Clutterbuck's Treasure

"Nothing of the kind, my good man," said Jack cordially. "Dig away, by all means; you shall see that neither of us will interfere."

"Yes, and if we find the treasure, you will shoot us down; I know you, I say!" replied Strong. We made allowance for his temper, which was shocking to-day; but then his provocation had really been considerable.

"If you find the treasure you shall take it away with you in peace, so far as my friend and myself are concerned," said Jack. "We shall not shoot you, and you can't very well shoot us without rifles, can you? Good-night all; come, Peter."

We could see our good friends frenziedly poking among the embers for their burning weapons the moment we had departed; but, as Jack remarked, they were welcome to the barrels, and since he had taken care to keep up the conversation long enough to allow the woodwork to burn away, that would be all they would get.

Returning to our camp, we made up a fire for ourselves and tossed up for first sleep, for we must keep a stricter watch than ever now, or these desperate fellows would steal our weapons and turn the tables upon us. So we slept and watched by turns until morning, and it was on this night that I heard for the first time in my life the roar of a lion. It was not very near at hand, but, far away as it was, it sounded terrible enough to the inexperienced ear, and I thought over all I had read of the ways of lions in the works of Mr. Selous and other African sportsmen, and recalled an awkward propensity some of them have of coolly coming into camp and foraging among the waggons even in the glare of the firelight. If this brute were to come now and help itself to Jack Henderson before I could interfere, what a truly terrible thing it would be! The idea impressed me so deeply that I awoke Henderson and told him there was a lion roaring somewhere within hearing.

Jack was very sleepy, and my watch was only half over, which made him ridiculously angry to have been awaked.

"Well, what then?" he said. "Let him roar and be hanged! if he didn't wake me, why should you?"

"Why, he might come and bag you while you slept," I said; "travellers say they do that kind of thing."

"Well, what are you there for, man?" said Jack angrily, settling himself to sleep again. "You are there to shoot James Strong, or lions, or she-bears, or anything else that comes and plays the fool around here. For goodness' sake don't wake a fellow to talk about the habits of lions—shoot him if he comes, that's all you have to do!"

I suppose the lion had other engagements for that night, for his roars receded farther away and were lost, presently, in the distance.

We were up in the morning at the first glint of light, for we were naturally anxious to see the ground upon which our labours were to be lavished until the envious soil should reveal to us or the others the secret of old Clutterbuck. There it was, the open space of sandy hummocky soil, and there were the posts, three of them at least; we could not see the fourth. And there, too, was the upturned earth over a considerable area, representing the day's work, or the day and a half's work, of the Strongs, who had evidently toiled for all they were worth in order to make the most of the start they had gained upon us. The result of this haste on their part was to be seen in the shallowness of their digging, which appeared to have nowhere extended to a greater depth than six to nine inches. As we stood and surveyed the ground, our three friends came with their spades and set to work at once. They scowled at us ferociously, but made no reply to Jack's polite "Good-morning."

"I daresay they are rather annoyed with us," said Jack. "Now, Peter, don't be lazy, but begin to dig at once. I'm your bodyguard, remember, and shall do no work except thinking."

"Aren't you going to dig?" I said.

"Certainly not," said Jack; "I'm not one of the authorised. If I dug and found the treasure, there might be a legal point. Now dig up, man, and don't argue; you're wasting your time. Think of the nuggets and diamonds only awaiting the magic touch of your spade! George! if I had a legal position, wouldn't I dig!"

I did dig. I dug that morning until the sweat poured from my face and head like drops of rain. I dug till my arms and back ached so that I almost cried with the pain, while Jack sat or lay and watched, keeping an eye on the Strong party and entertaining me with light conversation. By the evening I was perfectly exhausted, and the greater part of the space of about two acres had been dug over, though not to any great depth, by one or other of the four workers, yet nothing had been discovered.

When Jack awoke me to take my watch at half-time that night, he said—

"Peter, I've been thinking."

"What about?" I asked sleepily.

"About that fourth post," he said.

CHAPTER XIII

AN UNEXPECTED TRAGEDY

"I was wondering what has become of that fourth post," continued Jack. "It can't have disappeared very well."

"It doesn't matter much," I rejoined, "for it can only have been in one spot—the fourth corner of a square; the other three are absolutely symmetrically placed. We can easily judge of the position of the missing one."

"I'm not so sure," said Jack. "I don't think it's a trick of the Strongs, for they seem to take it for granted, as we have done, that the area is a square. I shall look about for it to-morrow while you dig."

"I wish you'd dig while I look about!" said I; "it's the most fatiguing thing I ever tried in my life."

