The Lighthouse, R. M. Ballantyne [best mystery novels of all time .txt] 📗

Another bumper was filled and handed to Davy Spink, who had been eyeing the crew of the boat with great suspicion. He accepted the cup, nodded curtly, and said—

"Here's t' ye, gentlemen, no forgettin' the fair leddy in the stern-sheets."

While he was drinking the gin the lieutenant turned to his men—

"Get out the keg, lads, from which that came, and refill the flask. Hold it well up in the moonlight, and see that ye don't spill a single drop, as you value your lives. Hey! my man, what ails you? Does the gin disagree with your stomach, or have you never seen a smuggled keg of spirits before, that you stare at it as if it were a keg of ghosts!"

The latter part of this speech was addressed to Swankie, who no sooner beheld the keg than his eyes opened up until they resembled two great oysters. His mouth slowly followed suit. Davy Spink's attention having been attracted, he became subject to similar alterations of visage.

"Hallo!" cried the captain, while the whole crew burst into a laugh, "you must have given them poison. Have you a stomach-pump, doctor?" he said, turning hastily to Ruby.

"No, nothing but a penknife and a tobacco-stopper. If they're of any use to you——"

He was interrupted by a loud laugh from Big Swankie, who quickly recovered his presence of mind, and declared that he had never tasted such capital stuff in his life.

"Have ye much o't, sir?"

"O yes, a good deal. I have two kegs of it," (the lieutenant grinned very hard at this point), "and we expect to get a little more to-night."

"Ha!" exclaimed Davy Spink, "there's no doot plenty o't in the coves hereaway, for they're an awfu' smugglin' set. Whan did ye find the twa kegs, noo, if I may ask?"

"Oh, certainly. I got them not more than an hour ago."

The smugglers glanced at each other and were struck dumb; but they were now too much on their guard to let any further evidence of surprise escape them.

"Weel, I wush ye success, sirs," said Swankie, sitting down to his oar. "It's likely ye'll come across mair if ye try Dickmont's Den. There's usually somethin' hidden there-aboots."

"Thank you, friend, for the hint," said the lieutenant, as he took his place at the tiller-ropes, "but I shall have a look at the Gaylet Cove, I think, this evening."

"What! the Gaylet Cove?" cried Spink. "Ye might as weel look for kegs at the bottom o' the deep sea."

"Perhaps so; nevertheless, I have taken a fancy to go there. If I find nothing, I will take a look into the Forbidden Cave."

"The Forbidden Cave!" almost howled Swankie. "Wha iver heard o' smugglers hidin' onything there? The air in't wad pushen a rotten."

"Perhaps it would, yet I mean to try."

"Weel-a-weel, ye may try, but ye might as weel seek for kegs o' gin on the Bell Rock."

"Ha! it's not the first time that strange things have been found on the Bell Bock," said Ruby suddenly. "I have heard of jewels, even, being discovered there."

"Give way, men; shove off," cried the lieutenant. "A pleasant pull to you, lads. Good night."

The two boats parted, and while the lieutenant and his friends made for the shore, the smugglers rowed towards Arbroath in a state of mingled amazement and despair at what they had heard and seen.

"It was Ruby Brand that spoke last, Davy."

"Ay; he was i' the shadow o' Captain Ogilvy and I couldna see his face, but I thought it like his voice when he first spoke."

"Hoo can he hae come to ken aboot the jewels?"

"That's mair than I can tell."

"I'll bury them," said Swankie, "an' then it'll puzzle onybody to tell whaur they are."

"Ye'll please yoursell," said Spink.

Swankie was too angry to make any reply, or to enter into further conversation with his comrade about the kegs of gin, so they continued their way in silence.

Meanwhile, as Lieutenant Lindsay and his men had a night of work before them, the captain suggested that Minnie, Ruby, and himself should be landed within a mile of the town, and left to find their way thither on foot. This was agreed to; and while the one party walked home by the romantic pathway at the top of the cliffs, the other rowed away to explore the dark recesses of the Forbidden Cave.

CHAPTER XXI THE BELL ROCK AGAIN—A DREARY NIGHT IN A STRANGE HABITATION

During that winter Ruby Brand wrought diligently in the workyard at the lighthouse materials, and, by living economically, began to save a small sum of money, which he laid carefully by with a view to his marriage with Minnie Gray.

Being an impulsive man, Ruby would have married Minnie, then and there, without looking too earnestly to the future. But his mother had advised him to wait till he should have laid by a little for a "rainy day". The captain had recommended patience, tobacco, and philosophy, and had enforced his recommendations with sundry apt quotations from dead and living novelists, dramatists, and poets. Minnie herself, poor girl, felt that she ought not to run counter to the wishes of her best and dearest friends, so she too advised delay for a "little time"; and Ruby was fain to content himself with bewailing his hard lot internally, and knocking Jamie Dove's bellows, anvils, and sledge-hammers about in a way that induced that son of Vulcan to believe his assistant had gone mad!

As for big Swankie, he hid his ill-gotten gains under the floor of his tumble-down cottage, and went about his evil courses as usual in company with his comrade Davy Spink, who continued to fight and make it up with him as of yore.

