But twenty days cannot stretch to infinity, even at sea. The Peru entered the Golden Gate early in the forenoon on the 9th of August, and Elliott, having no baggage to worry him, hurried at once to the offices of the Eastern Mail Steamship Company.
He waited anxiously while a youthful clerk flipped over the letters and telegrams in the rack, but English honesty was vindicated. There were two brown cable messages for him, and he ripped them open nervously. The first was from Henninger. It had been forwarded from Hongkong, and read:
“Will search. Come Zanzibar immediately.”
This was not what he wanted, but the second proved to be from Margaret, saying:
“Sailing twenty-eighth, steamer Imperial.”
Elliott felt as if a mighty weight had been heaved off his breast. Margaret must be then at sea, but her passage would be longer than his own. The ships of the Imperial line called at Yokohama and Honolulu, and on investigation he learned that the steamer Imperial was not due at San Francisco until the last day of August. He had nearly three weeks to wait, but of course he would wait for her. The treasure was a secondary issue just then, and then the question arose of how he was to meet her with the word of her father’s death.
For the actual fact he could feel but little regret. Laurie was not a man for this world; he was too high, or too low, as one pleased to regard it; and as a guardian for his daughter he was totally worthless. Sooner or later open disgrace was certain, and the grief would have been worse to Margaret than her father’s death. It was better that he had died when he did, with his halo untarnished—to his daughter’s eyes at least.
Elliott spent the next days in feverish unrest. He had nothing to do, and could not have done it if he had, and he half-longed for Margaret’s coming and half-dreaded it. He would have to tell her the whole story of the treasure and of the murder. How would she receive it? And would it, or would it not be taking an unfair advantage of her helplessness to tell her that he loved her and wished nothing so much as to protect her for the rest of her life?
He was rapidly becoming worn out by these plans, doubts, and problems, and half-poisoned with the number of secrets and difficulties which he had to keep locked up in his own breast, when a sudden recollection came to him with relief. Bennett was in the city.
Or, at least, he should be here. According to the arrangement he was to go to San Francisco as soon as he could leave the hospital in St. Louis, and surely his broken bones must have mended long ago. He was to have wired his address to Henninger, and probably he had done so, but Henninger was far away, and the fact would not help Elliott to find his former travelling companion.
He dropped a note to Bennett, however, in the city general delivery, and also wrote to him in care of the hospital, on the chance that the letter would be forwarded. Two days passed; it was evident that the former letter had not reached him, and it would be necessary to wait till an answer could arrive from St. Louis.
Elliott waited, feeling that he had merely added another uncertainty to his already plentiful store of them. He waited for ten days, and then as he entered the lobby of his hotel he saw a man leaning over the desk to speak to the clerk, and his back looked somehow familiar.
Elliott stepped up to the man, and touched his shoulder.
“Bennett! Is this you?”
The man turned with a start. It was indeed the adventurer, but dressed in a style indicating almost unrecognizable prosperity. He stared at Elliott for a moment, and then gripped him with both hands, emitting an explosively inarticulate ejaculation.
“By thunder!” he cried. “I couldn’t place you. I never saw you in a boiled shirt before. Let’s get out of this. I never was so glad to see a man in my life.”
He stepped out of the line and they left the hotel. As soon as they were in the street he clutched Elliott’s arm.
“Have you got it?” he demanded, under his breath.
Elliott laughed a little wearily. “No, we haven’t got it. I’ve given up thinking that we ever will, though Henninger has just wired me that he’s going to search the whole Mozambique Channel.”
“Isn’t Henninger with you?”
“No, he’s in Zanzibar, and the other fellows are strung out all along the East Africa coast. It’s a long story, and there’s not much comfort in it, but let’s go over to the park and I’ll tell you.”
“Start it as we walk along. Man, I’ve been hungering and thirsting for some news from that job.”
So on the street Elliott began the story, of the great game in Nashville that had financed the expedition, of the voyages of the party, and of his own adventures on the train in Bombay and Hongkong. He finished it on a park bench, with the killing of the missionary, and the high-class form of “shanghaing,” of which he had himself been the victim. Of Margaret he judged it best to say nothing.
