# Eight Years in a Rock

Extracted from Cosmopolitan magazine, vol 31 1901, pp. 33–45. Illustrations by T. Dart Walker may be omitted.
Eight Years in a Rock
By Julian Hawthorne
ON a trip, last winter, from Southampton in the liner "St. Paul," I had for cabin mate a man named Standish—a Connecticut Yankee, tall, lean, muscular, about forty-five years old. His face, intelligent and serious, but good-natured withal, was deeply tanned by weather. His manners were simple and friendly, but he had a native dignity and self-possession; he had evidently knocked about the world a good deal, and though not a college graduate, was well educated. He seemed to be very well off; but I had a notion that he had not always been so. I found him likable and interesting, and as he took a liking to me, we were much together during the voyage. He gave me some insight into his history—a more adventurous one I have never known in real life. I will relate here one of its later episodes; for it not only is remarkable in itself, but has a bearing upon one of the most mysterious and moving historical romances that have stirred public attention during the last decade. Many speculations as to the sequel of that romance have been put forward, and many rumors circulated; but the truth was never known till now.
In the spring of 1898, Standish was in the Mexican province of Chihuahua, prospecting for gold. He was not successful, but got on the trail of a legend about a large mass of treasure concealed on the coast of the Gulf of California, a little north of latitude 26°. An elderly mestizo with whom he had become friendly gave him a rough map of the place; and he bought mules and hired guides, and set out. The distance to the coast, in an air line, might be one hundred and fifty miles, but the devious trails and almost impassable passes lengthened it to near four hundred. He arrived, in the early part of October, with two mules and one guide; death or desertion accounted for the rest. The point where he struck the coast was Bahia de Agiabampo—a landlocked bay about twenty miles in diameter, with a village settlement on its shores. Here he rested awhile, and made cautious inquiries.
After a couple of weeks, he bought a ten-ton fishing-smack, and hired an Indian. He himself knew how to handle a boat, and he wished to keep all knowledge of his enterprise as much as possible to himself. On the second day out, the Indian fell overboard while splicing a peak-halyard. A shark seized the poor creature, and Standish was now alone. Should he go on, or return?
He decided to go on. The boat was easy to manage, the weather was fine and the adventure was attractive. Toward sunset, being then but a few miles offshore, he saw something which caused him to put over his helm and come up in the wind. Conspicuous in the precipitous dark line of the coast was an oblong boulder or mass of rock, at least two hundred feet in height, of a ghastly white hue; diagonally across it ran a vein some twenty feet in width, the color of blood. This rock was one of the landmarks mentioned by his friend the mestizo.
Much encouraged by this confirmation of the legend, Standish brought the boat before the wind, designing to run inshore; but at that juncture the wind died away, returned in light puffs from various directions, and dropped into a dead calm. Then, with an abruptness that took the lone mariner by surprise, a black and furious storm burst upon him. Before he could lower his sail, it was ripped out of the bolt-ropes, and he was driving helpless before the gale. All that night and all the next day he was beaten this way and that, unable to determine his direction, much less to control it. On the evening of that day, the sky cleared, and Standish saw land to the westward. This could be only the peninsula of Lower California—one of the least-known and least-visited parts of America. It had a mountainous and desolate aspect, rising dark against the glow of the western sky; and Standish was by no means assured of a welcome there. It had been settled by Spaniards two hundred years before; but the vast majority of the sparse population of thirty thousand was Indian, and by all accounts not of a well-disposed or inviting temper.
However, it was necessary to get ashore and refit; he rigged a jury-sail and moved shoreward. Night fell while he was still miles distant, and he was obliged to lay off and on till morning. He then saw that he was near a rocky island, about four miles in length, and as many miles from the mainland. It was probably the island of Coronados, which lies some ten miles north of the twenty-sixth degree of latitude. He approached it with circumspection.
The surf was breaking heavily against the steep cliffs of its eastern face. There was no sign of habitation. Still slowly approaching, alert for some movement or indication of human life, Standish passed round the northern promontory, and discovered a tiny harbor, well protected from the surf; it was an inlet between vertical cliffs a hundred and fifty feet in height. But he could see that the western coast was lower than the eastern, and gave some promise of wood and water. The breeze before which he had been traveling being now shut off, he got out a paddle, and pushed himself along by imperceptible degrees until he was within a few hundred yards of the mouth of the inlet. Here an extraordinary and sinister event took place.
