Walden Walter
The Voodoo Gold Trail

CHAPTER XXVIII
WE ARE TRAPPED – THE BATTLE

We turned back, when Duran had passed out of our view on the cliff-top. Lest he should be watching, we still kept ourselves within the edge of the wood, till we had recrossed the ridge where the trees covered all of the ground. And there on the path we met the others and Norris, looking a little embarrassed, I thought. Doubtless, he was conscious that he had in his impetuosity discovered himself to Duran, and so spilled the soup, as it were. He did not mention it, and no one taxed him with it; but I know the thought punished him, and made him for a time a bit humble.

"He pulled the ladder and all up with him," I reported.

"And where is the polecat running to, do you suppose?" queried Ray.

And no one had an answer to that which he thought fit to give voice to. I doubt not, each one of us had pretty much the same thought, one that he dreaded to hear echoed by some other.

We were properly immured in this sink, of that we were all well assured. For we had Andy Hawkins' story of the times – in the two years – that he had made the round of those craggy walls in search of a possible escape.

It was a silent cavalcade that marched back to the clearing, and up to where Hawkins and the black boy were busy in the diggings. We gave them the news of Duran's precipitate flight, and Hawkins gave it little more thought than to "'ope 'ee didn't carry hoff the brown stuff," (meaning the opium) and "Hi'd give my 'and to know where 'ee keeps it."

Carlos, I noticed, had some private word with the black boy, and the two soon were gone into the brush together. The lad soon came back, and I egged on Jean Marat to question him as to what Carlos might be up to. For answer he led the two of us to where we found Carlos kneeling beside the skeleton of a human – it was in a patch of vines.

When finally Carlos discovered us, looking on wonderingly, he beckoned us. "My father," he said, in explanation. And he held up a gold cross that was on a chain that still hung on the ghastly figure.

And then Carlos got to his feet. "Duran – " he began, but the rest of the speech stuck in his throat. And I saw a look in his face that I had seen there before, and which boded ill for Duran.

With the black boy's help he had at last found the grave of his father. And such a grave! It went indeed hard with the elder Brill. The spoiler of his mine, and his murderer, had not even given him decent burial. We sent for the others; and then and there we dug a grave, and Norris was able to summon out of his memory a few words of the burial service. We left Carlos kneeling beside the mound. And when he rejoined us, much comfort showed in his face.

That bit of experience somehow drove, in large part, the gloom from our spirits, and we went about our further doings with more semblance of cheer.

Norris volunteered to go down and watch for Duran's possible return. I guessed his thought; that he felt that his bungling, in allowing himself to be discovered, had made him deserve this less agreeable task. The rest of us set ourselves to the business of searching out Duran's hidden storehouse. In spite of our zeal and numbers, the afternoon was nearly gone, and we no nearer the solution. We explored that cavern that Andy Hawkins had told us of; and moved forward in a passage that went upward in its windings. I marvelled at the singular freshness of the air, till – having traversed some couple of hundred yards – I discovered the reason. The cave had but the one gallery, and that ended in a chimney, just over our heads where we now stood, and through which showed the light of day. That little opening, in which a hat would have stuck, was high in the cliff-side, as we were to learn.

Ray and I hurried down the path in the dark, to Norris, to report our failure and to relieve him on watch. But he refused to budge from the place.

"I gave us all away," he said, "and now I'm going to make it up somehow. I'm going to make that skunk show us where he's got the stuff. And he'll do it, too, when I tell him a few of the things I've seen done to carcasses like him."

When he would not leave the watch to us, we decided to remain with him. He was not cheerful.

"You see," began Ray, then, "you'll have us to prove things by, when you're trying to convince that polecat. You'll say 'Isn't that so, Ray?' And I'll answer, 'Yes, that's so, Norris.' And then Wayne, here, he'll say, 'Yes, Norris, that's right, I know, because you never tell – '"

"Hist!" I interrupted him. "Listen."

Some little time back I thought I heard a thing like thunder, far back in the mountains. But it had been momentary, and I set it down as an illusion. While Ray prattled his nonsense, I seemed to hear it again. We cocked our ears, but heard not even so much as the trill of a tree-toad.

"Ah, say," began Ray, "What – " And this time he interrupted himself, to listen.

