Complete Works of Bram Stoker (44 page)

When we got to the bottom, Joyce, who was looking round, said, suddenly: “What is that like a square block behind the high rock on the other side?” He went over to it, and an instant after gave a great cry, and turned and beckoned to us. We all ran over; and there before us, in a crescent-shaped nook at the base of the lofty rock, lay a wooden chest. The top was intact, but one of the lower corners was broken, as though with a fall; and from the broken aperture had fallen out a number of coins, which we soon found to be of gold. On the top of the chest we could make out the letters R. F. in some metal, discolored and corroded with a century of slime, and on its ends were great metal handles, to each of which something white was attached. We stooped to look at them, and then Norah, with a low cry, turned to me and laid her head on my breast, as though to shut out some horrid sight. Then we investigated the mass that lay there.

At each end of the chest lay a skeleton, the fleshless fingers grasping the metal handle. We recognised the whole story at a glance, and our hats came off. “Poor fellows,” said Dick; “they did their duty nobly; they guarded their treasure to the last.” Then he went on: “See, they evidently stepped into the bog, straight off the rock, and were borne down at once, holding tight to the handles of the chest they carried  —  or, stay”  —  and he stooped lower and caught hold of something  —  ”see how the bog can preserve. This leather strap attached to the handles of the chest each had round his shoulder, and so, willy nilly, they were dragged to theirdoom. Never mind, they were brave fellows all the same, and faithful ones; they never let go the handles; look, their dead hands clasp them still. France should be proud of such sons. It would make a noble coat of arms, this treasure-chest sent byfreemen to aid others, and with two such supporters!” We looked at the chest and the skeletons for a while, and then Dick said: “Joyce, this is on your land  —  for it is yours till to-morrow  —  and you may as well keep it; possession is nine points of the law, and if we take the gold out, the Government can only try to claim it. But if they take it, we may ask in vain.”

Joyce answered: “Take it I will, an’ gladly; but not for meself. The money was sent for Ireland’s good, to help them that wanted help, an’ plase God, I’ll see it doesn’t go asthray now.” Dick’s argument was a sensible one, and straightway we wrenched the top off the chest, and began to remove the gold; but we never stirred the chest or took away those skeleton hands from the handles which they grasped.

It took us all, carrying a good load each, to bring the money to Joyce’s cottage. We locked it in a great oak chest, and warned Miss Joyce not to say a word about it. I told Miss Joyce that if Andy came for me he was to be sent on to us, explaining that we were going back to the top of the new ravine. We followed it up farther, till we reached a point much higher up on the Hill, and at last came to the cleft in the rock whence the stream issued. The floor here was rocky, and, it being so, we did not hesitate to descend, and even to enter the chine. As we did so, Dick turned to me. “Well, it seems to me that the mountain is giving up its secrets to-day. We have found the Frenchmen’s treasure, and now we may expect, I suppose, to find the lost crown. By George, though, it is strange! They said the Snake became the Shifting Bog, and that it went out by the Shleenanaher, as we saw the bog did.” When we got well into the chine we began to look about us curiously. There was something odd  —  something which we did not expect. Dick was the most prying, and certainly the most excited of us all. He touched some of the rock and then almost shouted: “Hurrah! this a day of discoveries!  —  Hurrah! hurrah!” “Now, Dick, what is it?” I asked  —  myself in a tumult, for his enthusiasm, although we did not know the cause, excited us all.

“Why, man, don’t you see? This is what we have wanted all along.”

“What is? Speak out, man dear! We are all in ignorance.” Dick laid his hand impressively on the rock.

“Limestone! There is a streak of it here, right through the mountain; and, moreover, look, look! This is not all Nature’s work; these rocks have been cut in places bythe hands of men.” We all got very excited, and hurried up the chine; but the rocks now joined over our heads, and all was dark beyond, and the chine became a cave. “Has anyone a match? We must have a light of some kind here,” said Joyce. “There is the lantern in the house. I shall run for it. Don’t stir until I get back,” I cried; and I ran out and climbed the side of the ravine, and got to Joyce’s house as soon as I could. My haste and impetuosity frightened Miss Joyce, who called in terror: “Is there anything wrong  —  not an accident I hope?” “No, no; we only want to examine a rock, and the place is dark. Give us the lantern  —  quick  —  and some matches.” “Aisy, aisy, alanna!” she said. “The rock won’t run away.”