A cry caused him to look upward. Relieved against the sky. almost directly over his head, as it seemed, and on the brink of the cliff by the left of the entrance, he saw two human figures engaged in a desperate struggle with each other. They were clinched, and their turnings and twistings were so rapid that he could make out no details; but both seemed to be armed with knives. At intervals, hoarse ejaculations escaped them. They were reeling on the very verge of death. Suddenly a piercing shriek came from one of them; his grasp on the other relaxed; but the latter's victory had come too late; he overbalanced himself, and. still intertwined, the two fell. Half-way down, they struck against a projecting point of rock; they bounded off thence, and the sea received them. Standish, sitting transfixed with horror in his boat, was hardly a stone's throw distant from the spot where they sank. Before he could paddle up to the place, which was flecked with foam and disturbed by bubblings, the bodies had risen; but both were plainly corpses. They floated there a few moments only; then there was a swift, white rush from the depths, and first one, then the other, was snatched violently downward, and the clear green water was clouded with red stains. Glancing downward with a shudder, Standish saw a terrible banquet going on in the abysses. Such was his introduction to the Island of Coronados.
His first thought was to make for the open sea again: but the tide was flooding, and it bore him gently inward through the gates of the inlet, and finally grounded his boat softly on a narrow beach of white sand within. Standish was something of a fatalist. He had been brought hither by destiny; he would accept the chances. He examined the lock of his repeating-rifle, hooked his cartridge-belt round his body, and leaped down on the coral sand.
So far as nature was concerned, the place could hardly have been more beautiful. The rocks which formed the gateway of the inlet, facing one another at a distance of not more than two hundred feet, receded in a circular sweep, forming a miniature harbor of two or three acres in area. The water of this pool was always still and perfectly clear; seaweeds and shells of lovely hues were visible in its depths. At the rear of the giant gateposts, the rocky ascent was almost as steep as outside; but the land between came down to the white beach with a gentle inclination, and was rich with a splendor of tropical verdure. Palms stood with their roots almost in the water, and dropped their nuts upon the margin; further up there were thickets of bananas and plantain, mangoes and oranges. To the right, a bubbling spring tumbled down between ferny boulders, making mossy-rimmed pools as it went, and lapsed into the sea. This fertile vale lay within its environment of living rock like a jewel in its matrix.
Standish could not forget, nevertheless, that the threshold of the paradise had been fouled with murder. Surely those two had not been the sole inhabitants of the islet; and if there were others, they were likely to be of the same character. Perhaps some of them were inspecting him at that very moment. Standish uneasily scrutinized the cliffs, and strove to pierce with his gaze the depths of the foliage; for several minutes he remained motionless, vigilant, listening. The soft, sad note of an unseen bird. repeated in two sweet octaves, was the only sound he could hear—that, and the dainty rustic of the fairy surf along the coral sands.
"Maybe," he said to himself at last, "I'd better announce myself than wait to be accosted;" and he raised his rifle to fire in the air. But something caused him to lower it hurriedly; and he stood amazed, almost incredulous of his own ears.
A woman's voice, singing—that was what his ears had reported to him. She had sung—as if testing her voice—a bar of Marguerite's last song in "Faust." The sound was so echoed and reëchoed from the faces of the cliff that it was impossible to know whence it came; it might have been from above, below or either side. There was also a remoteness about it, lending to it, in the listener's startled fancy, a phantom-like quality, which was enhanced by the fact that this was no untutored peasant's voice; it had flowed from a throat sweet as a nightingale's, and trained in the purest schools of music. Himself a musical connoisseur of no small experience, Standish was sure of that. A minute passed; he shook his head.
"My imagination—or the spirit of Malibran the Great!" he murmured in the silence.
As if answering this apostrophe, the song began once more. The audience, leaning on his rifle, absorbed the harmonies with a delight such as he had never felt before. The scene and the music fulfilled each other; the soul, the passion, the glory and the pathos of life mingled and mated in that voice—the purity of the maiden, the splendor of the princess, and, as the strains floated higher, the remoteness of a spirit rapt in the awe of heaven. The final phrases died away in a ravishing cadence. And this was the sequel to the murderous struggle he had just beheld on the cliffs above!