Bennett listened feverishly, interrupting the story with impatient questions. When Elliott had finished he sat in meditation for a couple of minutes.
“Henninger is right,” he pronounced at last. “The only thing now is to search the channel. Are you sure the address your old missionary gave was a fake?”
“I can’t believe it was anything else. Why else would he have risked killing rather than have it tested?”
“It looks so. His directions must have been somewhere near the right spot, though; I’ve been looking at maps. Anyhow, I’ll know the island again when I see it.”
“The wreck will mark it, won’t it?”
“The wreck has probably broken up and sunk out of sight by this time. That’s a point in our favour, for the worst danger is from the coast traders and Arab riffraff. Let’s start right away for Zanzibar, by the next steamer.”
“I can’t leave for a week or so,” Elliott confessed, and he explained his reasons for delay.
“I don’t like any women in this thing. This is strictly a man’s game,” commented Bennett.
“Oh, Miss Laurie won’t be in it. But I wired her to come here, and I’ve got to meet her. Why, she thinks her father is alive and here with me.”
“Yes, I suppose you’ve got to wait,” said Bennett, and was silent for several seconds. “But, damn it! this is awful!” he exploded, suddenly. “Every minute counts. Henninger’ll be waiting for us. That other gang must be half-way there by now, and when they don’t find the wreck on Ibo Island they’ll look somewhere else. They’ve got three weeks’ start of us, with ten thousand miles less to go.”
“They won’t find anything,” Elliott attempted, soothingly.
“How do you know they won’t? They’ve got as good a chance as we, haven’t they? Better, by thunder! Besides, there are all sorts of Arab and Berber craft sailing up and down the channel. It seems to me you’ve done nothing all through but waste time.”
“If you’re not satisfied with my ways, you’d better go and join Henninger by yourself,” said Elliott, growing irritated. “You can count me out of it. I’m staying here for the present.”
Bennett looked for a moment as if inclined to take Elliott at his word, and then his face relaxed and he began to laugh.
“Don’t be an idiot, you old jay!” he exclaimed, finally. “Of course I’ll wait for you. You waited for me in St. Louis, didn’t you? Only—well, I’ve been waiting now for four months, and it’s getting on my nerves.”
“Have you been here all that time?”
“Oh, no. The first month I spent in the hospital, where you had the pleasure of seeing me wrapped in splints. But as soon as I got out I made a bee-line for the Pacific coast. I left a forwarding address at the hospital, and I expected to have you fellows wire me. I’ve written to every point I could think of to catch some of you.”
“Got any money?”
“You bet I have. I got—what do you think?—eight hundred dollars out of the railroad for my wounds and bruises. I asked for two thousand and got eight hundred. I had to give half of it to my lawyer, though,” he added, regretfully. “Then, a couple of weeks ago, a fellow put me on to a good thing at the race-track out here. It was at five to one. I plunged a hundred on it, and she staggered home by a nose. He’s going to give me another good tip on Saturday—get-away day, you know, and a long shot.”
“Don’t you touch it,” said Elliott. “We’ll need all your spare cash. I’ve got none too much myself, and we’ve got a long way to go.”
The prospect of all the weary miles of sea and land that he must still travel on the treasure hunt, in fact, had come to oppress him. He had already all but encircled the globe, and he sickened at the thought of another month-long voyage. He was tired, mortally tired, of stewards, and saloon tables, and smoking-rooms, and he told himself that if he ever found himself once more in some silent, sunshiny American village he would contentedly vegetate there like a plant for the rest of his days.
But before that he would have to think of how to meet Margaret, who would be there in a week, and of some words to prepare her for the final explanation. This week passed as swiftly as the two first had slowly. He spent it in lounging about uneasily, and in long conferences with Bennett, and on the afternoon of the twenty-ninth he heard that the Imperial had been sighted. She was, in fact, then entering the harbour.
But he was still without a speech prepared when the gangplank was opened, and the flood of passengers began to pour down. He saw Margaret, and waved his hand, but even from a distance he was shocked at her pallor, and startled by the fact that she was wearing complete black. He waited for her outside the customs enclosure.
“You see I’ve come. I hoped you would meet me,” she said.
