Edith Ballinger Price

“ The cave itself was about six feet deep, and very dank and dismal-looking. There was no sign of there ever having been treasure, for nobody could possibly have buried it, unless they’d hewn places in the living rock, like ancient Egyptians. We might have thought of that before, but of course we didn’t honestly believe that there was treasure. Somehow the Sea Monster didn’t seem nearly so jolly and exciting as it had from Wecanicut. It was so real and big, and whenever a wave came in, it boomed and echoed under the hanging-over rocks. ”

“ One day of blue sky and little breeze, when we were pushing the brigantine with all sails set, Acuma flung himself at a bound to the quarterdeck, and a moment later the skipper shouted quick orders that the crew could not understand for the life of them. For to heave the ship to, just when we all had been whistling for enough breeze to give her something more than steerage way, seemed nothing short of insane. Acuma climbed to the maintop and looked at the coast of Peru with a telescope, and the captain took bearings with his instruments. ”

“ He leaned on the sill of the open casement with his dark face just below mine and began to pour out, in halting English, a tale which at first I had some trouble in understanding. The most that I made of it was that he, and he alone, knew the whereabouts of a city buried ages since under the sea and filled with treasure of an unbelievable description. But you may imagine that even the hint of such a thing was enough to set me all athrill, and I was not greatly surprised at myself when I found that I was following the queer, slinking figure down our bare little New England street. ”

“ I think Jerry slept a little, and perhaps I did, too, for when I peered out at the cave entrance again there were two or three bluish, wet stars in the piece of sky I could see, and the rain-sound had stopped. Jerry was huddled up at my feet with his dear old head propped uncomfortably against me. He was snoring a little, and somehow it was the nicest sound I’d ever heard. Greg’s hand was still in mine, and it was not very hot.
Dawn always disappoints me a little. ”

“ It was Acuma and I who went over the side in diving suits, for no others save the captain knew what we sought, as I have said. Down I went and down, with the weight of water crushing ever more strongly against me, till I stood upon the sea's floor. That in itself was quite wonderful enough—the green whiteness of the sand and the strange, multi-colored forest of weed and coral through which my searchlight bored a single, luminous pathway. ”

“ Just then the hemlock branches thrashed apart and Greg crawled under with pine-needles in his hair. He sat back on his heels and blinked at us, because he’d just come out of the sunlight.
“I thought somebody ought to write to the Bottle Man,” he said, “so I did.”
“Well, I never!” Jerry said.
Greg fished up a bent piece of paper from inside his jumper and handed it to me.
“You can see it,” he said, “but not Jerry.”
“As if I’d want to!” Jerry said; but he did, fearfully.
Greg is the most unexpected person I ever knew. He’s always doing things like that, when everyone else has given up. ”

“ Greg shouted, leaping up and down in the edge of a wave.
He will say “subaground,” and it really is quite as sensible as some words.
“The entrance to a real pirate cave, you mean!” said Jerry. “Glory, Chris, I really shouldn’t wonder if it were. Captain Kidd was up and down the coast here. What if they buried stuff in there and then propped a big chunk of rock up against the hole?”
“I wish we had a telescope,” I said, “though I don’t suppose we could see into the blackness with it. Mercy, I wish we could get out there! It’s more worth exploring than ever.” ”

“ There were real waves on the Wecanicut side of the Monster now, and the wind was still blowing from that direction harder than ever. Now and then a drop of spray would flick my cheek, and I think the sound of the wind around the rock was really more horrid than the noise the water made. It seemed like midnight, but it was really quite early in the evening, when Jerry saw the lights bobbing along the shore of Wecanicut. They were lanterns, two of them, and they stopped quite often, as if the people were looking for something. ”

“ When the catboat came a little nearer we saw that there was only one man in it, and, sure enough, an old blue jersey was tied to the flag halyard. The man turned the boat around very neatly—I don’t know the right sailing word for it—and anchored. Then he climbed into the dinghy that was trailing along behind and began rowing to the Sea Monster.
I sat down on the rock and I had to keep swallowing, because I felt as if my heart were bumping up against my throat. To save time, before the man landed, Jerry started to shout what had happened. ”

“ Joss-sticks have wonderful possibilities that most people don’t know about. The three of us went down to the foot of the garden after dark and did an exhibition for the others. By whisking the joss-sticks around by their floppy handles you can make all sorts of fiery circles. I made two little ones for eyes, and Greg did a nose in the middle, and Jerry twirled a curvy one underneath for a mouth that could be either smiling or ferocious. A little way off you can’t see the people who do it at all, and it looks just like a great fiery face with a changing, wobbly expression. ”