Standish had instinctively raised his hands to applaud, when his purpose was again arrested. This time it was the deep tones of a masculine voice that exclaimed distinctly, though also apparently muffled by distance:
"Brava. O brava, fior di mia alma! Io t'amo—Io t'amo!"
"Io t'amo!" Was that an echo or was it the woman's voice once more?
"This is a fairy-tale." said Standish to himself. "Prospero's island—a couple of Calibans—Miranda and Ferdinand—where is Ariel?—and the wizard himself? What does it all mean? and what sort of a place have I got into?"
Silence, more profound and slumberous than ever, had resumed its sway. The mystery would not explain itself; it must be investigated.
He had not advanced ten paces when he came upon a well-defined path, winding toward the cliff on the left. Less than a foot in width, it wriggled in and out through tall ferns and grasses, round massy boulders, over snaky roots of trees, up favoring slopes, always ascending, and obviously aiming at the acclivity of the precipice. Anon it turned a corner of the rock, and there came to an abrupt end. When he turned his bewildered eyes upward, he saw the bottom of a sort of swinging ladder, made of vegetable fibers twisted together, hanging within reach of his upstretched hand. He grasped the lower rung, and pulled; it held fast.
Then up he climbed, not without apprehensions. At a height of about seventy feet, he arrived at a narrow ledge, where the upper part of the ladder was fastened to iron rings let into the rock. It was a dizzy place to stand on. But the only visible escape was along the ledge to the right; and thither he proceeded, sidewise, with his face toward the stony wall, not caring to look down. Presently there came a sharp turn round a projecting angle; he clawed himself heed fully to it. only to find that there the ledge itself Stopped short, leaving him on the brink of a vertical drop of fourscore feet, he had been led into a cul-de-sac of the most awesome description.
He made a pause of several minutes to recover his nerve and his wits; for this was a predicament in which all his resources would be needed. For his better convenience, he sat himself down on the ledge, with his feet hanging over into empty space; for the ledge was not more than two feet in breadth at any point. The thought of a slip sent a shiver through him, though he was dripping with sweat. His rifle bothered him greatly.
But he had been in tight places before, and there had always been a way out.
"Besides," he told himself, "I'm not the first to use this path; it must be the regular road for the garrison of this enchanted castle; no doubt they skip along it like goats. This path can't end here. People don't walk along such a thing for the fun of walking back again. Where is the rest of it?"
The cliff, as has been said, took a sharp turn upon itself at the place where the ledge terminated; but a sort of vertical fold in the rock was formed, and the other side of this fold bellied out opposite to where he was sitting, confronting him across the abyss at a distance of not over six feet. As his eyes rested upon that opposing point, he perceived for the first time that there was a small shelf there, hardly eighteen inches square, which bore signs of having been worn by the friction of footsteps. And then the solution of the enigma dawned on him: in order to continue his journey, all he had to do was to leap across from the end of the ledge, where he was seated, to the shelf. Once he was there, no doubt the further path would be revealed to him.
Yes, there could be no doubt about it. The only trouble was that leap of six feet across a gulf of certain death. A standing jump of six feet, on level ground, was nothing to a man of Standish's activity: he had often leaped nearly twice as far. It was the circumstances that rendered this formidable. If he lost his balance; if his eye failed him; if he did not land just right on the other side—good-by to John Standish! And there was his rifle to add to his discomforts. Moreover, whether or not he landed safely, he might still be leaping to his death; for aught he could tell, a band of brigands might be lurking somewhere out of sight to kill him. The proposition was uninviting.
Still, there was another side to it. What should brigands be doing in a place like this? There was nothing for them to rob in Lower California, nor on the Mexican coast on the other side of the Gulf either; one could hardly pick out in all the world a region less productive for brigandage than this. True (he answered himself), but what then were those two ruffians who were murdering each other on the cliff?—Well, there might be many solutions of that affair; in itself it proved nothing. On the other hand, there were the two lovers—the singing Miranda and the Ferdinand—how, upon a basis of brigandage, were they to be accounted for? For that matter, though, how were they to be accounted for at all? The more he pondered it, the more was he convinced that this was the densest bit of mystery that he had ever stumbled on in his life—and that was saying much!
