Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1888-04-21

! OF the treasure
He little knew what was passing in my
mind as he surveyed me through the curls Of
smoke spouting up from his deaths head
pipe. i talked easily and confidentially; but
| / saw in his gaze the eyes of my murderer,
| and was so sure of his intentions that had
shot him in self defense as he sat there, am
| certain my conscience would have acquitted
me Of his blood.
| passed two most uneasy hours In my cot
before closing my eyes | could think of
| nothing but how TO secure myself against the
| Frenchman's troachery. You would suppose
that my mind must have been engrosSed with
considerations of the several possibilities Of
| the morrow; but that was not so My re-
| Elections ran wholly to the bald headed, evil
j eyed pirate whom in an evil hour 1 had
| thawel into being, and who was like to dis.
charge the debt of his own life 10y taking
mine The truth is, had been too hard at
work all day--too full of the business of
planning, cutting, testing and contriving-
| to find leisure to dwell upon what he had said
| at breakfast; and now that / lay alone in
| darkness it was the only subject | could set.
| tie my thoughts to.
| However, next morning l found myself
| less gloomy, thanks to several hours of solid
| sleep. | thoughts What is the good of an
| ticipating! Suppose the schooner is crushed
ny lut VI bttpilltS liilliiltNl III Stbllnc-
quence of the explosionl Until we are under
way-nay, until the treasure is buried-I
have nothing to fear, for the rogue cannot do
without me. And, reassuring myself in this
fashion, went to the cook room and lighted
the fire; my companion presently arrived,
and we sat down to our morning meal
We breakfasted in silence, and then l rose,
saying: LET us now see what the GLnpowder
is going to do for u.s."
The wind, as BEFORE was in the southwest,
blowing without much weight, but the sky
was overcast with great masses of white
clouds, with a tint of rainbows in their
shoulders and skirts, amid which the sky
showed n clear liquid blue. Those clouds
seemed to promise wind, and perhaps snow,
anon; but there was nothing to hinder our
operations. We got upon the ice and went
to work to fix matches to the barrels and
bags, and TO sling them by the beams we had
contriyed, ready for lowering when the
matches were fired, and this occupied us the
best part of two hours. When all was ready
| fired the first match, and we lowered the
barrel smartly to she scope Of line we had
settled upon; so with the others You may
reckon we worked with all Imaginable wari-
ness, for the stuff handled was mighty
deadly; and if barrel should fall and burst,
with the match alight, we might he blown in
an instant into rags, it being impossible to
tell how deep the rents went.
The bags being lighter, there was less to
fear; and presently all the barrels and bags,
with the matches burning, were poised in the
places and hanging at the depth we had fixed
upon, and we then returned to the schooner
the Frenchman breaking into run, and
tumbling over the rail, in his alarm, with the
dexterity of monkey.
Each match was supposed to burn an hour,
they might all occur as nearly as possible at
once, and we had therefore a long time TO
wait. The margin may look unreasonable
in the face of our dispatch; but you will not
think it unnecessary if You consider that our
machinery might not have worked very
smooth, and that meanwhile all that was |
lowered was in the way of exploding so |
interminable period as now followed / do |
believe never entered before into the expert |
ences of a man. The cold was intense, and |
we had to move about; but also were we |
repeatedly coming to halt to look at our |
watches and cast our eyes over the ice 1t |
was like standing under gallows with the |
moose around the neck, waiting for the cart |
to move off. My own suspense became |
torture; but | commanded my face. The |
Frenchmap, on the other hand, could not |
control the torments of his expectation and |
fear
"Hoy VirginS' he would cry, suppose wo
are blown up tool suppose we are ingulfed |
in the ice! suppose it should be vomited up
in vast blocks, which in falling upon must |
crush us to pulp and smash the decks inI'
1t was three or four minutes past the hour,
and was looking breathlessly at my watch
when the first of the explosions took place
Before the ear could well receive the shock
of the blast the whole of the barrels exploded,
along with some twelve or fourteen parcels
Tassard, who stood beside me, fell on his
face and believed he had been killed. 1t
was so hellish a thunder that l suppose the
blowing up of q first rate could not make n
more frightful roar of noise. A kind of twi-
light was caused by the rise of the volumes of
white smoke out of the ice. The schooner
shook with such convulsion that was per-
suaded she had been split Vast showers of
splinters of ice fell as if from the sky, and
rained like arrows through the smoke; but if
there were any great blocks uphove they did
not touch the ship. Meanwhile the other
parcels were exploding in their places, some
times two and three at a time, sending a sort
of scliening spasm and throe through the
fabric of the vessel, and you heard the most
grinding noises rising out of
the ice all about, as though the mighty rupt-
IRE of the powder cracked through leagues
of the island. | burst not look forth till all
the powder had burst lest | should be struck
by some flying piece of ice; but unless tho
schooner was injured below she was as sound
as before, and in exactly the same posture,
as if afioat in harbor, only that of course her
stern lay low with the slope Of her bed.
l called to Tassard, and he lifted his head
"Are you hurtP' said |.
'sNo, no. :" lie answered. "'Tis Spanards
trick to fling down to u broadside. Body of
st. Joseph, what a furious explosion!n and 30
vii bn lad bn min |
squattcd beside me. "What has it done
for ussn
II don't know yet" said |, "but | believe
The schooner is uninjured. That was "A power
full shockl' | cried, as half dozen Of bags |
blew up together in the creviCes deep down. |
The thunder and tumult of the rending ice, |
accompanied by the heavy explosions of the
so dulled the hearing that it was
lifficult to speak. That the mines had &C l
our end was not yet to be known; i
put there could not be the least doubt that
hey had not only occasioned tremendous
uptures low down in tho ice, but that the !
yolcanic influence was extending far beyond |
IS first effects by making one split produce |
mother, one weak part give way and create |
'ther weaknesses, and SO on, all round about
Is and under our keel, as was clearly to be u
gathered by the shivering and spasns of the G
ana by the growls, roars, blasts A
md huddle of terrifying sounds which arose S
rom the frozen floor
1t was twenty minutes after the hour at |
which the mines had been framed TO explode :
When the last parcel burst; but we waited
mother quarter Of an hour to make sure that
was the last during all which time the
rowling and roaring noises deep down con-
inued, as if there was a battle of thousand
ions raging in the vaults and hollows under
cath The smoke had been settled away by
ha wind and the proSuRct claar