“Of course I would meet you,” he protested, unsteadily, dreading the expected inquiry for her father. On a nearer view her face was even more drawn and haggard than he had thought; she looked as if she had not slept for a week, but she had met him with a brave smile.
“I know all about it,” she added.
“All? What?” stammered Elliott.
“Everything. They found my father’s body the day after I got your letter. It was in an empty house. I saw him buried in Happy Valley.”
“Margaret, I didn’t know how to tell you. I didn’t dare—”
“Oh, yes, I know; it was kind of you. And oh! I was so glad to get away from that awful city. But for your letter I think I should have died. I thought at first that you had deserted us, and I was all alone. That night of waiting—can I ever forget it! The consul and his wife were very kind—but I was all alone.” Her voice was choking, and she was trying hard to keep the sobs down.
“Don’t cry, for heaven’s sake,—dear,” said Elliott, in deep trouble. “The worst is over now. I’ll see that everything is right. Just depend on me.”
“I suppose the worst is over,” she said, drying her eyes. “But I feel as if it were only beginning. How can I live? My whole life feels at an end, somehow. But I will try to be strong. I was brave in Hongkong, when I had everything to do—but now. Never mind, I will be brave again, as my poor father was, and as he would want me to be.”
“That’s right. Here’s your hotel. There’s a good room engaged for you, and you’ll find they’ll make you very comfortable. Ask for everything you want,” said Elliott.
“You must tell me first all you know about father’s death.”
Elliott shuddered. “Not to-day. You’re tired out; you must be. I’ll tell you to-morrow.”
“No. Now—at once,” she said, impatiently. “I can’t sleep till I know it all. Then I’ll never ask you to speak of it again.”
Elliott, thus cornered, told her somewhat baldly the story of how the missionary had been decoyed to the house on the slope of the mountain, and how he had met his death. He touched lightly on the torture, and said nothing of the treasure. The latter was too long a story.
“They stabbed him because he would not tell them something that they believed he knew. In reality he knew nothing of it. I think it was really by accident that he was wounded. I do not believe that they intended to do more than frighten him.”
“And you saw it all?”
“I was lying tied hand and foot on the floor. They drugged me afterward and put me on a ship for San Francisco.”
“What was it that they wanted him to tell them?”
“It was a business matter,” Elliott said, hastily. “Something that he knew nothing about, but they thought he did. I don’t quite understand the details of it myself.”
He had feared a terrible scene, but Margaret took the story courageously.
“What became of the—the murderers?” she asked, after a silence.
“I have no idea. Did you hear of any one being arrested?”
“No. There was an inquest—but no one arrested, at least before I left.” She was twisting her handkerchief into shreds between her fingers. “Thank you,” she said, suddenly, trying to smile again. “It was kind of you to tell me. You have been so good to me! Now—now, please go!”
Elliott fled from the hotel, immeasurably relieved that it was over. The next day, he said to himself, he would send her back to her aunt in Nebraska, where she would probably wish to go, and he himself would sail with Bennett for Africa. When he returned it would be with his share of the great treasure. He felt the need of it now; he wanted it more than ever—not for his own sake, but for Margaret’s.
Next morning, when he called on Margaret, she made no reference to her father. She was very pale and evidently dispirited, and he took her out driving. She attempted to talk on casual topics, but with indifferent success, and she did not speak of leaving San Francisco.
It was the same on the next day, and the next. Margaret no longer cared either to drive or to walk. She received Elliott in her sitting-room at the hotel when he came to see her. She was listless, languid, paler than ever. As she was, in a manner, his guest, he could not well suggest to her that she return to Lincoln, but he saw clearly that she would be ill unless she were given a change of scene, and something to divert her mind. San Francisco still was too suggestive of Hongkong, and he noticed that she shrunk painfully from the sight of a Chinaman. She must leave the city, he thought; but perhaps she did not have even enough money for her ticket to Lincoln.
After long pondering, he broached the matter on the fourth day.
“If you’d like to go back to your aunt at Lincoln, Margaret,” he said, “I know a fellow here in the Union Pacific office, and I can get you transportation without its costing you a cent.”