"And here goes for solving it!" said he to himself; and without another thought, he rose quickly and steadily to his feet, gathered his forces for an instant, and sprang into the air. He landed plumb and solid on the shelf, dropped forward on hands and knees, and that was all there was to it. But he felt pleased with himself, because it had always been one of his maxims that the best way to get a thing done was to do it, and, while he was about it, to do it quickly. Nevertheless, there had been an instant, while he was in the empty air. which had seemed as long as a lifetime, during which he had had many thoughts.
"HE REALISED THAT THEY WERE HUMAN HEADS."
He now, without looking behind him, crawled up over the little ascent of rock in front of him. and saw, just beyond it, a hole a few feet in diameter, penetrating the cliff. It was evidently the entrance to a cave. The rock was of limestone formation; he had seen such before in the West Indies, in Jamaica and San Domingo; and caves were as normal in them as are holes in a sponge.
He entered the cave boldly, feeling that if there had been any opposition to his presence it would have declared itself ere this. It enlarged, after the manner of caves, as he proceeded, and also became lighter, the illumination coming from apertures, natural or artificial, in the walls and roof. He soon arrived at a place which bore traces of habitation. The furniture was of a rude sort, but comfortable enough—mattresses of grass covered with sailcloth; sea-chests and boxes forced into service as tables and seats; tableware, some of which consisted of wooden trenchers, and some of handsome silver dishes and cups, together with forks and spoons of the same metal; straw-covered flasks and bottles. In one corner were stacked about a dozen rifles and guns, with ammunition, and a number of rusty cutlasses. From pegs driven into the wall depended rough garments of various kinds, and also some which, though now scandalously ragged and soiled, had evidently been originally of fine quality and fashion. There were no female garments of any sort.
While Standish was inspecting these odds and ends, and endeavoring to construct from their testimony some conception of the persons who had used them, he happened to catch sight of a row of globular objects, of a brownish-white hue, which were affixed in a row along a dark portion of the wall of the cave, at about a man's height from the floor. They had such an odd appearance that he came closer, to examine them. There were six of them; and he drew in his breath with a very unpleasant sensation as he realized that they were human heads! The flesh was still upon them, though so desiccated that they were hardly more than skulls. The faces all had a most villainous aspect, which was not entirely due to their condition—the features were those of a gang of pirates. Four were the heads of negroes, or of half-breeds; one of the others had red hair and a shaggy beard; the remaining one might have been an Englishman or American, and there was a certain symmetry in bis face, albeit it had an evil cast, and on the right cheek was an ancient scar, as if from a saber-cut. There glowered the heads, each on its peg: and so far as one could judge from appearances, there they might have been for years. How did they get there?
Standish turned away, and sitting down on one of the chests, with his back to the wall, and with the stacked weapons in easy reach, he communed with himself.
"So far as heard from, there have been ten inhabitants on this island. There are six of their heads—ugly company, but harmless. I saw two feed each other to the sharks—making eight accounted for. Miranda and Ferdinand still live, and seem to be the most agreeable of the lot. Are there any more? Let's see: here are only two beds. But there are a dozen guns. Yes, but guns may remain after heads are cut off, or fish have eaten the owners. There may be others, but there's a fair chance that only Miranda and her lover are left. Where are they, and what have they to do with the cutthroats? Can that divine singer and that courtly chap with his 'Brava, mia alma!' have anything in common with those Calibans? But if not, what are they doing here? Better hunt them up and ask them: I may turn out a prince in disguise to rescue them! Or she may be a siren, luring me to destruction! I must chance that." He got to his feet, tucked his rifle under his arm and looked for a lead.
To the left, the cave extended into darkness; but Standish cautiously advanced in that direction, feeling with his feet. Presently a dim light dawned along the path; he turned a corner and saw a natural doorway, opening on a winding track climbing as by rugged stairs to a higher elevation, under the open sky. After ascending about twenty feet, he came to a ragged hole five feet in diameter, opening downward into darkness. The trail went on to the top of the cliffs, and might take him to the point where the men had fought; but Standish was unwilling to leave anything unexplored in his rear. He lay down flat and looked into the hole.
