"Might, sir. Might not. No telling that."
The captain ruminated. Then he beat his fist on his knee.
"The other cave!"
"What other cave?" asked the surgeon.
"The cave where they killed the seals."
"Surely!" exclaimed Trendon. "Wait, though. Didn"t Slade say it was between here and the point?"
"Yes. Beyond the small beach."
"No cave there," declared the surgeon positively.
"There must be. Congdon, did you see an opening anywhere in the cliff as we came along?"
"No, sir. This is the only one, sir."
"We"ll see about that," said the captain, grimly. "Head her about. Skirt the sh.o.r.e as near the breakers as you safely can."
The gig retraced its journey.
"There"s the beach, as Slade described it," said Captain Parkinson, as they came abreast of the little reach of sand.
"And what are those two bird-roosts on it?" asked Trendon. "See "em? Dead against that patch of sh.o.r.e-weed."
"Bits of wreckage fixed in the sand."
"Don"t think so, sir. Too well matched."
"We have no time to settle the matter now," said the captain impatiently.
"We must find that cave, if it is to be found."
Hovering just outside the final drag of the surf, under the skilful guidance of Congdon, the boat moved slowly along the line of beach to the line of cliff. All was open as the day. The blazing sun picked out each detail of jut and hollow. Evidently the poisonous vapours from the volcano had not spread their blight here, for the face of the precipice was bright with many flowers. So close in moved the boat that its occupants could even see b.u.t.terflies fluttering above the bloom. But that which their eager eyes sought was still denied them. No opening offered in that smiling cliff-side. Not by so much as would admit a terrier did the ma.s.s of rock and rubble gape.
"And Slade described the cave as big enough to ram the _Wolverine_ into,"
muttered Trendon.
Up to the point of the headland, and back, pa.s.sed the boat. Blank disappointment was the result.
"What is your opinion now, Dr. Trendon?" asked the captain of the older man.
"Don"t know, sir," answered the surgeon hopelessly. "Looks as if the cave might have been a hallucination."
"I shall have something to say to Mr. Slade on our return," said the captain crisply. "If the cave was an hallucination, as you suggest, the seal-murder was fiction."
"Looks so," agreed the other.
"And the murder of the captain. How about that?"
"And the mutiny of the men," added the surgeon.
"And the killing of the doctor. Your patient seems to be a romantic genius."
"And the escape of Darrow. Hold hard," quoth Trendon. "Darrow"s no romance. Nothing fictional about the flag and ledger."
"True enough," said the captain, and fell to consideration.
"Anyway," said Trendon vigorously, "I"d like to have a look at those bird- roosts. Mighty like signposts, to my mind."
"Very well," said the captain. "It"ll cost us only a wetting. Run her in, Congdon."
With all the c.o.xswain"s skill, and the oarsmen"s technique, the pa.s.sage of the surf was a lively one, and little driblets of water marked the trail of the officers as they shuffled up the beach.
The two slabs stood less than fifty yards beyond high water tide. Nearing them, the visitors saw that each marked a mound, but not until they were close up could they read the neat carving on the first. It ran as follows:
_Here lies_ SOLOMON ANDERSON _alias_ HANDY SOLOMON _who murdered his employer, his captain, and his shipmates, and was found, dead of his deserts, on these sh.o.r.es, June 5, 1904.
This slab is erected as a memento of admiring esteem by the last of his victims.
"And you can kiss the Book on that."_
"Percy Darrow _fecit_," said the surgeon. "You can kiss the Book on _that_, too."
"Then Slade was telling the truth!"
"Apparently. Seems good corroboration."
The captain turned to the other mound. Its slab was carved by the same hand.
_Sacred to the memory of an Ensign of the U. S. Navy, whose body, washed upon this coast, is here buried with all reverence, by strange hands; whose soul may G.o.d rest.
"The seas shall sing his requiem." June the Sixth, MXMIV._
"Billy Edwards," said the captain, very low.
He uncovered. The surgeon did likewise. So, for a s.p.a.ce, they stood with bared heads between the twin graves.
V
THE PINWHEEL VOLCANO
The surgeon spoke first.
"Another point," said he. "Darrow was alive within a few days."