There was that quavering, rolling, rumble that we had heard weeks before. Each succeeding wave of sound seemed to join with, and accentuate, the preceding. And then came a decadency, like a wagon rolling out of ear-shot. And again – we could not tell just the moment we began to hear the sound – there came from afar that eerie rumble, swelling, slowly to die away once more.

"The voodoo drum," said Ray. "Some more voodoo doings – that's what he went for."

"Yes," said Norris, "and I'm afraid we'll have a taste of some more voodoo doings before we get through."

Neither of us cared to ask Norris what he meant. We continued to give ear to that weird music for long; and to each of us it seemed full of a portent; and each dreaded to hear another put it in words.

I do not know how many hours we three continued to squat there, at the edge of the wood; seldom talking, and then avoiding the thought uppermost in our minds. But at last it came, and we heard voices over by the cliff wall. They were coming down the rope ladder.

We rose to our feet, and scurried off in the edge of the wood, till we crossed the ridge and came to the beginning of the path. And there we crouched in the brush and waited.

At last came the stealthy, black figures, moving in silence, and in single file. We counted twenty as they went by us, and each carried some kind of gun. My heart pounded with the emotion; I have never before nor since experienced such fear as gripped me at sight of the martial array.

When they had passed, we got over across the stream to our friends, and gave them our ill news. The coming of those twenty dusky voodoos could have but the one explanation: Duran had brought them to hunt down, and destroy, the six of us. He would madden them with rum, mixed with the blood of fowls, and sick them on to us. And he made sure of us, since there was but the one exit from this vale; and there he doubtless had stationed some trusty black at the cliff-top, to keep the ladder and the halliard, till he should have need of it – when the work shall have been completed.

We trapped ones, got our heads together for some talk of our situation. How we lamented our lack of foresight, in leaving behind our arms and ammunition! Norris's lone rifle, with but a handful of cartridges, would but delay for a little the inevitable end. But for a time I had had my mind full of a wild thought. And I pulled Norris to one side, and opened the thing to him. My plan was so desperate that I hadn't the courage to tell it to anyone less bold spirited than he. It was no less than to employ that under-water way that Duran had used to transport the gold – to sink into the stream and be carried through that hole, and fetch up within that cavern; and so out to our camp in the forest, and return with the three rifles and the ammunition by way of the ladder – that was the plan.

Norris seized me by the arms. "The very thing!" he said, " – if it can be done. We'll find out!"

When we told the others of the plan, they took it without enthusiasm; declared it impossible – suicidal.

"You've no idea how far it is in to the cave," said Ray.

"We'll measure and find out," I answered. "Besides, it's our only chance."

There was no time to lose, for what we had to do must be done before daybreak; when we would have the whole cannibal crew stalking us.

We had a coil of half inch rope, which, with other things, we had taken from the shacks. This I took up, and Norris, Robert, and Carlos, made up the rest of the party. We moved down the stream in the dark, picking our way amongst the underbrush. At length we got out in the open, beyond the place of the ladder; and Carlos guided us to the spot on the bank of the creek, where he had seen Duran setting afloat the gold-laden bamboo. It was a wide pool about that hole, into which the waters disappeared in the cliff-side.

We found a piece of wood the size of a man's thigh. In this, all around, we drove a half dozen sharpened twigs; and we weighted the little log with stones, tied on; and at last bent on an end of our half inch rope. We then set it afloat, paying out the rope. And the log, neither scraping the bottom, nor yet floating on the surface, was carried on with the current into that hole.

I had my hand on the rope, and presently felt the impulse, as the log found an obstruction. It rested against that net of Duran's in the cavern; of that there was little doubt. We pulled back the log again, and so got the measure of the distance.

"Not over twenty feet!" declared Norris.

"And none of the pegs are knocked off," announced Robert, who explored the log.

"Now," I said, "I'm going. If after I get to the net, you feel two sharp jerks, in a little while repeated, you're to give me the rope. If I give five or six jerks, you're to pull me back; and if, after I touch the net you get no sort of signal, pull me out; and you, Bob, you know what to do."

None had better than Robert, the technic of artificial respiration.

"Now look here, Wayne," began Robert, "I'm going, too; and it's my turn to make it first."