After a while, objects below began dimly to define themselves. And then something moved—yes, something erect—human—came from the obscurity and laid itself down almost exactly underneath him! He sharpened his gaze: was it male or female? A low sigh reached him—the sigh of a woman. Like Borneo in Capulet's garden, upon that hint he spake:
"Pardon me, madam; this is Mr. John Standish. I heard you sing awhile ago, and I took the liberty to look in. Could I have a few words with you?"
"'PARDON ME. MADAM; THIS IS MR. JOHN STANDISH.'"
At the first touch of his voice, the figure had stirred doubtfully; as he went on, she gave a quick start, then raised herself to her knees. He could dimly see a white face staring up at him. From it came a tremulous, inarticulate sound.
"Sorry if I startled you." he went on, in as comfortable a tone as possible. "I've been blundering round here, and you're the first person I've found. Before landing, I saw two of your—your fellow-lodgers fall over into the water, and I guess the sharks got 'em. But maybe you don't understand English? Does the gentleman, your friend?—could I see him?"
The person below sprang erect, and flung up her arms in a sort of frenzy.
"Giovanni! Giovanni!" she screamed, with a thrilling volume of sound that affected Standish's ears as a flash of lightning would have done his eyes. "Oh, Dio—Dio mio! Oh, signor!—sair—and air they dead?—Giovanni—sono morti—sono morti! Oh, cuore mio! Sair, you come to maka us free? Oh, grazie a Dio—Giovanni!"
She flung herself down and beat with her hands upon the floor.
Blandish waited until the first madness of her emotion had passed. She sat up, tossing back her long hair from her face.
"I have a little French, madame," he then said, in that language; "perhaps we shall manage better with that. Were those two gentlemen whom I saw drown half an hour ago the only persons besides yourselves on the island?"
"Oh, oui, monsieur. And they are surely dead? Oh, this happiness—how can I breathe! You have come to save us—yes? Oh, monsieur, figure to yourself, we are buried eight years here! Oh, Giovanni mio!—you will bring him to me, monsieur? You are from heaven—I worship you—but bring me my Giovanni!"
"Make yourself easy, madame. I'm not from heaven—just from America—Connecticut—we call it God's country sometimes, to be sure. I'm most happy to serve you; that air you sang from 'Faust' was worth a queen's ransom! Now, first you'll have to tell me where Monsieur Giovanni is, and how I can get to him. I'm a stranger hereabouts, you know."
"Ah, monsieur, there will be a rope somewhere. He is in the cave next here, but we have been all this time separate, except that we might speak. They have given me food through this hole, and to him in the same manner. Oh, God be thanked, they are dead—you have seen them die?—it is no mistake? There will be a rope—you will come down to us—you will take us up—we shall be free, we shall meet at last. Oh, God be thanked!"
"Ludmilla! Alma mia! Chi c'è?"
This interruption came in a deep, remote voice, which Standish recognized as that of the Ferdinand of the drama—or the Giovanni, as seemed to be his right name. The lady, with some swift apology, vanished inward down the cave, but in a moment he could hear her speaking rapidly and excitedly to her companion. He fetched a long breath.
He began to see through the enigma. These two people had been prisoners of a band of robbers, who had kept them here eight years. The silverware and other valuables in the outer cave were their property. They had been immured in separate cells, yet within reach of each other's voices. There had been originally eight robbers, of whom six had died; probably they had been killed by their fellows. The two survivors had murdered each other that very day. But for what object had Giovanni and Ludmilla been imprisoned all this time? Why had they not been either set free or killed at once? Some powerful motive must have been at work. Who were these lovers, and what had been their history? "It's lucky I happened along just at this time," Standish reflected; "otherwise they'd have been left here to starve. Well, poor souls, they'll have a great yarn to spin! How to get 'em out is the first thing. I guess that ladder I climbed up on will be the best thing; or maybe there's some tackle in the outer cave.—Here she comes again !"
As my friend and I sat side by side in our steamer-chairs, smoking our cigars and seeing the green waves of the Banks rush past us, he went on to tell me in interesting detail how he contrived to get the two prisoners out of their respective receptacles and transport them, together with such of their valuables as were left and worth saving, down to the beach where the boat still lay stranded. I must pass over this part of the tale with bare mention. That evening they were all seated comfortably round a fire of brushwood, which sent a fragrant smoke toward the stars and cast their shadows behind them to mingle with the environing darkness of the soft tropic night, and there Standish heard the lovers' tale.