It must not be supposed that Ruby forgot the conversation he had overheard in the Gaylet Cove. He and Minnie and his uncle had frequent discussions in regard to it, but to little purpose; for although Swankie and Spink had discovered old Mr. Brand's body on the Bell Rock, it did not follow that any jewels or money they had found there were necessarily his. Still Ruby could not divest his mind of the feeling that there was some connexion between the two, and he was convinced, from what had fallen from Davy Spink about "silver teapots and things", that Swankie was the man of whose bad deeds he himself had been suspected.

As there seemed no possibility of bringing the matter home to him, however, he resolved to dismiss the whole affair from his mind in the meantime.

Things were very much in this state when, in the spring, the operations at the Bell Bock were resumed.

Jamie Dove, Ruby, Robert Selkirk, and several of the principal workmen, accompanied the engineers on their first visit to the rock, and they sailed towards the scene of their former labours with deep and peculiar interest, such as one might feel on renewing acquaintance with an old friend who had passed through many hard and trying struggles since the last time of meeting.

The storms of winter had raged round the Bell Rock as usual—as they had done, in fact, since the world began; but that winter the handiwork of man had also been exposed to the fury of the elements there. It was known that the beacon had survived the storms, for it could be seen by telescope from the shore in clear weather—like a little speck on the seaward horizon. Now they were about to revisit the old haunt, and have a close inspection of the damage that it was supposed must certainly have been done.

To the credit of the able engineer who planned and carried out the whole works, the beacon was found to have resisted winds and waves successfully.

It was on a bitterly cold morning about the end of March that the first visit of the season was paid to the Bell Rock. Mr. Stevenson and his party of engineers and artificers sailed in the lighthouse yacht; and, on coming within a proper distance of the rock, two boats were lowered and pushed off. The sea ran with such force upon the rock that it seemed doubtful whether a landing could be effected. About half-past eight, when the rock was fairly above water, several attempts were made to land, but the breach of the sea was still so great that they were driven back.

On the eastern side the sea separated into two distinct waves, which came with a sweep round the western side, where they met, and rose in a burst of spray to a considerable height. Watching, however, for what the sailors termed a smooth, and catching a favourable opportunity, they rowed between the two seas dexterously, and made a successful landing at the western creek.

The sturdy beacon was then closely examined. It had been painted white at the end of the previous season, but the lower parts of the posts were found to have become green—the sea having clothed them with a soft garment of weed. The sea-birds had evidently imagined that it was put up expressly for their benefit; for a number of cormorants and large herring-gulls had taken up their quarters on it—finding it, no doubt, conveniently near to their fishing-grounds.

A critical inspection of all its parts showed that everything about it was in a most satisfactory state. There was not the slightest indication of working or shifting in the great iron stanchions with which the beams were fixed, nor of any of the joints or places of connexion; and, excepting some of the bracing-chains which had been loosened, everything was found in the same entire state in which it had been left the previous season.

Only those who know what that beacon had been subjected to can form a correct estimate of the importance of this discovery, and the amount of satisfaction it afforded to those most interested in the works at the Bell Rock. To say that the party congratulated themselves would be far short of the reality. They hailed the event with cheers, and their looks seemed to indicate that some piece of immense and unexpected good fortune had befallen each individual.

From that moment Mr. Stevenson saw the practicability and propriety of fitting up the beacon, not only as a place of refuge in case of accidents to the boats in landing, but as a residence for the men during the working months.

From that moment, too, poor Jamie Dove began to see the dawn of happier days; for when the beacon should be fitted up as a residence he would bid farewell to the hated floating light, and take up his abode, as ho expressed it, "on land".

"On land!" It is probable that this Jamie Dove was the first man, since the world began, who had entertained the till then absurdly preposterous notion that the fatal Bell Rock was "land", or that it could be made a place of even temporary residence.

A hundred years ago men would have laughed at the bare idea. Fifty years ago that idea was realized; for more than half a century that sunken reef has been, and still is, the safe and comfortable home of man!

Forgive, reader, our tendency to anticipate. Let us proceed with our inspection.

Having ascertained that the foundations of the beacon were all right, the engineers next ascended to the upper parts, where they found the cross-beams and their fixtures in an equally satisfactory condition.

On the top a strong chest had been fixed the preceding season, in which had been placed a quantity of sea-biscuits and several bottles of water, in case of accident to the boats, or in the event of shipwreck occurring on the rock. The biscuit, having been carefully placed in tin canisters, was found in good condition, but several of the water-bottles had burst, in consequence, it was supposed, of frost during the winter. Twelve of the bottles, however, remained entire, so that the Bell Rock may be said to have been transformed, even at that date, from a point of destruction into a place of comparative safety.

While the party were thus employed, the landing-master reminded them that the sea was running high, and that it would be necessary to set off while the rock afforded anything like shelter to the boats, which by that time had been made fast to the beacon and rode with much agitation, each requiring two men with boat-hooks to keep them from striking each other, or ranging up against the beacon. But under these circumstances the greatest confidence was felt by everyone, from the security afforded by that temporary erection; for, supposing that the wind had suddenly increased to