And so here began a discussion, and if each, including Carlos, had had his way, all four would have gone that route. But at last we came to a decision, and Robert and I won, I to go first.

I selected a stone of sufficient weight to hold me down, so that I should not scrape on the roof of that passage; and I let them set the loop of rope about me, under the arms. I waded into the pool. I felt the suck of the water on my legs when I neared that hole.

"Keep your nerve and trust us," said Norris.

"Let her go!" I cried, and took a breath and held it, and ducked my head.

The current caught me. I experienced but a momentary pang of fear; and then succeeded a pleasurable sense of excitement. The next moment my feet touched something more yielding than rock, and that was the signal to lift my head to the surface. I was in the cavern. I slipped out of the noose, and gave the signal to haul away, and the rope went out of my hand. I crawled out of the stream.

It seemed little more than a minute, and Robert was beside me. I heard him gasping for his first breath.

"Who'd have thought it would be so easy," he said.

We took in the rope and hurried out to our old camp in the brush. We knew well where to lay our hands on the rifles – Marat's and Robert's and mine. There were some hundreds of rounds of cartridges for the larger guns – Marat's and Norris's – and many more of the twenty-two calibre for our little rifles.

We tarried not at all, but got back through the cascade into the cavern again, and so up and out, on the way to that cliff-top.

We moved cautiously, as we neared those cedars, where hung the rope ladder, for it was probable there should be a peril there, in the shape of a black, guarding the ladder, and it was in reason that he should have some kind of weapon. Our plan of action had been determined before we left Norris. We would surprise the fellow, pounce on him and secure him with the rope.

Then we would let down the ladder to Norris and Carlos, who would come up and help us lower the captive into the vale.

Our bare feet crept forward at a snail's pace, nearer and nearer to the cedars. A pebble rolled, and suddenly a figure rose up before us with a startled grunt. And that instant it toppled over the cliff-edge with a guttural cry; and we heard nothing more.

In a minute we had the rope ladder unrolling, down the cliff-side. We threw down the loose end of halliard, and began the descent.

"I didn't expect we'd get him down so easy," observed Robert, seeking comfort in a grim joke.

"I wish it could have been as we planned," I said. I sickened at the thought of that mangled body somewhere down below.

We soon had our feet on the sloping ledge. Norris and Carlos stood there waiting.

"Did you have to throw him down?" queried Norris. And then, when I had related the circumstance: – "He must have been asleep," he said.

Having pulled the ladder up to the cedars, I took up the loose end of the halliard, and climbing as high as I dared venture among the vines, I made fast the rope so that Duran would not easily discover it.

Norris and Carlos had made some disposition of the black's body, for which I was thankful; for I had no wish to set my eye on the thing, even in the dark.

Norris and Carlos took over the heavy ammunition, and we set off up the vale. It was a silent file that stole cautiously through the woods, till we had joined Marat and Ray, who were greatly relieved to learn that our adventure had been carried through without unhappy accident. That it had cost the life of one of the enemy was accounted a gain. There had fallen an accession to our party, too, while we were gone; and Hawkins and the black boy had stolen away from Duran's party soon after the arrival at the huts.

"The boss," said Hawkins, "'ee butchered some chickens, and 'ee began to dose them niggers up on the rum."

The black boy had told Jean Marat a startling piece of news: no less than that Duran had promised his voodoo crew a feasting, on the morrow, on the hearts of his white enemies.

"They've a surprise in store for them, I guess," said Norris, when Marat had repeated the intelligence.

"Yes, I think," agreed Captain Marat. "We maybe feed them on thing' what give indigestion." And he continued to distribute about his person his share of the ammunition.

Day was not many hours off, and Norris and Marat put their heads together to discuss the plan of battle. At the first, we were to be on the defensive, and when the enemy had been given a proper reception, a vigorous offensive action was to follow with the purpose to quickly demoralize the blacks. Robert and I came forward with the suggestion that while Marat and Norris should crouch behind some breastworks of logs, that should be thrown up at the edge of the clearing, Robert and I would seek sheltered places well forward on either side of the clearing, and with our little silent guns we would throw lead into the feet and legs of any blacks who should spread out to either flank. And thus we would help to keep the enemy in a single mass during their attack, which would give Norris and Marat their chance.

