Читать книгу The Young Treasure Hunters - Alfred Judd - Страница 4

Table of Contents

IT certainly seemed rather a melancholy beginning for a summer holiday, especially as our four young friends had planned so much in connexion with Farbrook Woods.

The Hardings’ parents were just then visiting friends in Scotland, and the circumstances were such that it would be another eight or nine days before they would be able to return to Burley Grange. Thus, the young people were left to commence their amusements alone, being to some extent in the charge of the kindly old housekeeper, Mrs. Newton. “Apart from this,” Mr. Harding had written to Morrice, “I shall expect you, as the eldest, to keep carefully out of mischief and to see that the others do the same.”

Morrice was fourteen, and well grown at that, being head boy at the Preparatory School, of which Tony Wickham was also a pupil. The last-named, an orphan cousin, was of the same age, but much smaller; a quick-witted youth, with humorous black eyes and rather a brisk manner. The other two Hardings, Joyce and Jack, were somewhat younger and they had both, up to that time, been under the charge of a tutor.

Let it be said outright that this junior couple had come to be known in the neighbourhood as “the hardy Hardings,” and it is to be feared that they had shared in more escapades than could possibly be set down here!

It was after lunch on the day following the curtailed paper-chase that this quartet was gathered in the big, comfortable playroom which overlooked the fir plantation “It’s too horrid altogether,” Joyce was declaring, as she twirled disconsolately on the music-stool. “Farbrook Woods are such great fun, and Tony would have enjoyed them.” Twisting a little more, she proceeded to thump on a piano which had long since been thumped out of tune.

“Oh, drop that racket, Joyce!” said Jack grumpily. “Let’s think what’s going to be done this afternoon. Now that we can’t picnic in Farbrook Woods, I vote that we go and picnic among the sandhills.”

Joyce swung round quickly. “Or else start another paper-chase,” she suggested. Then, as the boys smiled, “I’m sure I could run as fast as Jack!”

“Let’s hope you’d cast the scent better, anyhow,” answered Morrice, lolling back. “After Westmoor Lane we scarcely saw a morsel.”

“It almost ran out,” explained Jack. “I spotted some loose bits of paper down by the——” He stopped abruptly, sitting up.

“Jove! I’d forgotten all about them,” he ran on. “I found some scraps which I meant to break up so as to make more scent, but there was some queer writing on them which I thought I’d show you. They’re still in the outer pocket of the bag, Tony—it’s over in that corner. Just see if you can make any sense of them.”

Tony picked up the bag and drew out the fragments of which Jack had spoken. He uttered at once an exclamation, of interest.

“These things are written in cipher,” he declared.

“Cipher?” echoed Joyce, forsaking the piano. “What does that mean?”

“Well, sort of puzzle messages. You have to read them backwards, or something like that, to get at the meaning of them.”

The others gathered round, and Tony, after a moment of pondering, burst out with: “I’ve got one of them, anyhow!”

Upon the particular portion which Tony held, there appeared the following string of letters:

“Xobenoevactsewolehtfodneehttaxdekramenotsehthtaeneb.”

“Goodness!” cried Joyce, “whatever sort of message can be made out of that?”

But Tony was hugely excited. “It’s just as I suggested,” he exclaimed. “This is simply a sentence scribbled backwards, with the words all strung together. Half a tick, let’s see how it goes. ‘Beneath—the—stone—marked—X—at—the—end—of—the—lowest—cave—one—box.’ That’s it—that’s how it reads; just see for yourselves!”

“Oh, you’ve certainly hit it,” agreed Morrice, catching some of Tony’s eagerness. “Let’s see now what the other pieces have got to say.”

But it was soon clear that the “backwards” treatment did not unravel any of the other portions, and Tony remarked that no doubt each leaf would have to be puzzled out separately.

“Well, never mind the others now,” put in Jack, who was always fizzing like a mixture which wanted to pop off. “That one gives us something to work on, and we ought to see if there’s any truth in what it says. I vote we go at once!”

“Go where?” queried Tony. “What I mean is—are there any caves near by?”

“Are there? Aren’t there, just!” exclaimed Joyce. “Old Ben Dobble—that’s a fisherman we know—says that there are not only caves, but tunnels upon tunnels, running one into the other and going right back into the cliff!”

Morrice laughed. “If you believe all that old Ben says——” he began.

“Well, anyhow,” interrupted Jack, “it’s well known that those tunnels go much deeper than was once supposed; only falling sandstone has choked them up.”