They told it together, sometimes one taking up the narrative, and then the other.
It was very touching (remarked Standish to me) to see them, as well as to hear them. They sat hand in hand, and often the man would raise the woman's fingers to his lips and kiss them; or they would pause to gaze deeply in each other's faces. They had not seen each other during all these years, though they had been confined within a few yards of each other, and could converse at will. The man had a superb countenance, though much ravaged by the terrible experience through which he had passed; though he was still on this side forty years of age, his hair and his long beard were iron-gray. But his figure was still powerful and athletic; for he had never lost faith in their ultimate escape, and had obliged himself to observe a daily system of exercise; for the rest, the climate was perfectly healthy, and their captors had uniformly supplied them with whole some food. The woman had evidently been extremely beautiful, and though now pale and haggard, and somewhat feeble in body, there seemed no reason why she should not be as fair and vigorous as ever when happiness and freedom had done their perfect work upon her. Indeed, Standish observed that he had never before seen anything approaching the happiness which enveloped these two like a celestial garment; it was so undisguised and childlike, and so beautiful, that it brought tears to his eyes even while he was telling me about it, a year or two afterward. And they also had frequently wept softly in the midst of their narration, for no especial cause, but simply because their hearts were overflowing with love and joy and thankfulness. As the night deepened, and the light of the fire died down, she came closer to her beloved, and he drew her head to his shoulder, and held her in his arms. The deep tones of his voice became exquisitely tender; and ever and anon they would draw in deep, enjoying breaths, as new life rushed into them from each other. Standish hardly ventured to look closely at them, so sacred and lovely was this reunion. Surely their experience had been without a parallel—to be all these years within sound of each other's voices, yet mutually invisible; while their love had waxed daily stronger. They themselves hardly as yet realized that they had regained each other; they would touch and gaze at each other from time to time, to be assured there was no mistake. "It was the strangest and sweetest sight I ever saw," Standish remarked.
Their story was briefly as follows: In 1890, having married against his parents' will, Don Giovanni (as we may for the present call him) bought a ship and loaded her with his worldly goods, including a large sum in English gold. With a sailing-master named Medway, and a mixed crew, he set sail from Liverpool for South America. Doubling the Horn, they were partially dismantled by a storm, and sought a port on the west coast of Patagonia to refit. Here, for the first time, symptoms of trouble brewing were discernible; but the Don, trusting in Medway, who was a very able fellow, and confident of himself, did not much regard them. It had been his purpose to land at Guayaquil, on the coast of Ecuador; but Medway affirmed that there was a political revolution raging there, and advised seeking a port farther north. Don Giovanni knew little of navigation; but after some weeks had passed and no land was in sight, he asked Medway where they were. The sailing-master told him that they would see the shores of Colombia in a couple of days; and in fact a mountainous shore became visible to starboard the next evening. At this juncture, however, the second mate, whom Don Giovanni had been inclined to distrust, came to him privately and told him that Medway was deceiving him, and meant mischief. "We are in the Gulf of California," said he, "and that coast is Mexico. If you have any treasure aboard, you'd better give it up or you may lose that and your life too—not to speak of madame's." In answer to the Don's questions, he then revealed to him that Medway, having got nearly all the crew on his side, was going to maroon him, seize his wife and the ship, with the treasure in her, and make off. "There's only me and the bo'sun," added the mate, "that you can trust in this ship; the other eight are all in the plot; so if you're going to do anything, the sooner the better.'"
At the allusion to the proposed fate of his wife, the Don felt a terror which no peril to himself could have aroused.
"What do you advise?" he asked the mate, disguising his emotion as well as he could.
"You can't save the ship," replied the other; "but you may save the woman and the money. You've got the stuff in a strong-box, I suppose? I'll manage to get the long-boat under the stern to-night; it'll be my watch, and Medway thinks I'm with him. We four must get into her with the box, and slide off quietly. It's two to one against us, but it's our last chance. Are you game for it, or not?—I won't ask twice!"
The mate had mistaken Don Giovanni's character, and was taking too authoritative a tone with him. The next instant he was looking into the barrel of a revolver. "Prove the truth of your story," said the Don, in his usual gentle tone, but with a look that impressed the mate more than did the weapon.