Some parts of fallen trees were dragged near the edge of the clearing. And then a fire was made back among the trees, with the intent to give direction to the enemy when they should come. When we had all taken our places: I was at the edge of the clearing, close to the beginning of the path; Carlos crouched with me behind a tree, to lend me his eyes; Ray was doing the same for Robert on the opposite side of the clearing; Marat and Norris lay behind their breastworks; Hawkins and the black boy were at the back, ready to call, in any case of need.

You will never think that our situation was an agreeable one. I know I speak for all of our party – except perhaps, Norris and Carlos – when I say that we would gladly have escaped from that vale, and boarded the Pearl, to sail away without thought of return. And you will say, there was the rope ladder ready to our hand, and none to block the way. But not one among us had the hardihood to suggest retreat. It was Norris held us, of that I am sure; throughout, the thought of retreat never entered his mind; that must have been plain to us all. We had some things in our favor. Marat and Norris, each with his own heavy-powered rifle, had long ago forgotten what it was to miss; Robert and I, with our little guns, rarely ever lost our target.

After our fire had been set alight, not a sound had come from the huts. Night birds and tree-toads intoned peaceful notes. The night breeze rustled the tops of the taller palms. I crouched at the foot of my tree, getting much comfort of the sound of Carlos' breathing close by. Fortunately I had not to bear that suspense for long.

The first hint of dawn had hardly showed above the trees, when that score of blacks poured into view by the huts, each holding a gun. They moved forward, four or five spreading out on either flank. There was one who was about to enter the wood to my right. I drew bead on his foot and pulled the trigger. The black stooped, uttering a painful grunt. I did the same for the next near black fellow. He cried out with the pain. And the two forthwith limped back the way they had come. The others of the stragglers on my side showed themselves startled at this inexplicable conduct of their two fellows, and fell in to the main body.

A glance told me that Robert was having similar luck on his side. And there was evident consternation among those of the enemy who saw some of their comrades limping painfully away; for up to now there had been no sound to account for such conduct.

But now the quiet of that dawn was broken. Two loud reports rang out and set echoes going in the vale. Two more shots followed, and there lay four writhing black voodoos on the ground. The rest of the blacks let go one volley, and then broke and ran. One more among them fell before they gained shelter behind the huts.

Then Norris joined me where I crouched. "No one hurt amongst us, I guess," he observed, as he kept his eyes on the structures. When a head or shoulder showed there, he let fly at it with a ball. We heard an occasional shot from Marat's rifle on the east side of the clearing, where he had gone to join Robert.

"If you can drive 'em back into the cave we've got 'em," spoke the voice of Hawkins. "Hi'll take care of 'em then, Hi will." And he crept up and whispered something into Norris' ear.

"Good!" said Norris. "We'll get them there. Run round and tell that to Marat."

And the fellow set off through the woods to get round to Captain Marat.

For a time, the enemy let off an occasional shot on general principles, and without effect, but soon lost all ambition, apparently, and silence reigned. It was then I heard an exclamation from Carlos. "Ah! Duran!" he cried, and he set off through the brush.

Instinctively I followed him. Directly, we were on the path. When we had crossed the ridge, I saw Duran out in the open, legging it toward the cliff under the cedars, and calling out as he ran. Doubtless he called to the black he had left in charge of the rope ladder – he who now lay, a mangled corpse at the foot. He continued to call as he hurried up that inclined ledge. But no ladder came down to him.

Carlos was at the foot of the incline when Duran reached the limit of the ledge. On up that way sped Carlos, after him. My heart, my breath, my feet, all alike stopped, as I awaited the clash. And then it came. The struggle was short. The two tripped over the edge together. I saw Carlos grasp at some growth; it tore loose. And then he seized on a vine, finally sliding to the bottom. I rushed to him. He had escaped with a badly wrenched shoulder.

Duran lay at the rocky foot of the cliff in a heap, the death-rattle already in his throat. He had broken his skull.

CHAPTER XXIX
HOW THE ENEMY PERISH AND THE MONKEY DISCOVERS THE TREASURE

It was some minutes before Carlos could hold up his head, so badly shaken was he. I went all over him, and had soon satisfied myself there were no broken bones. He had been saved by the very mass of vines that had before preserved me from death. His fall had been but forty feet, and mine had been many times that; a fall, after a manner of saying, for, as will be remembered, I slid down the rope halliard the greater part of the descent.

