Complete Works of Bram Stoker (456 page)

I longed to run over and take a look for myself; but I remembered Mr Trelawny’s solemn warning, and remained at my post.

The storm still thundered round the house, and I could feel the rock on which it was built tremble under the furious onslaught of the waves. The shutters strained as though the screaming wind without would in very anger have forced an entrance.  In that dread hour of expectancy, when the forces of Life and Death were struggling for the mastery, imagination was awake.  I almost fancied that the storm was a living thing, and animated with the wrath of the quick!

All at once the eager faces round the sarcophagus were bent forward. The look of speechless wonder in the eyes, lit by that supernatural glow from within the sarcophagus, had a more than mortal brilliance.

My own eyes were nearly blinded by the awful, paralysing light, so that I could hardly trust them.  I saw something white rising up from the open sarcophagus.  Something which appeared to my tortured eyes to be filmy, like a white mist.  In the heart of this mist, which was cloudy and opaque like an opal, was something like a hand holding a fiery jewel flaming with many lights.  As the fierce glow of the Coffer met this new living light, the green vapour floating between them seemed like a cascade of brilliant points  —  a miracle of light!

But at that very moment there came a change.  The fierce storm, battling with the shutters of the narrow openings, won victory.  With the sound of a pistol shot, one of the heavy shutters broke its fastening and was hurled on its hinges back against the wall.  In rushed a fierce blast which blew the flames of the lamps to and fro, and drifted the green vapour from its course.

On the very instant came a change in the outcome from the Coffer.  There was a moment’s quick flame and a muffled explosion; and black smoke began to pour out.  This got thicker and thicker with frightful rapidity, in volumes of ever-increasing density; till the whole cavern began to get obscure, and its outlines were lost.  The screaming wind tore in and whirled it about.  At a sign from Mr Trelawny Mr Corbeck went and closed the shutter and jammed it fast with a wedge.

I should have liked to help; but I had to wait directions from Mr Trelawny, who inflexibly held his post at the head of the sarcophagus.  I signed to him with my hand, but he motioned me back.  Gradually the figures of all close to the sarcophagus became indistinct in the smoke which rolled round them in thick billowy clouds.  Finally, I lost sight of them altogether. I had a terrible desire to rush over so as to be near Margaret; but again I restrained myself.  If the Stygian gloom continued, light would be a necessity of safety; and I was the guardian of the light!  My anguish of anxiety as I stood to my post was almost unendurable.

The Coffer was now but a dull colour; and the lamps were growing dim, as though they were being overpowered by the thick smoke.  Absolute darkness would soon be upon us.

I waited and waited, expecting every instant to hear the command to turn up the light; but none came.  I waited still, and looked with harrowing intensity at the rolling billows of smoke still pouring out of the casket whose glow was fading.  The lamps sank down, and went out; one by one.

Finally, there was but one lamp alight, and that was dimly blue and flickering.  I kept my eyes fixed towards Margaret, in the hope that I might see her in some lifting of the gloom; it was for her now that all my anxiety was claimed.  I could just see her white frock beyond the dim outline of the sarcophagus.

Deeper and deeper grew the black mist, and its pungency began to assail my nostrils as well as my eyes.  Now the volume of smoke coming from the Coffer seemed to lessen, and the smoke itself to be less dense.  Across the room I saw a movement of something white where the sarcophagus was. There were several such movements.  I could just catch the quick glint of white through the dense smoke in the fading light; for now even the last lamp began to flicker with the quick leaps before extinction.

Then the last glow disappeared.  I felt that the time had come to speak; so I pulled off my respirator and called out:

“Shall I turn on the light?”  There was no answer.  Before the thick smoke choked me, I called again, but more loudly:

“Mr Trelawny, shall I turn on the light?  Answer me!  If you do not forbid me, I shall turn it on!”

As there was no reply, I turned the tap.  To my horror there was no response; something had gone wrong with the electric light!  I moved, intending to run up the staircase to seek the cause, but I could now see nothing, all was pitch dark.