Tony Wickham jumped to his feet. “I vote we get down to the beach at once,” proposed he, “and start some treasure-hunting.”

Joyce’s eyes sparkled. “Oh, if that should be true!” she began; but broke off with a laugh. “Anyhow, do let’s have a search—that’s if the tide will let us.”

Much depended upon the latter condition. Burley Grange, standing on the shoulder of the headland, fully overlooked Burley Bay and the Bar Rock Lighthouse some three miles out. Running at right angles with the cliff was a long stretch of rush-bearing sand-dunes and sloping shore, but beneath the cliff itself were low-lying ridges of rock, which stretched round the point to Burley Harbour and village. Twenty minutes later, then, behold our four adventurers scrambling over slippery, weed-grown crags, still full of shining pools from the previous tide, and now soon to be immersed again.

“We are safe, I suppose?” demanded Morrice of Jack. “The water won’t be up here for a bit?”

“No, we’ve heaps of time to have a thorough good peep. Hallo, there goes Tony!”

To step firmly on those raw edges of rock was an art itself, and Tony Wickham, unaccustomed to the process, had just slithered off and gone floundering into a pond, completely drenching one foot.

“Never mind, Tony,” cried Joyce, trying not to laugh at his struggles; “it’s salt water, and it won’t hurt you, even if it hurts your boots. If you give me your hand I will help you over the rest.”

“Get along!” gasped Tony, disdaining such assistance. “But, I say,” he added, moved to admiration, “you do do it well. However do you hold your balance like that?”

“Used to it,” was the cheerful reply. “Jack and I come here nearly every day. Keep inward now. That’s the first cave—do you see it?”

“No,” shouted Jack, overhearing this, “that’s the big one. The paper said the ‘lowest cave.’ It must mean the one round the corner.”

Accordingly they all pushed on, and were crouching, five minutes later, beside a low opening in the very base of the cliff. The aperture was shaped something like a wedge of cheese, and seemed by no means inviting.

“But—we can’t possibly get in there!” exclaimed Tony.

“Oh, can’t we?—we can just!” was Jack’s response. “Joyce and I have been in often.”

“What—by crawling?”

“That’s it—and one at a time. What a bother, though—it’ll be nearly dark inside; we ought to have thought of bringing a lamp of some sort!”

Whereupon Joyce produced from her pocket a box of matches and a short bit of candle. “A girl thinks of everything,” exclaimed she.

“Good!” approved Morrice. “Now, young Jacker—you’re the one to lead.”

The three boys disappeared from view, Joyce remaining where she was to learn their report. About five minutes elapsed before Tony’s legs reappeared, backing out. The other two followed, red-faced with their efforts.

“Well?” was the girl’s sharp query.

“Opinions divided,” answered Tony. “There’s a heap of stone stuff lying about, and I believe I found what looks like a cross Morrice thinks so, too; but Jack declares it is just a natural mark, and not one made by hand.”

“Well, can you move the stone to look underneath?”

“No; we want something to dig with,” explained Morrice, “and I vote that some of us run home and see what is to be found in the tool-shed.”

Finally, Morrice and Tony went back together, Jack and Joyce agreeing to await their return. “But it’s not worth it,” the younger boy insisted, when the other pair had disappeared. “I’m cock-sure that what Tony spotted isn’t a made cross at all. Let’s wriggle in and have another look; you come too.”

A minute or so later both brother and sister were crouching together in the inner recess of the low, darksome hollow, and Joyce promptly agreed that the cross discovered by Tony was not a cross at all.

“Besides,” she added, “this isn’t what I should call a ‘stone’—it is part of the rocky floor. We could never dig it out!”

Jack, lifting the lighted candle, peered around. “I am thinking,” he observed, “about old Bobbie’s yarn. It would be great if we could find that maze of passages which he says were made long and long ago by smuggling folk!”

“Dad doesn’t believe that story,” was the answer, “nor does Morrice. At the same time, it does look as if there had been a falling-in just here, and——why, what is it? What do you see?”

For Jack had uttered a short exclamation. Shuffling about, he had worked to the extreme limit of the hole, and had then faced back towards the inner wall—with the result that the candle-gleam slanted for the first time upon an unexpected fissure. Next moment, to her complete surprise, Joyce saw the boy lie down and half disappear from view.

A moment later Jack had completely gone, and then his exultant voice was heard imploring his sister to follow. Aided by the feeble glow, she soon succeeded in doing so—and then their cries of astonishment mingled together.