"That's because you never did a day's work till yesterday, my son; but cheer up, you'll find it less fatiguing every day, take my word for it." Jack yawned and lay down, and in a minute was fast asleep. As for me, I very nearly fell asleep also—in fact, I believe I was actually dozing—when my friend the lion suddenly roared from somewhere so close at hand that my heart went into my boots and I felt my knees tremble together as I lay. So loud was it that even Jack awoke and started to his feet.

"What on earth was that?" he said. "Did someone shoot?"

"It was a lion's roar, close behind us here in the bush," I said, my teeth chattering. I don't think I am a coward, but I do hate dangers that I cannot see.

"By George!—fancy those wretched chaps over by that fire," said Jack, "without rifles; what a state of terror they will be in!"

What a good fellow Jack was! I had never thought, in my selfishness, of the infinitely more dangerous position of the others.

At this moment the lion roared again.

"Listen to that!" continued Jack. "What a voice the brute has! It's enough to terrify anyone, especially unarmed people. Ought we to go and stand by those chaps, think you, Peter?"

I am glad to think that I replied in the affirmative.

"And yet," said Jack, "I'm not sure that one of us hadn't better stop here to take care of our horses. Shall we toss up who goes? You see, it was we who disarmed the poor beggars; we can't very well leave them unprotected when real danger comes."

I cordially endorsed the sentiment, and though I would far rather have let our horses go by the board than separate from Jack in this crisis, I tossed up with him as to who should go and who stay.

"Heads stay—tails go," said Jack. "You toss."

I tossed, and the coin showed tails.

"Tails; then you go—lucky rascal!" said Jack; "you get all the fun. Shout for me if anything happens. Cæsar! there he is, roaring again, and nearer their camp. Be off, Peter, and mind your hide!"

I have said that I do not consider myself a coward, but assuredly the greatest coward in the world could not have been more frightened than was I during that most weird and uncanny walk through the darkness towards the twinkling glow of the Strongs' camp fire, but a very few hundreds of yards away. The word darkness hardly expresses the almost opaque blackness of the night as I stumbled over hummock and thorn bush in the direction of the fire.

Beasts were abroad, it appeared, in horrible profusion. Scuttling, growling, rushing, they seemed to jump up from before and around me at almost every step, as though an army of them were stalking me, and came repeatedly within springing distance, only to lose heart as I approached, and dash away into the darkness.

I have since come to the conclusion that these were hyenas, for no other beast would be likely to be about in close proximity to a roaring lion.

The lion advertised himself freely. Once, at least, he roared within twenty yards of me, and though I held my rifle to my shoulder ready for him, I quite gave myself up for lost. But his designs were not, it appeared, directed against myself, for a moment after he roared again much nearer to the Strongs' camp fire, and presently from beyond that point.

I could hear the Strongs talking excitedly and loudly, and could see that they were busily engaged in piling brushwood upon their fire, for at intervals it seemed to blaze up brightly and to smoke more vigorously. The lion, I could not help thinking, was prospecting both our party and theirs, and walking round and round both, working himself up to the necessary pitch of audacity for an attack.

So, stumbling, groping, creeping upon my uncanny way, I came at last within fifty yards of the Strongs' camp. The lion had been silent now for several minutes, a fact which rendered my horror all the more intense, because I could no longer tell where the brute was, and, for all I knew, he might be at my heels or a couple of yards away on either side of me, licking his lips, and, as it were, choosing his joint in preparation for a spring.

Of a sudden I was startled by the most piercing shrieks and yells that I had ever heard. The noise came from the Strongs' camp, and set the seal of horror upon my soul, so that I fell on my knees then and there and prayed aloud with the most intense earnestness I had ever put into prayer. Then I sprang to my feet in a flush of shame. The lion, I suddenly realised, had made his appearance among these wretched, unarmed folk, while I, their protector, knelt and prayed like a coward for the safety of my own skin!

Aroused and stimulated by this thought, I rushed madly for the camp, careless now of the darkness and danger and horror of the night, and in a moment or two had reached, breathless, the circle of light shed by the Strongs' fire. Here a weird sight presented itself to me.

Clutterbuck knelt and gabbled prayers aloud, his eyes, almost starting from his head, fixed upon a spot just on the verge of the firelight, where James Strong stood, armed with a burning log, cursing as loudly as the other prayed, and staring into the darkness beyond.

Both started as I appeared, but both immediately looked away from me again and resumed their occupations.

"What is it?" I gasped. "Has anything happened? Where is your brother, Strong?"

"It's the most infernal murder, that's what it is!" shouted the fellow, turning suddenly upon me and stamping his foot; "as clear a case of murder as ever a criminal committed!"