“Please God, no,� I repeated, as we retraced our steps down the cliff and along the winding path, Mistress Lucy gaining strength and color as we passed at last out of sight of the hideous platform.
CHAPTER XIV
WHEREIN WE FIND THE TREASURE
IT was necessary to retrace our steps along the path to the foot of the great stairs in the island wall. There were treeless meadows here and there on the way, where we rested, and a lovely brook of cool, delicious water where we broke our fast, though it was not yet noon; but the openings or clearings all stopped before they reached the foot of the outer wall which was almost hidden in vegetation. I remembered the paths which had led off on either side from the stairs, too. We followed one to the north easily enough. It was not like the highway over which we had just come, being only partially paved, although it had once been thoroughly cleared, and the rise of the wall was such that it was still practicable. We turned to the right, plunged beneath the trees and pressed resolutely on, keeping as close to the main wall as possible.
This wall to our left was dotted with openings of caves, but none of them seemed to fit the description we carried in our memories. The undergrowth deepened and grew denser as we progressed, and finally I had to open a way with my axe. The tangled masses soon gave way before my sturdy energy, and at last we entered a considerable open space which extended to the wall. There above us were the three openings beneath the depression in the crest; surely enough, the one in the middle being greater than the others. I deemed that the entrance would be high enough to admit me, who am much above the usual stature, without bending my head. It was elevated halfway up the surface of the cliff, and the only approach to it was by the great heap of stones, not laid up with the order and regularity of the giant stairs, but apparently piled together haphazard by people unskilled to make any other practical way of ascent.
It was difficult enough for us to climb just as it was. The heap of stones evidently had not been mounted for years, and the stones had broken and fallen away in many places. Indeed, we had to rebuild the pile here and there, which entailed some hours of arduous labor on my part, in which my lady would participate until I laughingly threatened to take my belt and strap her to the nearest tree unless she desisted. Whereat, smiling strangely, she stopped and, sitting down near by, watched me at work in silence.
Reaching the top at last we stood on a shelf in front of the cave mouth. I peered within but could see nothing but the blackness. When we left the ship we had taken a lantern and a few candles, you remember. I had brought the lantern with me that day. We now lighted it with the flint and steel and tinder and stepped silently in. My lady followed me close, being, as she had said, unwilling to be left alone, and ever ready to face any peril in my company.
Above the low entrance the cave wall within rose to a height of perhaps twenty feet, making a vast vaulted chamber with Gothic suggestions about it, for the coral, before it hardened, had been built into curious shapes and fantastic figures. We did not notice this so much at first, for with a wild shriek, my gentle companion suddenly caught my arm and pointed downward.
The floor, like that of the central altar on the hill we had just left, was covered with human bones, a gruesome sight for anyone, and certainly for a woman, and made more gruesome because of the dull lighting of the cave. These bones also were bleached white and had evidently been there a long time. We could scarcely take a step without treading upon them. I had all I could do to keep my mistress from running back toward the mouth and thence to the ground and it was not until I had reassured her again and again that she would consent to go on further.
As we had been compelled to pass on by our desire to get our bearings before, so if we were to get the treasure we would have to suffer this now. I think if it had not been that her previous experience on the hillock had somehow given her some confidence, my lady could not have endured this sight, treasure or no treasure. But she was a brave woman and when I urged that we were not to be balked in our search of thousands of leagues by dead men’s bones which, though horrible, were after all quite harmless, she summoned her courage and we went on.
As our eyes became accustomed to the light, for indeed the candle lantern cast but a dim radiance over the vast apartment and the entrance was so small comparatively that little daylight came through, we saw off to the right against that side of the cave the same kind of an altar built of the same stones as on the hill, though much smaller and surmounted by a similar image as ugly as the others, though nearer the human size. Bones of human beings, men, women and children I judged from the difference in sizes, lay before it, and there were heaps of bones on the floor around it. It came across me that it was another altar of sacrifice, and that the worshipers had also been eaters of flesh—cannibals! For I reasoned that in that island and especially in that dry cave, the bodies of the sacrificed would have been dried up, assuming the shape of mummies, if left to themselves. And I wondered if every cave possessed a similar altar, and if the whole island had simply been a place of sacrifice and death for some prehistoric race living in other islands round about, like those on the horizon we could still see; or perhaps long ages ago engulfed in some great cataclysm of nature and sunk beneath the ocean these thousands of years and then raised again.