My Buried Treasure | Page 9

From the north and south we were now all three hidden by the two high banks of sand; to the east lay the beach and the Atlantic Ocean, and to the west stretches of marshes that a mile away met a wood of pine trees and the railroad round- house.
I began to dig. I knew that weary hours lay before me, and I attacked the sand leisurely and with deliberation. It was at first no great effort; but as the hole grew in depth, and the roots of the trees were exposed, the work was sufficient for several men. Still, as Edgar had said, it is not every day that one can dig for treasure, and in thinking of what was to come I forgot my hands that quickly blistered, and my breaking back. After an hour I insisted that Edgar should take a turn; but he made such poor headway that my patience could not contain me, and I told him I was sufficiently rested and would continue. With alacrity he scrambled out of the hole, and, taking a cigar from my case, seated himself comfortably in the hack. I took my comfort in anticipating the thrill that would be mine when the spade would ring on the ironbound chest; when, with a blow of the axe, I would expose to view the hidden jewels, the pieces of eight, coated with verdigris, the string of pearls, the chains of yellow gold. Edgar had said a million dollars. That must mean there would be diamonds, many diamonds. I would hold them in my hands, watch them, at the sudden sunshine, blink their eyes and burst into tiny, burning fires. In imagination I would replace them in the setting, from which, years before, they had been stolen. I would try to guess whence they came from a jewelled chalice in some dim cathedral, from the breast of a great lady, from the hilt of an admiral's sword.
After another hour I lifted my aching shoulders and, wiping the sweat from my eyes, looked over the edge of the hole. Rupert, with his back to the sand-hill, was asleep. Edgar with one hand was waving away the mosquitoes and in the other was holding one of the magazines he had bought on the way down. I could even see the page upon which his eyes were riveted. It was an advertisement for breakfast food. In my indignation the spade slipped through my cramped and perspiring fingers, and as it struck the bottom of the pit, something --a band of iron, a steel lock, an iron ring-- gave forth a muffled sound. My heart stopped beating as suddenly as though Mr. Corbett had hit it with his closed fist. My blood turned to melted ice. I drove the spade down as fiercely as though it was a dagger. It sank into rotten wood. I had made no sound; for I could hardly breathe. But the slight noise of the blow had reached Edgar. I heard the springs of the hack creak as he vaulted from it, and the next moment he was towering above me, peering down into the pit. His eyes were wide with excitement, greed, and fear. In his hands he clutched the two suit-cases. Like a lion defending his cubs he glared at me.
"Get out!" he shouted.
"Like hell!" I said.
"Get out!" he roared. "I'll do the rest.
That's mine, not yours! GET OUT!"
With a swift kick I brushed away the sand. I found I was standing on a squat wooden box, bound with bands of rusty iron. I had only to stoop to touch it. It was so rotten that I could have torn it apart with my bare hands. Edgar was dancing on the edge of the pit, incidentally kicking sand into my mouth and nostrils.
"You PROMISED me!" he roared. "You PROMISED to obey me!"
"You ass!" I shouted. "Haven't I done all the work? Don't I get----"
"You get out!" roared Edgar.
Slowly, disgustedly, with what dignity one can display in crawling out of a sand-pit, I scrambled to the top.
"Go over there," commanded Edgar pointing, "and sit down."
In furious silence I seated myself beside Rupert. He was still slumbering and snoring happily. From where I sat I could see nothing of what was going forward in the pit, save once, when the head of Edgar, his eyes aflame and his hair and eye-glasses sprinkled with sand, appeared above it. Apparently he was fearful lest I had moved from the spot where he had placed me. I had not; but had he known my inmost feelings he would have taken the axe into the pit with him.
I must have sat so for half an hour. In the sky above me a fish-hawk drifted lazily. From the beach sounded the steady beat of the