As the three men were wending their way down to the beach, Leslie’s eyes happened to fall upon the case of rifle and revolver ammunition from which he had been drawing his supplies. It was the only case of ammunition that he possessed; and now, with a sudden fear that in the hurry of departure it might be forgotten, he said to Nicholls—
“See here, Nicholls, we might just as well be carrying something with us as go down to the catamaran empty-handed. If you and Simpson will lay hold of that case of ammunition, I will bring along half a dozen rifles, and we shall then be quite as well armed as there will be any need for us to be. We may not want them, but, on the other hand, we may, and if we should happen to want them at all, we shall probably want them very badly.”
Upon taking the cutter in tow it was found that she towed very lightly, offering only a trifling resistance to the catamaran after both had fairly got way upon them; and in little more than half an hour both craft were off the entrance to the cove. Yet so cunningly had Nature concealed it that though Leslie knew almost to an inch where to look for it, he had the utmost difficulty in finding it, and had he not possessed a personal knowledge of its existence, and therefore persisted in his search, he would never have found it. But, after passing the opening no less than four times without being able to find it, he managed to hit it off at his fifth attempt, and, ten minutes later, both craft were inside and snugly moored to the rocky side of the basin, the catamaran being placed innermost to protect the dainty, freshly painted sides of the cutter from chafe against the rock.
Nicholls and Simpson betrayed the profoundest astonishment and admiration at the singularly perfect adaptation of the cove to the purposes of a harbour for small craft, and could scarcely be persuaded to drag themselves away from the water’s edge. But when at length they had been induced to climb up the almost vertical face of the cliffs and found themselves at the mouth of the treasure-cave, their wonder at what they saw was greater than ever. They uttered loud exclamations of astonishment when they were invited to lift one of the hide-bound gold bricks, and felt the unexpected weight of it; but neither of them appeared to have the remotest suspicion of the real nature of the stuff they were handling, Nicholls merely commenting upon its excellence as ballast, and lauding Leslie’s wisdom in having decided to so use it instead of those portions of the lead castings that he had rejected. Indeed, both men appeared to regard the queer little black leather—bound blocks as merely something especially suitable for ballast, and taken by Dick for that purpose and reason alone; it was the massive, ancient-looking, carved chests, with their elaborate binding of rusty metal-work that they appeared to regard as the receptacles of the “valuables” about the safety of which Leslie was so anxious.
They managed to get sixty of the gold bricks down aboard the cutter and stowed under her cabin floor that same afternoon, and by the time that they had accomplished this, the level rays of the declining sun warned them that the moment had arrived when they ought to be starting upon their march across country toward their camp.
The broken character of the country claimed a larger share of Leslie’s attention upon this occasion than when he had last visited the cave. Perhaps it was because his mind was now more at rest than it had then been—for the cutter that was at the former period merely a possibility, was now an actuality; and, more than that, already carried a very respectable little fortune snugly stowed away in her interior; or, possibly—who can tell?—there may have been some vague, unsuspected mental prevision that ere long an intimate knowledge of every detail of those curiously shapeless earthquake upheavals would be of priceless value to him. Be that as it may, he now looked about him with the eyes of the warrior rather than the explorer, noting with astonishment the wonderful way in which the earthquake had split and piled up the rocks into the form of a natural impregnable fortress, including both the cavern and the basin. There was one point, and one only, at which this natural fortress could be entered, and upon his previous visit he had passed through it twice without noting this fact; now, however, he not only took notice of it, but saw also that a small rampart, composed of a dozen or so of stones, that could be arranged in five minutes, would enable a single man to hold the place against an army, or, at all events, so long as his ammunition held out. So strongly did this idea impress itself upon him that he could not resist the temptation to actually construct this small rampart then and there.
“Stop a moment, you two,” he cried; “I have a fancy for trying a little experiment. Just bring me along a few of the heaviest pieces of rock that you can conveniently handle.”
And, seizing a block himself, he carried it to a certain point, and threw it on the ground. Then on and about this he piled the others that were brought to him until, within ten minutes, he had constructed a breastwork of dimensions sufficient to efficiently screen one man from the fire of an enemy, while it enabled him, through a small loophole, to effectually enfilade the one only spot at which that enemy could possibly enter. He flung himself down behind the barricade and peeped through the loophole. The defence was now complete.
“There,” he exclaimed, in tones of perfect satisfaction, “if anybody should ever come here in the future, and require a citadel upon which to retreat against overwhelming odds, this is the place. And so long as he can command the nerve to remain behind this barricade and maintain a steady rifle-fire upon that narrow gap—through which, as you may see, only one man can pass at a time—he will be absolutely safe. Well, thank God, we are not likely to need its protection, for we ought to be at sea on the third evening from now.”
The following day was devoted by the three men to the task of putting the remainder of the gold bricks on board the cutter; and this they succeeded in accomplishing before knocking-off work for the day; but it meant that they had to work hard and late to do it. Meanwhile Flora was equally busily engaged upon the work of getting together, from the heterogeneous assortment of clothing that had formed part of the Mermaid’s cargo, a sufficient stock to see her through her two months’ voyage to the other side of the Pacific. Knowing that she was thus engaged, and would doubtless be fatigued by the time that she had arrived at the end of her day’s work, Leslie was considerably surprised when, having traversed about half the distance between the cove and the camp, he encountered her; she having evidently walked out from the camp to meet him. Moreover he saw at once that this encounter was not merely the result of a natural desire on the part of a girl to meet her lover, it was something more momentous than that, for there was an excited look in her eyes that there was no mistaking. So, doffing his cap to her as she joined his little party, he said, with a smile—