CHAPTER XIII
IN THE ABBEY GROUNDS
We kept along the ridge of hill towards the east of the island, andmet no one, nor, indeed, were we likely to do. I could look down oneither side to the sea. I saw the cottages on the shore of New Grimsbyharbour on the one side, and on the other the house at Merchant'sPoint, and the half-dozen houses scattered on the grass at OldGrimsby, that went by the name of Dolphin Town, and nowhere was therea twinkle of light.
Tresco was in bed.
We descended a little to our left, and rounded the shoulder of thehill at the eastern end of the island, through a desolate moorland ofgorse; but once we had rounded the shoulder, we were in an instantamongst trees of luxuriant foliage, and in a hollow sheltered from thewinds. The Abbey ruins stood up from a small plateau in the bosom ofthe trees, its broken arches and columns showing very dismal againstthe sky, and everywhere fragments of crumbling wall cropped upunexpected through the grass.
The burial ground was close to an eel pond, which glimmered below,nearer to the sea, and a path overgrown with weeds wound downwards tothe graves.
I could not tell in which corner Adam Mayle was buried, so Roper wassent forward with the lantern to look amongst the headstones. For halfan hour he searched; the flame of the candle danced from grave tograve as though it were the restless soul of some sinner buried there.The men who remained with me grew impatient, for opposite to us,across the road, lay St. Mary's and the harbour of Hugh Town; and onthis clear night the speck of light in the Abbey grounds would bevisible at a great distance. I was beginning to wonder whether Adamhad a headstone at all to mark his resting-place, when a cry cameupwards to our ears and the lantern was swung aloft in the air.
One loud, unanimous shout answered that cry.
"Come," shouted Glen, and seizing hold of the end of the rope where itwent round my chest, he began to run down the path. The others jostledand tumbled after him in an extreme excitement. All discretion wastossed to the winds. They laughed, shouted, and leaped while they ranas though they already had the cross in their keeping. What with Glentugging at the end in front and the others pushing and thrusting at mefrom behind, it was more than I could do to keep my feet. Twice I fellforward on my knees and brought them to a stop. Glen turned upon me ina fury.
"Loose his hands then, George," said Tortue.
"No," returned George, with an oath, and he plucked on the rope untilsomehow I stumbled on to my feet, and we all set to running again.
Things were taking on an ugly look for me. Those men were growing tentimes more savage since the grave had been discovered; they were in aheat of excitement. In their movements, in their faces, in theirwords, a violent ferocity was evident. They had made their bargainwith me, but would they keep it once they had the plan in their hands?I had no doubt their arrangements were made for an instant departurefrom the islands. One could not be a day upon Tresco without hearingsome hint of the luggers which did a great smuggling trade betweenScilly and the port of Roscoff in Brittany. No doubt Glen and Tortuehad made their account with one of these to carry them into France. Iwas the more sure of this when Blads returned. I could not but thinkhe had been sent so that a boat might be ready, and it seemed unlikelythey would leave me alive behind them when the mere scruple of abargain only held their hands.
We were now come to the grave. It had a headstone but no slab to coverit; only a boulder from the seashore by which Adam had lived was witha pretty fancy imposed upon the mound.
Roper hung the lantern on to a knob of the headstone; and already Glenhad snatched the pick and thrust it under the boulder. It needed butone heave upon the pick, and the boulder tottered and rolled from thegrave with a crash. It stopped quite close to my feet. I looked at it,then I looked at the grave, and from the grave to the sailors. Butthey had noticed nothing; they were already digging furiously at thegrave. In their excitement they had noticed nothing; even Tortue waskneeling in the lantern-light watching the gleam of the spades,sensible of nothing but that each shovelful cast up on the sidebrought them by a shovelful nearer to their prize. And they dug withsuch furious speed, taking each his turn, each anticipating his turn!For before one man had stepped, dripping with sweat from the trench,another had leaped in, and the spade fell from one man's grasp intothe palm of another. Once a spade jarred upon a piece of rock, and theman who drove it into the earth cursed. I had a sudden flutter of hopethat the spade was broken, and that by so much the issue would bedelayed, but the digger resumed his work. I looked over to St. Mary's,but the town was quiet; one light gleamed, it was only the light atthe head of the jetty. And even in Tresco such infinitesimal chance ofinterruption as there had ever been had disappeared. For the men hadceased even from their oaths. There was not even a whisper to beshared amongst them; there was no sound but the laboured sound oftheir breathing. They worked in silence.
I had no longer any hope. I saw now and again Roper, as he slappeddown a spadeful of earth beside me, look with a grim significant smileat me, and perhaps his fellow would catch the look and imitate it. Inoticed that George Glen, as he took down the lantern from time totime and held it over the trench, would flash it towards me; and he,too, would smile and perhaps wink at Roper in the trench. The winksand smiles were easy as print to read. They were agreeing betweenthemselves: the unspoken word was going round; they did not mean tokeep their part of the bargain, and when they left the Abbey groundsthe mound upon Adam's grave would be a foot higher than when theyentered them.
