it opens into a lake, is a natural gateway, pillared by great bluffs, and certainly not thirty feet across. We used to go to and fro in a launch from Black's ship, and I remember that the cargo steamers, which brought the pirate's stores from America and Europe, made the passage easily, so that there must have been plenty of water there. What was my astonishment, then, to hear Roderick cry "easy" as we approached this gateway, and to find it barred right across with a formidable boom no ship could have passed.
"Hulloa," cried I; "and what now, Roddy?"
"Why," says he, quite calmly, "it would appear to be a tree."
"That's very odd," said I. "It must have been done by the commander of the Invincible when he was here last autumn. Is there no way round, Roddy?"
We peered together at the obstacle and could espy no break in the barrier whatever. Huge baulks of timber had been piled one upon the other and bound together by a great iron chain which a gunshot hardly would have blasted. Carried to a height of five feet above the water, it was impossible to see over the boom; while upon our side the great height of the cliffs and the narrowness of the channel left us almost in black darkness.
"Well," said I, at last, "we shan't sup in Black's house to-night, and that's sure and certain, Roddy. Hold on with the boat-hook while I take a peep. We came here to climb, you know, and may as well begin now. Steady, old man, the dinghy isn't a billiard table, remember. That's better; and now hold tight."
I got a foothold on one of the baulks as I spoke, and, pulling myself up by the chain, I stood at length on the summit of the boom, and looked out over the lake which had been the object of our journey. Not for one instant did the whole meaning of what I saw occur to me. The beauty of the scene, the wondrous light of mingled moon and sun, the wide expanse of the unruffled water, the shimmer of the distant snow-fields, these held my eyes spellbound. What fearful hours I had known by that lake-side when the dead pirate ruled it! There, yonder, he had buried a man alive in the snow. Southward I could point to the caverns where the dead slept and the treasure lay. Northward were the habitations of Black's men; the houses on the beach; the caves in the hill-side; the Master's house. One by one I noted the familiar landmarks and dwelt upon them. The truth, the meaning of what I saw, came but slowly. Perhaps I feared to tell it even to Roderick, lest I should be mistaken. And I sat and watched, as a man may watch an enemy's camp at the dead of night.
A lantern swung upon the hill-side. It danced from ledge to ledge of the rock as a giant fire-fly hovering. I saw it pass from the beach, up the iron ladder, to the door by which I, myself, had entered in when first I met the great Captain. There for an instant the light was enveloped by a brighter aureole, showing me the figures of men upon the platform, and of others in the doorway behind them. As swiftly the vision passed, twilight fell. The waters ebbed silently at the foot of the boom; the sun still glinted upon the sparkling snow of the greater heights. I realised that Roderick was hailing me from the dinghy below.
"Well, old Rameses, and what now?"
"Hush!" cried I, leaping down to him headlong. "The Yankees are here, and we are beaten, Roddy!"
He did not say a word. We pushed the dinghy off and rowed back to the ship as though an alarm had been sounded and the pursuit begun.
CHAPTER V
THE MURDER ON THE SHIP
They were working the great searchlight on the bridge deck of the Celsis when we rounded the bluff, and its clear white arc fell magnificently upon the unruffled waters. Here I ceased to row; and, remembering with some sense that the same barrier which forbade our passage would forbid the passage to others, I lay upon my oars and watched the lantern's path. Perhaps I thought that the hills might have their tale to tell. Fear of pursuit had given place to sense of security. There lay our own good ship, a ready haven, and one whose deck a man might tread proudly. The heights about the fiord, the high rocks and the low, revealed but their nakedness when the white light searched them. Whoever had come to Ice Haven had made the lake-side his home; and that was wisdom, for by the lake the treasure lay.
"Roddy," I said, breathing as a man who has run a race, "this will be bad news for the men, Roddy——"
He shrugged his shoulders and lit a cigarette, just to show me how little he thought of it.
"It would have been worse news for us if we hadn't got back."
"Was there ever any doubt of our getting back?"
"Ill tell you now," he said, and very solemnly; "it's God's truth that I saw a man within a biscuit-toss of you as you leaped down from the boom. He had a gun in his hand, and I think it very wonderful that he did not fire it."
"Are you sure of it, Roddy?"
"As sure as this match shows me your white face, Mark. I dared not speak a word, and I'm glad I didn't. But I shan't be sorry to go on board again, and that's the truth. The black place gave me the creeps; I can't deny it."
I made no reply, just dipping my oars quietly and rowing the dinghy back to the ship. Captain York was at the gangway when we went up, and Mary, her head muffled in a white shawl, stood by his side. Again I reflected upon the folly which had brought her to Ice Haven. Had we not promised her that she should go ski-ing to-morrow?
"What!" cried I, "not in bed yet, Mary? don't you know it is nearly eleven o'clock?"
"Oh," says she, "and what an autocrat is this! Am I not 'out,' Mark? Would you 'finish' me again?" And then she asked me:
"Whatever have you been doing to get into that state, sir? Why, you're wet through, and—look, your hand is bleeding. Have you been fighting Roddy? I'm ashamed of you both. And please to come to my cabin to be bandaged—immediately, sir; I command it."
I suppose I had cut my hand as I climbed down from the boom; but I would not say a word about it, and as Mary loves nothing so much as bandaging somebody, I let her have her way. When it was done, she consented to admit that even a young lady who was "out" might properly turn in some time, and I left her and went up to the smoking-room, where I knew the others would be waiting for me.
This is a commodious cabin, right forward of the bridge, with large glass windows all round, and a couple of doors opening on the upper deck. I noticed as I went that the searchlight still played upon the hills, and the first question I put to the skipper had to do with the fact.
"So the watch doesn't like the sun, Captain?
He made no answer, inviting me to a chair