Faced with the failure of his coup d'etat, Mr. Tubbs's situation was, to say the least, awkward. He had risked all, and lost it. But he maintained an air of jaunty self-confidence, slightly tinged with irony. It was all very well, he seemed to imply, for us to try to get along without H. H. We would discover the impossibility of it soon enough.
Aunt Jane, drooping, had been led away to the cabin by Miss Higglesby-Browne. You now heard the voice of Violet in exhortation, mingled with Aunt Jane's sobs. I seemed to see that an ear of Mr. Tubbs was cocked attentively in that direction, He had indeed erred in the very wantonness of triumph, for a single glance would have kept Aunt Jane loyal and prodigal of excuses for him in the face of any treachery. Not even Violet could have clapped the lid on the up-welling fount of sentiment in Aunt Jane's heart. Only the cold condemning eye of H. H. himself had congealed that tepid flood.
The morning wore on with ever-increasing heat, and as nothing happened I began to find my watchful waiting dull. Crusoe, worn out perhaps by some private nocturnal pig-hunt, slept heavily where the drip of the spring over the brim of old Heintz's kettle cooled the air. Aunt Jane's sobs had ceased, and only a low murmur of voices came from the cabin. I began to consider whether it would not be well to take a walk with Cuthbert Vane and discover the tombstone all over again. I knew nothing, of course, of Mr. Tubbs's drastic measures with the celebrated landmark. As to Cuthbert's interrupted courtship, I depended on the vast excitement of discovering the cave to distract his mind from it. For that was the idea, of course—Cuthbert Vane and I would explore the cave, and then whenever I liked I could prick the bubble of Mr. Tubbs's ambitions, without relating the whole strange story of the diary and the Island Queen. I was immensely pleased already by the elimination of Mr. Tubbs from the number of those who need have a finger in the golden pie. I thought that perhaps with time and patience I might coax events to play still further into my hand.
But meanwhile the cave drew me like a magnet. I jealously desired to be the first to see it, to snatch from Mr. Tubbs the honors of discovery. And I wanted to know about poor Peter—and, the doubloons that he had gone back to fetch.
But already Captain Magnus had forsaken the post of duty and departed on an unknown errand. Could I ask Cuthbert Vane to do it, too? And then I smiled a smile that was half proud. I might ask him—but he would refuse me. In Cuthbert's simple code, certain things were "done," certain others not. Among the nots was to fail in standing by a friend. And just now Cuthbert was standing by Dugald Shaw. Therefore nods and becks and wreathed smiles were vain. In Cuthbert's quiet, easy-mannered, thick-headed way he could turn his back calmly on the face of love and follow the harsh call of duty even to death. It would not occur to him not to. And he never would suspect himself of being a hero—that would be quite the nicest part of it.
And yet I knew poor Cuthbert was an exploded superstition, an anachronism, part of a vanishing order of things, and that the ideal which was replacing him was a boiler-plated monster with clock-work heart and brain, named Efficiency. And that Cuthbert must go, along with his Jacobean manor and his family ghost, and the oaks in the park, and everything else that couldn't prove its right to live except by being fine and lovely and full of garnered sweetness of the past—
At this point in my meditations the door of the cabin opened and Miss Browne came out, looking sternly resolute. Aunt Jane followed, very pink about the eyes and nose. She threw an anxious fluttering glance at Mr. Tubbs, who sat up briskly, and in a nervous manner polished with a large bandana that barren zone, his cranium, which looked torrid enough to scorch the very feet of the flies that walked on it. It was clear that on the lips of Miss Browne there hovered some important announcement, which might well be vital to the fortunes of Mr. Tubbs.
With a commanding gesture Miss Browne signaled the rest to approach. Mr. Tubbs bounced up with alacrity. Mr. Shaw and Cuthbert obeyed less promptly, but they obeyed. Meanwhile Violet waited, looking implacable as fate.
"And where is Captain Magnus?" she demanded, glancing about her.
But no one knew what had become of Captain Magnus.