“Over nine months!” ejaculated the other in tones of intense surprise. “Well, nobody’d think as you’d been a castaway for nine months, to look at ye. Why, you look strong and healthy enough, and as smartly rigged as though you’d just stepped out of the most dandy outfitter’s in the Minories!”
“Oh, but there is nothing very wonderful in that,” laughingly protested Leslie. “Nine months of life, practically in the open air all the time, is just the thing to keep a man fit, you know; while as for my ‘rig,’ I found a big stock of clothes among the Mermaid’s cargo, and I have drawn freely upon that.”
“Nine months on the island,” repeated Turnbull, still dwelling upon that particular fact; “why, I s’pose you know every inch of the ground ashore there by this time?”
There was a certain ill-suppressed eagerness in the tones of the man’s voice as he asked this question that acted very much as a danger-signal to Leslie. It seemed to suggest that thus far the man had merely been fencing with him, but that he was now trying to get within his guard; that, in short, the object of the Minerva’s visit to the island was nearing the surface. He therefore replied, with studied carelessness—
“No, indeed I do not. On the contrary, I know very little of it—not nearly as much as I ought to know. I have been to the summit once, and took a general survey of the island from that point, and I have wandered for a short distance about the less densely bush-clad ground on this side of the island; but that is about all. The fact is that I was much too keen upon saving everything I possibly could out of the brig to think of wasting my time in wandering about an island the greater part of which is covered with almost impassable bush.”
“Ah, yes; I s’pose you would be,” rejoined Turnbull, with an expression of relief that set Leslie wondering.
What on earth did it matter to Turnbull whether he—Dick Leslie—had explored the island or not? he asked himself. Turnbull’s next remark let in a little light upon the obscurity, and distinctly startled Leslie. For, staring steadfastly at the island, the burly man presently observed—
“Yes; it’s a fine big island, that, and no mistake. With a mountain on it and all, too. I should say, now, that that island would be a very likely place for caves, eh? Looks as though there might be any amount of caves ashore there in the sides of that there hill, don’t it?”
Caves! Like a flash of lightning the true explanation of the Minerva’s visit stood clearly revealed to Leslie’s mind. That one word “caves,” spoken as it was in tones of mingled excitement and anxiety, ill-suppressed, had furnished him with the key to the entire enigma. Caves! Yes, of course; that was it; that explained everything—or very nearly everything—that had thus far been puzzling Leslie, and gave him practically all the information that he had been so anxious to acquire. He had read of such incidents in books, of course, but had so far regarded them merely as pegs whereon to hang a more or less ingeniously conceived and exciting romance; but here was a similar incident occurring in actual prosaic earnest; and he suddenly found himself confronted with a situation of exceeding difficulty. For the mention by Turnbull of the word “caves”—careless and casual as he fondly believed it to be, but actually exceedingly clumsy—had in an instant driven home to Leslie’s mind the conviction that somehow or other this man had become possessed of information of the existence of the treasure on this island, and had come to take it away! By what circuitous chain of events the information had fallen into the fellow’s hands it was of course quite impossible to guess; but that this was the explanation of everything Dick was fully convinced. And now that he possessed the clue he could not only guard his own tongue against the betrayal of information, but could also doubtless so order his remarks as to extort from some one or another of his visitors all the details that he himself might require. So, in reply to Turnbull’s last remark, he said carelessly—
“Caves! oh, really I don’t know; very possibly there may be—unless the earthquake has shaken them all in and filled them up—”