“Don’t you know?” she answered. “My aunt is dead. She died shortly after you left Lincoln. She was caught out in that storm that found us at Salt Lake—do you remember it?—and took cold, and died of pneumonia. I have no one in the world now. That was the chief reason why I went to Hongkong.”
“No, you never told me that,” said Elliott, startled, and worried. He would have liked to say what he felt that, under the circumstances, he had no right to say; he had trouble to restrain it; he wanted to relieve her at once from all her material troubles.
“And this brings me to what I should have said long ago,” she went on. “I am—it’s humiliating to confess it—but I have no money. All I had I spent in Hongkong. I want to get work here. I’m strong; I can do anything. Have you any idea where I could try?”
Elliott started with horror; the confession wrenched his heart. But it occurred to him that he could subsidize some one to take music lessons from her.
“Why, yes,” he said. “I’m glad you spoke of it. I know one girl here, at least, who wants music lessons. She’ll pay well for them, too—four or five dollars an hour.”
“Oh!” gasped Margaret. “Do they pay such prices in California? But they will want something extraordinary.”
“No, you’ll do splendidly,” Elliott assured her. “Then I have to go away myself,—on that hunt for the easy millions I spoke of in Hongkong.”
“And you never told me just what it was,” said Margaret. “But, before you go, I want you to tell me just what it was that those men wanted my father to tell them.”
Elliott reflected. “Yes, I might as well tell you,” he said, slowly. “It is mixed up with my own venture, too. I cut the story short the other day, for fear of hurting you too much.” And for the third time Elliott told the story of the wrecked gold-ship, and of his own efforts in the chase.
“They killed him because he would not tell where the wreck was?” she soliloquized, when he had finished.
“He could not tell them what he knew nothing of.”
“But my father did know where that ship was wrecked,” she said, looking him full in the face.
“What? Impossible!” cried Elliott, staggered.
“He knew where it was wrecked. That man who was in the boat with him—the mate—told him before he died, and gave him the exact position, with the latitude and longitude. My father told me of it. He had planned to go there sometime and see if anything could be recovered from the wreck. I found the map, with the place marked, among his papers. But he thought that no one else knew of it.”
Elliott, still half-dazed, reflected that the missionary had not ceased to astonish him, even after death.
“He intended to give you a share of it. Do you remember that I once said that he might be able to do something great for you?”
“Well, in that case,” said Elliott, trying to focus this new aspect of events, “did he tell those fellows the right place? If he did, it’s too late to look.”
“Did he tell them anything?”
“He said the wreck was on Ibo Island, latitude and longitude something. I supposed that he said it merely to save himself—the first place he could think of. Do you remember where the exact spot was?”
“No. But I have the map in my trunk.”
“Would you mind getting it? Of course,” he added, “you’ll have an equal share in whatever we get out of it. But if you really know the right spot there isn’t a minute to lose.”
She sat without moving, however. “Come and see me this afternoon,” she said, finally. “I want to think it over.”
Elliott was astonished at this request. Surely she could not distrust him, though unquestionably it was her secret. He reflected dubiously that there is never any knowing what a woman will decide to do with a delicate case.
“You said that one of your friends—one of your partners—was in the city,” she said, as he left. “Please bring him with you this afternoon. I think it would be right.”
More bewildered than ever, Elliott went away to find Bennett, who was able to throw no light on his perplexity. But they returned together to the hotel at three o’clock, where Margaret received them with a manner which was more animated than in the forenoon.
“This is the map,” she said, holding up a folded piece of paper, spotted and stained. “I have just been looking at it again. What place did you say my father told them?”
“Ibo Island, latitude south twelve, forty something. I forget the longitude,” replied Elliott. “Do you think that’s it?”
She consulted the map again.
“No. It isn’t Ibo Island, and it isn’t latitude twelve, forty, at all. It’s nearly a hundred miles south of that, I should think. It must be nearly two hundred miles from Ibo Island.”
“I thought he wasn’t telling the truth,” said Elliott, tactlessly.
“No,” the girl flashed back. “He died with an untruth on his lips for my sake. He thought I might still profit by this gold. Tell me,” she went on, after a nervous pause, “have those other men any right to it?”
“No more than we have.”