I ran through the wood to the creek, and brought Carlos a drink; and it was then he got to his feet. We stood looking on the now quite inanimate form of Duran, for a little, neither of us speaking his thoughts. I could not tell by Carlos' stoic features what there was in his mind; but in mine there was admixture, of some sorrow, that the presence of death always puts into one when excitement is gone, but more of a sense of elation that Duran had come by his death in the manner he had. For whatever intent Carlos had entertained in his mind, he had not actually slain the man with his own hand. And there on the ground, too, lay a knife that Duran had tried to use on Carlos, who was without a weapon of any sort, his own knife being in the camp.

It was time we were on the way to join our friends. I had been hearing occasional shots, but when we turned away from Duran's body, all sounds had ceased. We crossed the ridge, and in a little had come to the clearing. There was no one in sight; so we went round within the edge of the wood back of the huts; and as we neared the cliffs my nostrils were filled with the odor of sulphur. And we had no sooner got to the edge of the little open space in front of the cave, than Robert was upon us and pulled us to the ground. He had us to crawl after him to where Norris and Marat lay, gun in hand, behind a fallen tree-trunk.

They had their eyes on the mouth of the cave, and looking over there, I saw a curious thing. A fire burned at the very entrance of the cave; and on the one side, Andy Hawkins lingered beside a pile of dried brush-wood and dead palm leaves. This fuel he cast on the flames, from time to time. Ray and the black boy soon came to view, back of Hawkins, with arms filled with more fuel which they added to the pile.

I now saw how it was; the enemy had taken refuge in the cave, and now our party were smoking them out. The smoke, I saw, was drawn into the cavern as into a chimney; and I remembered how, when I was in the cave, I had felt the draft of air going through. I looked up the cliff-side; and there, far to the left, I saw a wee column of smoke going up from a cleft. And then – there was that odor of sulphur again. Smoking them out! Ay, but how smoking them out? My flesh crept with the horror of the thing. This was the miserable Hawkins' doing. I remembered now that word he had let drop about his taking care of them if we should but drive them into the cave – and his whispering in Norris' ear. I felt sick.

"Are we doing right?" I said to Norris, beside whom I crouched.

"Right!" he said, turning an angry look at me. "Didn't they plan to eat our hearts this night? And didn't they attack us, twenty guns against four – the murderous, child-eating cannibals? And isn't smoking as easy a death as hanging? What do you want?"

I was effectively silenced. And then I thought, too, on the alternative. Suppose we retire and let the blacks out. Would they go their ways and let us alone? I knew better. They would simply set a strong guard on the only exit; and then collect many more of their voodoo comrades; and they would have our hearts for a voodoo feast in the end. So I gave in to this thing that was going on, distasteful as I found it.

I watched Andy Hawkins over there. That thin body of his squirmed with his infirmity, and made him seem to be in the throes of a heathen dance, as he plied the fire with the fuel. The volumes of yellow-white smoke continued to pour into the cave's mouth. It was burning sulphur, as I learned.

It may have been two hours that we lay behind that fallen tree, and the sun was mounted well on toward the zenith. Then Norris and Marat conferred, and decided that the enemy must be in a state beyond all power of striking back. So we approached the fire and pulled it away from the cave's mouth. But nearly another hour passed before we ventured in. Norris took the lead with a battery lamp, the rest of us following.

A little way within, we came upon a body that lay in a pool of blood. He was one that sought to rush out, and got a ball in his body. Then at various portions of the passage we saw three more blacks, all inanimate. And at the uttermost confines of the cave, just below that narrow opening out – the chimney, as it were – all the rest lay in various postures, where they fell, choked by the fumes.

"Well, they all got just what they earned," observed Norris. "The world would be better, if all of their kind were here with them."

"Yes," agreed Jean Marat, "but Duran, he ees not here. I am ver' sorry he ees not here weeth hees voodoo frien's."

I had not told of Duran's accident at the foot of the ladder. Now I told it.

"Ah! You don't say!" said Norris. "Are you sure he's dead?"

"Yes," I assured him. "His skull was fractured."

