“Since we have decided to visit the cave,” Captain Seaworth said, as the council of war was brought to a close, “I believe it should be done without loss of time. The apes have received such a punishment as will probably prevent them from renewing hostilities until after they have recovered somewhat from the effects of the battle, and the journey can be made more safely to-morrow morning than twelve hours later.”
“You might also continue, captain, by saying that it would be safer to go now than wait eighteen hours,” Mr. Clark said.
Instead of replying, Captain Seaworth looked at Philip questioningly, and the latter said, after a brief time of thought:
“I am of the opinion that the attempt should be made at once. We can return by sunset, and it will then be possible to take advantage of the night-breeze to get under way.”
There was no necessity for any further discussion, and preparations for the journey were begun without delay.
As a matter of course it was necessary to leave behind as many of the able-bodied men as would be sufficient to work the boats, because it was unsafe to moor the little crafts where the apes might destroy or set them adrift, and after the crew had been told off for this purpose there were but twenty-two uninjured ones to go in search of the treasure.
Few as these were in number, they made a formidable host because of their weapons. Each carried a repeating-rifle, two revolvers, and a cutlass, with ammunition enough to continue a spirited engagement for at least an hour.
The afternoon was not more than half spent when the little party was conveyed from the ship to the shore, and, forming in a column of fours, marched up the southern avenue to the ruins of the village, each man on the alert for the slightest suspicious sound which should betoken the coming of the enemy.
During the march they took note of one singular fact—the absence of any dead or wounded apes.
It was in this avenue that they had seen scores of the enemy fall before the discharge of the cannon, and it was not probable they had killed less than a hundred. On the foliage were stains of blood, and the broken surface of the road showed where the soil had absorbed the life-blood of many a human being as well as animal; but there were no other traces of the fray. Several times did Captain Seaworth and Philip leave the ranks to penetrate a short distance among the underbrush, but without gaining any information as to the disposition of the dead.