I took the lantern and matches and ran back. When we had lit the lantern, Norah suggested that we should be very careful, as there might be foul air about. Dick laughed at the idea.

“No foul air here, Norah; it was full of water a few hours ago,” and, taking the lantern, he went into the narrow opening. We all followed, Norah clinging tightly to me. The cave widened as we entered, and we stood in a moderate- sized cavern, partly natural and partly hollowed out by rough tools. Here and there were inscriptions in strange character, formed by straight vertical lines something like the old telegraph signs, but placed differently. “Ogham!  —  one of the oldest and least known of writings,” said Dick, when the light fell on them as he raised the lantern.

At the far end of the cave was a sort of slab or bracket, formed of a part of the rock carven out. Norah went towards it, and called us to her with a loud cry. We all rushed over, and Dick threw the light of the lantern on her; and then exclamations of wonder burst from us also. In her hand she held an ancient crown of strange form. It was composed of three pieces of flat gold joined all along one edge, like angle-iron, and twisted delicately. The gold was wider and the curves bolder in the centre, from which they were fined away to the ends and then curved into a sort of hook. In the centre was set a great stone, that shone with the yellow light of a topaz, but with a fire all its own.

Dick was the first to regain his composure, and, as usual, to speak.

“The Lost Crown of Gold!  —  the crown that gave the Hill its name, and was the genesis of the story of St. Patrick and the King of the Snakes. Moreover, see, there is a scientific basis for the legend. Before this stream cut its way out through the limestone, and made this cavern, the waters were forced upward to the lake at the top of the Hill, and so kept it supplied; but when its channel was cut here  —  or a way opened for it by some convulsion of nature, or the rending asunder of these rocks  —  the lake fell away.” He stopped, and I went on:

“And so, ladies and gentlemen, the legend is true: that the Lost Crown would be discovered when the water of the lake was found again.”

“Begor, that’s thrue, anyhow!” said the voice of Andy in the entrance. “Well, yer ‘an’r, ivall the sthrange things what iver happened, this is the most shtrangest! Fairies isn’t in it this time, at all, at all!”

I told Andy something of what had happened, including the terrible deaths of Murdock and Moynahan, and sent him off to tell the head-constable of police, and anyone else he might see. I told him also of the two skeletons found beside the chest.

Andy was off like a rocket. Such news as he had to tell would not come twice in a man’s lifetime, and would make him famous through all the country-side. When he was gone we decided that we had seen all that was worth while, and agreed to go back to the house, where we might be on hand to answer all queries regarding the terrible occurrences of the night. When we got outside the cave, and had ascended the ravine, I noticed that the crown in Norah’s hands had now none of the yellow glare of the jewel, and feared the latter had been lost. I said to her: “Norah, dear, have you dropped the jewel from the crown?”

She held it up, startled, to see; and then we all wondered again, for the jewel was still there, but it had lost its yellow colour, and shone with a white light, something like the lustre ofa pearl seen in the midst of the flash of diamonds. It looked like some kind of uncut crystal, but none of us had ever seen anything like it. We had hardly got back to the house when the result of Andy’s mission began to be manifested. Every soul in the country-side seemed to come pouring in to see the strange sights at Knockcalltecrore. There was a perfect babel of sounds; and every possible and impossible story, and theory, and conjecture was ventilated at the top of the voice of everyone, male and female. The head-constable was one of the first to arrive. He came into the cottage, and we gave him all the required details of Murdock’s and Moynahan’s death, which he duly wrote down, and then went off with Dick to go over the ground.

Presently there was a sudden silence among the crowd outside, the general body of which seemed to continue as great as ever from the number of new arrivals, despite the fact that a large number of those present had followed Dick and the head-constable in their investigation of the scene of the catastrophe. The silence was as odd as noise would have been under ordinary circumstances, so I went to the door to see what it meant. In the porch I met Father Ryan, who had just come from the scene of the disaster. He shook me warmly bythe hand, and said loudly, so that all those around might hear: “Mr. Severn, I’m real glad and thankful to see ye this day. Praise be to God, that watched over ye last night, and strengthened the arms of that brave girl to hold ye up.” Here Norah came to join us; and he took her warmly by both hands, while the people cheered.