"We're in great luck," said Norris. "Now we've got the whole secret of this place among us. And Carlos, you had a narrow escape."

"Yes," said Carlos. "And my father, hees murderer, he dead."

We dug a long trench just without that cave; and it was well past noon when we had dragged out the blacks and buried them in it, with the five that had fallen at the clearing. We took a meal before we went down the vale, and placed Duran and that other black in another grave.

It was while we were dining (and it was a pair of Duran's chickens that made our feast) that Andy Hawkins told how he had come by the conceit of the sulphur fumes. It was one day that he had watched Duran, when he took a chicken tied by the legs, into the cave. Duran had then set a tin, holding the sulphur, at the entrance, and built a fire about it. An hour or two later, he had brought out the chicken, quite dead.

"I thought to myself then," continued Hawkins, "An' w'y does the boss be doin' of that thing? And then I got the idea. 'Ah, 'ee's a slick one, the boss is,' sez I to myself. ''Ee's after findin' a easy way, maybe, to get rid of anyone as is in 'is way 'ere. And that might be you, Handy 'Awkins, and you'll better keep out of that cave!'"

We took possession of the palm-thatched huts; and made beds, of palm fans for mattresses, which was pretty much all the bedding that was required, though Duran had blankets enough to cover us all in the event of a chill night. Out between the structures was the kitchen; and this was no more than a kind of shallow box, sand filled, and elevated on four posts, to make the fire on; with overhead a roof – palm-thatched – for shade, and protection against rain.

Our day had been pretty full, and when supper had been disposed of, all were ready to stretch out at full length for a needed rest. It was not altogether such a cheerful company as you might suppose. Even Ray was more dashed in spirit than I have seen him in many a day. You might say that we had every reason to be in high feather, having so lately been delivered of a great peril; not to say that we were in addition well rid of Duran, who alone was in a position – rightly or wrongly – to dispute with us the possession of this gold-paved vale.

But if you think we should have felt blithe that night, it will be because you have never been in the presence of so much death. I know the thought worked continually in my mind, of that score and more of humans – however villainous they may have been – that but a few hours before had danced with life and vigour, and were now already beginning to rot in their graves. Only Norris and Hawkins refused to be downcast; Norris, because he had been accustomed to battle, and had learned through discipline to rebate his natural qualms; with Hawkins, it was his dulled moral sense.

"Now tomorrow," said Norris, "we must find that place where Duran has been storing the gold." (Duran's taking off had so far softened him at least, that he refrained from referring to him as "the skunk.") He continued, "I know blooming well he has taken out of this place only a small part of what has been mined."

And Hawkins (and the black boy, too, when questioned) agreed with Norris.

"Thad Duran was ver' clever," said Jean Marat. "He find one ver' good place to hide thad gold."

And now, it would never be guessed how we came upon a clue to that spot. It came about this way. Although we turned in early, we were that wearied that day came and caught us, every one, sound asleep. I was the first to wake; and it was with the feel of a wee hand upon my face. And when I opened my eyes, there was the monkey. And he held out to me one of Duran's sections of bamboo.

I sat up, startled, and took the thing he held out, and it was weighty, like those others laden with the gold.

The monkey observed me narrowly, as though to gauge the degree of my interest in the object he had given me. Then he took my hand; and without stopping to slip on my shoes, I allowed the little animal to lead me forth.

My heart thumped in excitement of anticipation; I was filled with a hope, as we went into the wood back of the huts, making direct toward the cliffs. He led me to where the vines, in a dense mass, went climbing up the rocky wall to a very considerable height. There he let go my hand and leaped upon the vines, and began to climb, looking over his shoulder, as if expecting me to follow monkey-fashion.

Then, seeing me hesitate, the monkey came down, and took me by the hand again. And, curious, I stepped forward, to find that where the vines sprang from the ground the wall ascended, for some six or eight feet, in a gentle slope that I could climb with ease.

When I got so far, and spread apart the vines, to my amazement I discovered that what I had thought was a part of the cliff wall, was no real piece of the cliff at all, but just a ridge; and behind it, and concealed by the mass of vines, was a bit of a dingle, perhaps fifteen feet across. The monkey and I descended into the place; and as my eyes became accustomed to the comparative darkness, I made out the low entrance to a cavern.