However, he did not blench, being a brave man, and glad to find that the master was the master. "Last evening," he said, "Medway showed you land on the starboard beam, and told you it was Colombia. Since then we've been tacking northwest. But what is the nearest land to port of us?—answer that, sir."
"Asia, I suppose," replied the Don.
"Aye, sir; and Asia is eight thousand miles away. But now, look yonder, and tell me what you see!"
He pointed toward the west. The Don looked, and lo! there was land!
"It's Lower California," continued the mate, "because it can't be anything else; and we can be nowhere but in the Gulf, when Medway would have you believe we were more than fifteen hundred miles south'ard of it. So that's my proof, sir; and besides, I've a wife and two kids at home, and it won't pay me to turn pirate."
"I accept your proof, and beg you to accept my apology, Mr. Mate," said the Don; "and also," added he, "I ask you to accept this weapon with my compliments; you may find a use for it before morning, and I have another. Now let us shake hands, as man with man. and make ready for to-night. I have but one thing to say to you: whatever happens, guard the woman!"
"Aye, sir—depend on that!" answered the mate, saluting respectfully. "And may the Lord be good to my folks at home, if I never see 'em again."
All went well; the night was dark, the sea moderate, and at the time of casting loose they were but a score of miles from the Mexican coast—an easy run for the long-boat. The mate and bo'sun had the oars; the Don the tiller, with his left arm round his wife, and his right foot on his strong-box; as the dark mass of the ship melted into the general gloom, he put the helm over, and they headed for the Mexican shore.
Though there was not much to warrant elation, all were in good spirits, especially the beautiful woman who sat beside her husband; her courage and self-possession from the first had won the two mariners, and made them willing lo guard her with their lives. From time to time she met their eyes with a confident smile; then she would glance in her husband's face, and it was easy to see that with his love she was content, as he with hers.
"If they get after us before we can make a port," the mate had said, "we'd best heave the chest overboard in shallow water, taking what bearings we can, and get ashore ourselves. But I know Medway," he added in a lower voice: "he's a devil, and he's going to show it."
In the dawn, just before the sun rose over the purple Mexican hills, the woman lifted her head from her husband's shoulder, where she had been sleeping a little, and pointed south. They all looked; and there were the tall masts with all sails set, coming up over the dark weltering of the sea, sailing three miles to their one. The end, one way or the other, was barely two hours off.
STANDISH HARDLY VENTURED TO LOOK CLOSELY AT THEM.
"But all I know of what happened that day, and for many days following," said Standish, breaking off in his narrative, as we sat in our steamer-chairs on the deck of the "St. Paul"—all I know or can tell you is the merest outline. For when the Don had got to this point in his story, and was plainly becoming worked up over the pictures of the past that came upon him, all at once his wife put her hand over his lips.
"'Let us not tell it, beloved,' said she. 'It is past; why should we make ourselves shudder once more? We are happy; let us not remember misery.'
"It was sound advice; and for my part, I have no lust to sup on horrors; and horrors there undoubtedly were that day, and after, worse perhaps than it's worth while even guessing at. The outline is this: They were overtaken, but not till after they had managed to sink the treasure-box and take a rough chart of its bearings. There was fighting: the mate was killed; the bo'sun wounded, but he escaped to shore and was never seen again. The Don, with a blow of a cutlass, opened Medway's cheek; but he and his wife were captured and taken aboard. Medway, his head bound up, had them before him, and demanded the whereabouts of the treasure. They refused to tell him. 'We'll see about that!' said he; and he smiled grimly.
"Well, I say, I'm glad I don't know what happened then. But they never told me where the box was sunk. Of course, neither of them cared a snap of the finger, comparatively, for the gold. But they knew that as soon as the pirates had their fingers on it, they would turn and cut their throats. Their only chance of life was to keep their secret. Gold never served its owners better. Being out of their reach, it saved them; it would have destroyed them had it been in their possession."
"But it seems to me, Standish," interposed I, "that though threats of death or even torture might have failed to move them, yet there were means which——"
"Yes, I know," said Standish, as I hesitated to finish my sentence. "I should think so too. And all I can say is, there are forces in human beings—or a Force that sometimes is manifested through them—which can do miracles. I have never set up for a religious man, particularly; but there are some things I am more certain of than any proof could make me: and they are the very things that never can be proved, any more than men can walk on air. I believe, at any rate, that a divine miracle was done on that ship, and afterward, and that angels surrounded that woman, and cowed the devils who wanted to do devil's work on her."