“My, but we’re all proud of ye! Remember that God has given a great mercy through your hands, and ye both must thank him all the days of your life. And those poor men that met their death so horribly  —  poor Moynahan, in his drunken slumber. Men, it’s a warning to ye all. Whenever ye may be tempted to take a glass too much, let the fate of that poor soul rise up before ye and forbid ye to go too far. As for that unhappy Murdock, may God forgive him and look lightly on his sins! I told him what he should expect  —  that the fate of Ahab and Jezebel would be his. For Ahab coveted the vineyard of his neighbor Naboth, and as Jezebel wrought evil to aid him to his desire, so this man hath coveted his neighbor’s goods and wrought evil to ruin him. And now behold his fate, even as the fate of Ahab and Jezebel! He went without warning and without rites, and no man knows where his body lies. The fishes of the sea have preyed on him, even as the dogs on Jezebel.” Here Joyce joined us, and he turned to him: “And do you, Phelim Joyce, take to heart the lesson of God’s goodness! Ye thought when yer land and yer house was taken that a great wrong was done ye, and that God had deserted ye; and yet so inscrutable are his ways that these very things were the salvation of ye and all belonging to ye. For in his stead you and yours would have been swept in that awful avalanche into the sea.” And now the head-constable returned with Dick, and the priest went out. I took the former aside and asked him if there would be any need for Norah to remain, as there were other witnesses to all that had occurred. He told me that there was not the slightest need. Then he went away, after telling the people that we all had had a long spell of trouble and labor, and would want to be quiet and have some rest. And so, with a good feeling and kindness of heart which I have never seen lacking in this people, they melted away; and we all came within the house, and shut the door, and sat round the fire to discuss what should be done. Then and there we decided that the very next day Norah should start with her father, for the change of scene would do her good, and take her mind off the terrible experiences of last night.

So that day we rested. The next morning Andy was to drive Joyce and Norah and myself off to Galway, en route for London and Paris.

In the afternoon Norah and I strolled out together for one last look at the beautiful scene from our table rock in the Cliff Fields. Close as we had been hitherto, there was now a new bond between us; and when we were out of sight of prying eyes  —  on the spot where we had first told our loves, I told her of my idea of the new bond. She hung down her head, but drew closer to me as I told her how much more I valued my life since she had saved it for me, and how I should in all the two years that were to come try hard that every hour should be such as she would like me to have passed.

“Norah, dear,” I said, “the bar you place on our seeing each other in all that long time will be hard to bear, but I shall know that I am enduring for your sake.” She turned to me, and with earnest eyes looked lovingly into mine as she said:

“Arthur, dear Arthur, God knows I love you! I love you so well that I want to come to you, if I can, in such a way that I may never do you discredit; and I am sure that when the two years are over  —  and, indeed, they will not go lightly for me  —  you will not be sorry that you have made the sacrifice for me. Dear, I shall ask you when we meet on our wedding morning if you are satisfied.”

When it was time to go home we rose up, and  —  it might have been that the evening was chilly  —  a cold feeling came over me, as though I still stood in the shadow of the fateful Hill. And there in the Cliff Fields I kissed Norah Joyce for the last time.

The two years sped quickly enough, although my not being able to see Norah at all was a great trial to me. Often and often I felt tempted almost beyond endurance to go quietly and hang round where she was so that I might get even a passing glimpse of her; but I felt that such would not be loyal to my dear girl. It was hard not to be able to tell her, even now and again, how I loved her; but it had been expressly arranged  —  and wisely enough too  —  that I should only write in such a manner as would pass, if necessary, the censorship of the school-mistress. “I must be,” said Norah to me, “exactly as the other girls are, and, of course, I must be subject to the same rules.” And so it was that my letters had to be of tempered warmth, which caused me now and again considerable pain. Mydeargirl wrote to me regularly, and although there was not any of what her school-mistress would call “love” in her letters, she always kept me posted in all her doings; and with every letter it was borne in on me that her heart and feelings were unchanged.