I groped my way across the room to where I thought Margaret was.  As I went I stumbled across a body.  I could feel by her dress that it was a woman.  My heart sank; Margaret was unconscious, or perhaps dead.  I lifted the body in my arms, and went straight forward till I touched a wall. Following it round I came to the stairway, and hurried up the steps with what haste I could make, hampered as I was with my dear burden.  It may have been that hope lightened my task; but as I went the weight that I bore seemed to grow less as I ascended from the cavern.

I laid the body in the hall, and groped my way to Margaret’s room, where I knew there were matches, and the candies which she had placed beside the Queen.  I struck a match; and oh! it was good to see the light. I lit two candies, and taking one in each hand, hurried back to the hall where I had left, as I had supposed, Margaret.

Her body was not there.  But on the spot where I had laid her was Queen Tera’s Bridal robe, and surrounding it the girdle of wondrous gems.  Where the heart had been, lay the Jewel of Seven Stars.

Sick at heart, and with a terror which has no name, I went down into the cavern.  My two candles were like mere points of light in the black, impenetrable smoke.  I put up again to my mouth the respirator which hung round my neck, and went to look for my companions.

I found them all where they had stood.  They had sunk down on the floor, and were gazing upward with fixed eyes of unspeakable terror.  Margaret had put her hands before her face, but the glassy stare of her eyes through her fingers was more terrible than an open glare.

I pulled back the shutters of all the windows to let in what air I could. The storm was dying away as quickly as it had risen, and now it only came in desultory puffs.  It might well be quiescent; its work was done!

I did what I could for my companions; but there was nothing that could avail.  There, in that lonely house, far away from aid of man, naught could avail.

It was merciful that I was spared the pain of hoping.

BURIED TREASURES

CHAPTER I - THE OLD WRECK

Mr. Stedman spoke.

“I do not wish to be too hard on you; but I will not, I cannot consent to Ellen’s marrying you till you have sufficient means to keep her in comfort. I know too well what poverty is. I saw her poor mother droop and pine away till she died, and all from poverty. No, no, Ellen must be spared that sorrow at all events.”

“But, sir, we are young. You say you have always earned your living. I can do the same and I thought” - this with a flush - “I thought that if I might be so happy as to win Ellen’s love that you might help us.”

“And so I would, my dear boy; but what help could I give? I find it hard to keep the pot boiling as it is, and there is only Ellen and myself to feed. No, no, I must have some certainty for Ellen before I let her leave me. Just suppose anything should happen to me” -

“Then, sir, what could be better than to have some one to look after Ellen - some one with a heart to love her as she should be loved, and a pair of hands to be worked to the bone for her sake.”

“True, boy; true. But still it cannot be. I must be certain of Ellen’s future before I trust her out of my own care. Come now, let me see you with a hundred pounds of your own, and I shall not refuse to let you speak to her. But mind, I shall trust to your honour not to forestall that time.”

“It is cruel, sir, although you mean it in kindness. I could as easily learn to fly as raise a hundred pounds with my present opportunities. Just think of my circumstances, sir. If my poor father had lived all would have been different; but you know that sad story.”

“No, I do not. Tell it to me.”

“He left the Gold Coast after spending half his life there toiling for my poor mother and me. We knew from his letter that he was about to start for home, and that he was coming in a small sailing vessel, taking all his savings with him. But from that time to this he has never been heard of.”

“Did you make inquiries?”

“We tried every means, or rather poor mother did, for I was too young, and we could find out nothing.”

“Poor boy. From my heart I pity you; still I cannot change my opinion. I have always hoped that Ellen would marry happily. I have worked for her, early and late, since she was born, and it would be mistaken kindness to let her marry without sufficient provisions for her welfare.”