"But think of eight years!" said I.
"Oh. after the first day, the peril would grow less and less. It's like resisting temptation—after the first victory, each new one is easier. The longer you keep bad people in association with good people, the feebler do the bad become. Those wild beasts were held down year after year by a helpless man and woman; you can explain it on no material basis; it's one of the mysteries. They lived in their separate caves, kept alive by their love, and waited on by cutthroats who could have killed them at any moment. How Medway happened upon the island with its caves I don't know; it served his purpose: and meanwhile he was making piratical trips in his ship, till one night he ran her aground on Cape St. Lucas, the south end of the peninsula, and she became a total wreck. The pirates got back to the island; but they quarreled. Medway's party was killed, and those were their heads I saw. All this while, the demand to tell where the treasure was had been made almost daily, and always refused; it had degenerated into a sort of mechanical custom on the pirates' part; and one of the most singular features of the affair is, that they seemed to have become prisoners of the Don and his wife quite as much as the other way. If they couldn't make up their minds to kill them, why didn't they simply go away and leave them to starve? But no: there they must stay till the drama was played out. Good luck brought me to see the last act; and there you have it."
"But that wasn't the last act," I protested, as Standish fell silent. "How did you get away? and what became of the treasure? and where are the Don and his wife? and who are they?"
"We fixed up the boat with a new mast and sail," said Standish. "The Don told me where to steer, and we crossed the Gulf in a day and a half. Just after noon of the second day, the wife—she had been sitting for hours with her husband's head on her lap, stroking his hair, and bending to kiss him once in a while—while he lay looking up into her face, she gazed off toward the east, and whispered something to him, and he sat up and followed her pointing finger, and nodded.
"'At the base of that white rock, with the red band across it,' he said, turning to me; 'that's where our gold lies.'
"It was the same spot I had been directed to by the mestizo, and had been driven from by that lucky storm. I said nothing to them, of course; but it puzzled me till I figured out that the bo'sun. who escaped, must have told the mestizo, perhaps on his death-bed up there in the Guadalajara wilderness; so you see Providence was in it all the way through! Well, we fished for a long time, and at last we raised it; a queer-looking object that box was, all covered with seaweed and creatures; but the gold was in it, good as ever. I refused to take any of it, till I saw it would break their hearts; and the Don vowed he'd heave the whole lot overboard if I persisted. At last I compromised on fifty thousand pounds. That makes me rich enough to the end of my days; and leaves them not much the worse off. God bless 'em!"
"A QUEER-LOOKING OBJECT THAT BOX WAS, ALL COVERED WITH SEAWEED AND CREATURES."
"Amen!" said I. "And where are they now?"
"I'll have to ask you to excuse me from telling that," Standish replied. "They are happy, living together where no one knows their history, and where they'll never be disturbed. But since they're safe from discovery, I don't mind telling you who they are. Probably you've heard of them. Do you remember, about nine or ten years ago, the papers were full of the romance of a certain Austrian Crown-Prince, who had fallen in love with a prima donna, and had married her, though by so doing he forfeited his royal inheritance? He was John Salvator of Tuscany, a nephew of the Emperor Francis Joseph. He gave up all rights, privileges and rank, and called himself Johann Orth, after one of his castles. They were privately married in or near London. He converted all his possessions into money, meaning to buy an estate and settle down on the west coast of South America—Chili or Peru. They were last heard from at Monte Video; and have been given up as lost ever since.
"A very queer thing, this love of a man for a woman, isn't it? There was everything to keep these people apart. I haven't seen many happy marriages, still I've always believed that marriage was the only right thing for man and woman; but every day you hear of folks getting married who are not truly married at all. Now Johann Orth and his wife—Don Giovanni, as I shall always think of him—had the whole breadth and depth of social convention between them to begin with; and when they had overcome that, they underwent the experience I have told you of; and now at last they are together and happy. They paid a high price for their happiness. but they got it; and for my part I think it was worth the price; I know they do!
"Well, it's getting cold. We ought to be off Sandy Hook to-morrow. What do you say to going below and turning in?"
"You go," said I; "I believe I'll sit here a little longer."
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1934, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 89 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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