As the boats hurried in flight Messenger instantly saw the danger.
"We must clear in," said he, "and risk the ship, too. If any of them strike our hole, there's not a man among us who'll see the morning; and the boat's the difficulty."
"Fix her up some hundred yards down the creek, and trust to luck," said Kenner. "We can swarm in as I did."
"That's what I mean to do," said the other; "but there's no time to lose. If my eyes aren't blinded by the fire, that lugger, there, is making straight for our place."
The whole bay was now full of small boats, luggers, yawls, cutters, which scuttled away briskly before the advent of the pursuers. The majority of them were soon lost to view in the darker shadows of the far land, but many belonged to the village on the other side of the promontory; and a few—these principally row-boats of a large size—were steering, as Messenger first had observed, straight for the creek wherein the gold had been cast. This, however, was a wrong impression, and was quickly corrected. Presently the helm of the lugger which threatened the four was put down, and the craft lay with its nose pointing almost to the south of the bay. At the same moment the high land, to which the new course shaped, was lighted with the flare of many torches; and these gave illumination enough for the observers to see a party of men on horseback riding upon the cliffs; and at the head of the party was a woman, who seemed to be commanding those who followed.
Now before Messenger and the others had seen this they had brought their own craft into a deep fjord of the cliff, some quarter of a mile below their own haven; but the change of the other's course reassured them, and when they had lain a long while during the passing of the two boats, and the gradual clearing of the bay, they rowed back to their place of camping, and made fast their craft in a corner of the pool, where it was safe from the view of all those who should not expressly seek it. Thus they reached the chamber of the rock, and the place where Burke was; and for the first time since sundown could think of rest.
It had been a night eventful enough to be called, then and after, the terrible night; yet, with all their fatigue and overwhelming weariness, the four could not sleep. Burke lay almost insensible and stupefied where they had first put him; but the others, huddling over their cold food, and weighed down with the hazards of the situation, had no minds but for the metaphorical morrow with its possibilities and its dangers. And until the dawn they planned and schemed, and at every swish of water below them they looked to see a man-of-war's boat enter the cove.
Of the four Kenner appeared to suffer the deepest depression. He had said little since he saw the party of horsemen upon the cliff and the woman riding at the head of them; but when dawn was near, and Fisher and the nigger were at length lying in a heavy sleep upon the rocks, he turned to Messenger and spoke openly of his fears.
"Prince," said he, "do you remember three months ago at Monaco?"
"Perfectly," replied the other.
"And the Spanish woman?"
"I seem to recall some of your vapourings in that direction," Messenger answered languidly.
"Call 'em what you like. I'm referring to the witch with the teeth set in her head like glass in a brick wall—the woman and the girl with the pretty face. You've a mind to recollect them, perhaps?"
"Why should I remember them?"
"Didn't the youngster say that he saw the girl when he went ashore the other day?"
"You didn't believe that story, surely?" asked Messenger.
"I guess I did; and I'll tell you right here that the woman who rode on the cliffs to-night should have been her mother!"
"Should have been," said Messenger wearily; "how's that?"
"Because I know it I I can't tell you why, but I know it! Her name's the Countess Yvena, and I was with those who shot her husband in New Mexico."
The Prince, weary as he was, laughed outright at the story,
"Kenner," said he, "you should have been born a poet; you've got imagination! Now you speak of it, I remember your twaddle about having to meet her again, or something."
"That's what I know," said Kenner; "we'll meet again, and one of us will go under——"
"It's a fine tale, man," interrupted the Prince, "but you're wasting breath on it. Didn't we arrange an hour ago that you were to get away to Ferrol as soon as the dark and the cut-throats round here will let you ?"
"That's so," replied Kenner; "but I'll have to return."
"Well, what of that? Where does the woman come in? Besides, you're dreaming the whole thing! You don't mean to tell me seriously that the person we saw to-night is the same as the one who ate oysters with her fingers in the gardens at Monaco three months ago?"
"Wal, you reassure a man. Like enough, the kid's story set me thinking of it, and I'm not myself——"
"Are any of us any better off? " asked the Prince. "It's the want of food and rest; and we're not likely to get much of either until you return. But we trust in you. As I said an hour ago, if you can, with the aid of money, reach Ferrol in a couple of days, you'll find an American consul there. You won't forget that you wish to view the Basque provinces from the sea, and are seeking a yacht for that purpose. The smaller the ship you buy the better afterwards. We'll run round to Lisbon in the guise of mere pleasure-seekers, and then send you back to London to buy a steamer. Whatever they're doing there now in the way of taking us, they'll never look for our return; and a little good disguise should make the matter as easy as shelling peas."
"What if you're took before I can get back here?"
"I don't foresee anything of that sort. Europe's ringing with the tale of this robbery, of course. You may be quite sure that we're wanted in every big city, and there's employment for all the detectives living, and more. It's true that we've had a bit of a brawl with the shoremem here, but I don't think we've been sighted by any in authority; and while that continues to be so we're safe. The sharpest detective living can't have looked for the wreck of the yacht. If I was figuring this thing out on shore, I should expect the man who ran a cargo such as we ran to have shaped either for Buenos Ayres or for Rio. They may have searched the Spanish coast—like enough the iron-clad we saw yesterday was on that tack—but for our foundering, no, there will scarcely have been a man sharp enough to have foreseen that!"
"Wal," said Kenner, "you've hitched on to reason, and I'd shout glory with you if it wasn't for this notion of the woman which sticks in my head. Anyway, I start to-morrow night, and if I come back with a ship, you'll have nothing agen me. What I'm thinking of now is Burke."
"You're wasting time; he's a carcass like flint, and the heart of a bull. Three days should see him well: but come and look at him."
Upon this they both went to the place where the skipper was lying, and found him to be still feverish, but cooler, while he slept more restfully. When they had reassured themselves thus, the two, dawn having fully come, gave way to their fatigue, and, making what beds they could upon the hard rock, they fell to slumber at once and did not awake for many hours.
But on the following night, at the first fall of darkness, they put Kenner ashore some miles down the coast, and he, armed abundantly with sovereigns and carrying only his revolver, struck inland to gain the high road to Ferrol. And with him he took all the hope of the four that remained with the treasure, for upon his safety depended not only their success, but their very lives.
XIX. THE SECOND WRECKING
Seven days