Robert Hamilton left Mr. Stedman’s cottage in great dejection. He had entered it with much misgiving, but with a hope so strong that it brightened the prospect of success. He went slowly along the streets till he got to his office, and when once there he had so much work to do that little time was left him for reflection until his work for the day was over. That night he lay awake, trying with all the intentness of his nature to conceive some plan by which he might make the necessary sum to entitle him to seek the hand of Ellen Stedman: but all in vain. Scheme after scheme rose up before him, but each one, though born of hope, quickly perished in succession. Gradually his imagination grew in force as the real world seemed to fade away; he built bright castles in the air and installed Ellen as their queen. He thought of all the vast sums of money made each year by chances, of old treasures found after centuries, new treasures dug from mines, and turned from mills and commerce. But all these required capital - except the old treasures - and this source of wealth being a possibility, to it his thoughts clung as a man lost in mid-ocean clings to a spar - clung as he often conceived that his poor father had clung when lost with all his treasure far at sea.

“Vigo Bay, the Schelde, already giving up their long-buried spoil,” so thought he. “All round our coasts lie millions lost, hidden but for a time. Other men have benefited by them - why should not I have a chance also?” And then, as he sunk to sleep the possibility seemed to become reality, and as he slept he found treasure after treasure, and all was real to him, for he knew not that he dreamt.

He had many dreams. Most of them connected with the finding of treasures, and in all of them Ellen took a prominent place. He seemed in his dreams to renew his first acquaintance with the girl he loved, and when he thought of the accident that brought them together, it might be expected that the seashore was the scene of many of his dreams. The meeting was in this wise: One holiday, some three years before, he had been walking on the flat shore of the ‘Bull,’ when he noticed at some distance off a very beautiful young girl, and set to longing for some means of making her acquaintance. The means came even as he wished. The wind was blowing freely, and the girl’s hat blew off and hurried seawards over the flat shore. He ran after it and brought it back: and from that hour the two had, after their casual acquaintance had been sanctioned by her father, became fast friends.

Most of his dreams of the night had faded against morning, but one he remembered.

He seemed to be in a wide stretch of sand near the hulk of a great vessel. Beside him lay a large iron-bound box of great weight, which he tried in vain to lift. He had by a lever just forced it through a hole in the side of the ship, and it had fallen on the sand and was sinking. Despite all he could do, it still continued to go down into the sand, but by slow degrees. The mist was getting round him, shutting out the moonlight, and from far he could hear a dull echoing roar muffled by the fog, and the air seemed laden with the clang of distant bells. Then the air became instinct with the forms of life, and amid them floated the form of Ellen, and with her presence the gloom and fog and darkness were dispelled, and the sun rose brightly on the instant, and all was fair and happy.

Next day was Sunday, and so after prayers he went for a walk with his friend, Tom Harrison.

They directed their steps towards Dollymount, and passing across the bridge, over Crab Lake, found themselves on the North Bull. The tide was “black” out, and when they crossed the line of low bent-covered sand-hills, or dunnes, as they are called in Holland, a wide stretch of sand intersected with shallow tidal streams lay before them, out towards the mouth of the bay. As they looked, Robert’s dream of the night before flashed into his memory, and he expected to see before him the hulk of the old ship.

Presently Tom remarked:

“I do not think I ever saw the tide so far out before. What an immense stretch of sand there is. It is a wonder there is no rock or anything of the kind all along this shore.”

“There is one,” said Robert, pointing to where, on the very edge of the water, rose a little mound, seemingly a couple of feet at most, over the level of the sand.

“Let us go out to it,” said Tom, and accordingly they both took off their boots and stockings, and walked over the wet sand, and forded the shallow streams till they got within a hundred yards of the mound. Suddenly Tom called out: “It is not a rock at all; it is a ship, bottom upwards, with the end towards us, and sunk in the sand.”

Robert’s heart stood still for an instant.

What if this should be a treasure-ship, and his dream prove prophetic? In an instant more he shook aside the fancy and hurried on.

They found that Tom had not been mistaken. There lay the hulk of an old ship, with just its bottom over the sand. Close round it the ebb and flow of the tide had worn a hole like the moat round an old castle; and in this pool small fishes darted about, and lazy crabs sidled into the sand.

Tom jumped the narrow moat, and stood balanced on the keel, and a hard task he had to keep his footing on the slippery seaweed. He tapped the timbers with his stick, and they gave back a hollow sound. “The inside is not yet choked up,” he remarked.