“Does the treasure belong to any one? I mean, will it be defrauding any one if we take it?”
“Apparently not. It’s treasure-trove. But where is it?”
She folded the map and stowed it inside her blouse. “I’ll take you to it,” she said.
“You?” exclaimed Elliott. “You couldn’t.”
“You can’t find it without my help, it seems. I will give you this map when our boat is out of sight of land—the boat in which we go to find the wreck. You will have to take me with you.”
Bennett looked closely at the girl, and smiled quietly.
“But, great heavens! you don’t know what you’re asking,” cried Elliott. “You don’t know what sort of a rough crew we’ll ship. It may come to fighting.”
“I’m not afraid. And you know I can shoot.”
“It’s simply out of the question,” Elliott said, decisively. “You must stay here or go back to Lincoln. You’ll give us the map, and we’ll bring back your share for you. You can trust us, I hope?”
“It isn’t that I’m afraid. But I have no friends now nor money. No one knows anything of me; what does it matter what I do? And I can’t stay here. I think I should die if I had to stay in San Francisco. I must do something—I don’t care what. Oh, set it down as a girl’s foolish freak—anything you like!” she exclaimed, passionately. “But I go with your expedition, or it goes without the map.”
Elliott looked helplessly at Bennett, who said nothing. Then a new idea struck him.
“But we’re too late anyhow. Those other fellows have a month’s start, and they will certainly search all the islands within two or three hundred miles.”
“I was thinking of that,” said Bennett. “I don’t see why Miss Laurie shouldn’t go with us if she’s determined to do it. But the time? Let’s figure it out.”
“I’m afraid it’s hopeless,” said Elliott. “It’s three weeks from here to Hongkong.”
“Well, let’s see. Suppose they sailed within a day or two after you did. It’s about two weeks to Bombay. They’ll have trouble in getting a steamer for the East African coast, because there isn’t any regular service. They’re certain to be delayed there for ten days or two weeks, and when they do sail it will be on a slow ship, because there isn’t anything else in those waters. It’ll take them over a month to get to Zanzibar.”
“They may be there by this time, then,” remarked Elliott.
“Well, suppose they are. It’ll take them nearly a month to fit out their expedition, hire a vessel, get a crew, divers and diving-suits, and they’ll be three or four days in sailing to Ibo Island. They’ll spend a day or two there, and then they’ll begin to look elsewhere. If the right place is over two hundred miles away, it’ll take them two or three weeks to get to it. They can’t reasonably get to the Clara McClay in less than six to seven weeks from to-day.”
“But it will take us the same six or seven weeks to get there, not speaking of the distance from here to Hongkong,” Elliott objected.
“Yes, if we go that way. But rail travel is quicker than land, and we’re only five days from New York.”
“By Jove! I see,” cried Elliott, catching the idea.
“New York to London is seven days, if we make the right connections. London to Durban is about seventeen days, isn’t it? It’ll take a few more days to get to Delagoa Bay, and say another week to sail up the channel to the wreck. Total about five weeks. It gives us a margin of about one week. We’ll wire Henninger at once to get his outfit ready at Delagoa Bay, and we’ll sail the moment we get there.”
“There’s just a chance, I do believe,” exclaimed Elliott. “But why not start our expedition from Zanzibar? It’s nearer.”
“So it is, and that’s why Sevier will choose it. We don’t want to meet him there or anywhere else.”
“Suppose we meet his gang at the wreck?”
“We must beat them off.”
“Yes, there’s a chance—a fighting chance, after all,” said Elliott, getting up and beginning to walk about restlessly. “That is, if Miss Laurie will be reasonable,” looking at her imploringly.
“I am perfectly reasonable.”
“You’ll give us the steering directions, then?”
“Not till we are on board, at Delagoa Bay. Come, we’ll argue the question as we go. There’s no time to lose now. Can we get a train to-night?”
“The Overland leaves at seven o’clock,” said Bennett. “It’s as she says. There’s no time to talk. We’ve got just the narrowest margin now, and our only chance is in knowing exactly where to go when we sail from Africa.”
“I’ll be ready at six,” said Margaret, decisively. “We’ll talk it all over on the train.”