But this unspoken understanding had no longer any power to frightenme. I tried to catch Peter Tortue's attention; I shuffled a footupon the ground; but he paid no heed. He was on all fours by thegrave-side peering into the trench, and I dared not call to him. Iwanted to contradict what I had said outside the shed upon thehillside. I wanted to whisper to him:
"The plan you search for is not there."
If they were meaning to break their part of the bargain it matteredvery little, for I was unable to keep mine.
I had suspected that from the moment the boulder was uprooted; I knewit a moment after the lantern was hung upon the headstone. The stonehad rested on that grave for two years, yet at the fresh pressure ofthe pick it had given and swayed and rolled from its green pedestal.It had tumbled at my feet, and there was not even a clot of earth or apebble clinging to it. Moreover, on the grave itself there was grasswhere it had rested. For all its weight, it had not settled into theground or so much as worn the herbage. Yet it had rested there twoyears!
The lantern was hung upon the headstone, and its light showed to methat close to the ground the headstone had been chipped. It was asthough some one had swung a pick and by mistake had struck the edge ofthe headstone. Moreover, whoever had swung the pick had swung itrecently. For whereas the face of the granite was dull andweatherbeaten, this chipped edge sparkled like quartz.
The aspect of the grave itself confirmed me. Some pains had been takento replace the sods of grass upon the top, but all about the mound,wherever the lantern-light fell, I could see lumps of fresh clay.
The grave had been opened, and recently--I did not stop then toconsider by whom--and secretly. It could have been opened but for theone reason. There would be no plan there for Glen to find.
Roper uttered an exclamation and stopped digging. His spade had strucksomething hard. Glen lowered the lantern into the trench, and thelight struck up on to his face and the face of the diggers.
I hazarded a whisper to Tortue, and certainly no one else heard it,but neither did Tortue. Roper struck his spade in with renewed vigour,and a stifled cry which burst at the same moment from the five mouthstold me the coffin-lid was disclosed. I whispered again the louder:
"Tortue! Tortue!" and with no better result.
The pick was handed down at Roper's call. I _spoke_ now, and at lasthe heard. He turned his head across his shoulder towards me, but heonly motioned me to silence. The pick rang upon wood, and now Icalled:
"T
ortue! Tortue!"
Still no one but Tortue heard. This time, however, he rose from hisknees and came to me. Glen looked up for an instant.
"See that he is fast!" he said, and so looked back into the grave.
"What is it?" asked Tortue.
"The plan has gone. Loose my hands!"
I could no longer see Roper; he had stooped down below the lip of thetrench.
"Gone!" said Tortue. "How?"
"Some one has been here before you, but within this last week, I'llswear. Loose my hands."
"Some one!" he exclaimed savagely. "Who? who?" and he shook me by thearms.
"I do not know."
"Swear it."
"I do. Loose my hands."
"Remember it is I who save you."
His knife was already out of his pocket; he had already muffled it inhis coat and opened it; he was making a pretence to see whether theend was still fast. I could feel the cold blade between the rope andmy wrist, when, with a shout. Roper stood erect, the stick in onehand, a sheet of paper flourishing in the other.
He drew himself out of the trench and spread the paper out on a pileof clay at the graveside. Glen held his lantern close to it. Therewere four streaming faces bent over that paper. I felt a tug at mywrists and the cord slacken as the knife cut through it.
"Take the rope with you," whispered Tortue.
The next moment there were five faces bent over that paper.
"On St. Helen's Island," cried Glen.
"Let me see!" exclaimed Tortue, leaning over his shoulder."Three--what's that?--chains. Three chains east by the compass of theeast window in the south aisle of the church."
And that was the last I heard. I stepped softly back into the darknessfor a few paces, and then I ran at the top of my speed westwardstowards New Grimsby, freeing my arms from the rope as I ran. Once Iturned to look back. They were still gathered about that plan; theirfaces, now grown small, were clustered under the light of the lantern,and Tortue, with his flashing knife-blade, was pointing out upon thepaper the position of the treasure. Ten minutes later I was well upthe top of the hill. I saw a lugger steal round the point from NewGrimsby and creep up in the shadow towards the Abbey grounds.
I spent that night in the gorse high up on the Castle Down. I had nomind to be caught in a trap at the Palace Inn.
From the top of the down, about an hour later, I saw the lugger comeround the Lizard Point of Tresco and beat across to St. Helen's. Asthe day broke she pushed out from St. Helen's, and reaching past theGolden Ball into the open sea, put her tiller up and ran by theislands to the south.
There was no longer any need for me to hide among the gorse. I wentdown to the Palace Inn. No one was as yet astir, and the door, ofcourse, was unlocked. I crept quietly up to my room and went to bed.
The Watchers: A Novel Page 13
