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One of M. de Montriveau's companions took the men ashore in the ship's longboat, and made them so drunk at an inn in the little town that they could not talk. Then he gave out that the brig was manned by treasure-seekers, a gang of men whose hobby was well known in the United States; indeed, some Spanish writer had written a history of them.
Across the dancing waves, which seemed to throw a mocking challenge to the treasure-seekers to find what they covered, we could see the trawler. Already a small power-boat had put out from her and was plowing along toward us. It was as the boat came alongside us that we met Gage for the first time. He was a tall, clean-cut fellow, but even at a glance I recognized that his was an unusual type.
They were, for the most part, square-cut holes in the face of the perpendicular rock. Some of them were only flanked by pilasters cut in the stone; others had more ornate designs. All had originally been closed by great stone slabs. These had long since been moved or broken up by treasure-seekers.
Great plants, as yet unnamed, grew among the roots of the big trees, and spread rosettes of huge green fans towards the strip of sky. Many flowers and a creeper with shiny foliage clung to the exposed stems. On the water of the broad, quiet pool which the treasure-seekers now overlooked there floated big oval leaves and a waxen, pinkish-white flower not unlike a water-lily.
This projected its powerful beams straight ahead and there, under the ocean, was a pathway of illumination for the treasure-seekers. "Fine!" cried Captain Weston, with more enthusiasm than he had yet manifested. "That's great, if you don't mind me mentioning it. How deep are we?" Tom glanced at a gage on the side of the pilot tower. "Only about sixty feet," he answered.
"I've raked and combed the sea," Captain Doane would then break out, "and the teeth of my comb are not so wide apart as to let slip through a four- thousand-foot peak." "Strange, strange," the Ancient Mariner would next mutter, half to his cogitating soul, half aloud to the treasure-seekers. Then, with a sudden brightening, he would add: "But, of course, the variation has changed, Captain Doane.
But everything human is ephemeral and I cannot disguise from myself the possibility of some great disaster befalling you. Those mountains contain both gold and silver, and an invasion of treasure-seekers, either from the sea or the Cordillera would be the ruin of the mission. My poor people would be demoralized, perhaps destroyed, and you would be compelled to quit Quipai and return to the world.
Robbing the dead was always a recognized thing at the front, but our Corporal, who was rather an unsoldierly individual, did not seem to think it quite the proper thing, and shouted: "What d'you want to rob the dead for? Why don't you leave them alone?" "What's it got ter do wi' you?" answered one of the treasure-seekers. "Why don't yer mind yer own bleed'n' business?
How about it, Tom?" "It's all leaked out, or else it wasn't filled," was the despairing answer. "All the air we have is what's in the ship, and we can't make more." The treasure-seekers looked at each other. It was an awful situation. "Then the only thing to do is to fix the machinery and rise to the surface," said Mr. Sharp simply. "We can have all the air we want, then."
Strangest of all the sea tales of colonial history is that of Captain Kidd and his cruise in the Adventure-Galley. His name is reddened with crimes never committed, his grisly phantom has stalked through the legends and literature of piracy, and the Kidd tradition still has magic to set treasure-seekers exploring almost every beach, cove, and headland from Halifax to the Gulf of Mexico.
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