“ So take my advice, young sirs, the advice of a man many years older than you bold young blades: don't you ever go listening to a half-breed Peruvian that comes slinking to your window, no matter how enticing may be his tales of treasure.
Your most faithful⁠
Bottle Man.
"Do you think he dreamed it?" Jerry said.
"Whatever it was, he must have been glad to get back," I said, switching off the light so that we could talk in the dark, which is more creepy and pleasant.
"But the treasure!" Jerry said. "Do you suppose there ever was such treasure in the world? That's something like! ”

“ Jerry pulled off his shirt like winking and stood there in his bare arms waving it madly. We both began to shout before the catboat people could possibly have heard us, but we thought that they might see the white shirt flying up and down. The boat was tacking a long leg and a short one. The long one carried it so far out that we thought it was going to cross the mouth of the bay and not come near enough to see us. Jerry stopped shouting just long enough to gasp:
"When she's all ready to go about on the short tack is the time to yell loudest." ”

“ We played chess, which he likes because he can always beat me, and also "Pounce," which pulls your eyes out after a little while and burns holes in your brain. It's that frightful card game where you try to get rid of thirteen cards before any one else, and snatch at aces in the middle, on top of everybody. Jerry is horribly clever at it and shouts "Pounce!" first almost every time. Greg always has at least twelve of his thirteen cards left and explains to you very carefully how he had it all planned very far ahead and would have won if Jerry hadn't said "Pounce" so soon. ”

“ There is a window at one end of his shop-place that goes all the way to the floor, like a doorway, and it is always open. His shop is half on the ferry-wharf so that the window hangs right over the water, very high above it. It is quite a dizzyish place, but wonderful to look out at. Far away you see boats coming in, and Wecanicut all flat and gray, and then right below is nice sloshy green water with old boxes and straws floating by, and sometimes horrid orange-peels that picnic people throw in. ”

“ I said, trying to forget the Sea Monster for a minute, “and Gregory means ‘watchful, vigilant’.”
“Now’s the first time he’s ever lived up to his name, then,” said Jerry. “Keep looking, Chris, and don’t moon about.”
We sat there for quite a long time without saying anything, and the last little golden sliver of sun disappeared behind the point, and the lighthouse on the Headland came out suddenly, though it was still quite light, and began to wink—two long flashes and two short ones.
“Isn’t it queer,” Jerry said, “to think that people are there and we can’t possibly tell them.” ”

“ He led me to a ship, an old brigantine heavy with age and barnacles and hung about with the sorriest gray rags of canvas that ever did duty for sails. No wonder that nine days out we lost our fore tops'l. But stay; I fear I go too fast! For you must know that I went aboard that brigantine, and once aboard I could not go ashore again, partly because the strange, ill-assorted crew detained me at every turn, and partly because the longing was so strong upon me to see the things I had read of so often. ”

“ Greg asked.
"We thought you were a very old gentleman," I explained giddily.
"I am," said the Bottle Man. "Ancient."
"But what about your gray hairs?" Jerry demanded, tugging away at the oars.
"If you've more than one gray hair you've gray hairs," said our man. "I have eleven."
He ducked down his nice, dark, rumpled-up head for us to look, but I must say I could n't see more than one little one all buried among the black.
"You're grown up, but you're not old at all," I said. "We've been imagining you as an aged old man with a long white beard." ”

“ I hope that I shall never, never forget, as long as I live, what a brick Jerry was through the whole of that nightmarish thing. I know I never shall.
“Chris,” he said, “you stay on this side. I’ll go around to the Headland side. Greg, you climb up on top. If any of us sees a boat near enough to do any good, call the others, and we’ll all yell and wave things.” ”

“ Behind a traceried grillwork lay heaped a mound of treasures such as no human eye will ever see again. I lifted a little tree fashioned all of gold,—each leaf wrought of the metal—and strung with jewelled fruits on which ruby-eyed golden birds fed. In despairing rapture I clutched after a neck ornament hung with pendulous pearls as large as plums. But as I reached for it, I felt that something was looking at me from the corner. Not Acuma; no human being was in sight. ”

“ We were so much excited about the Sea Monster suddenly having a big black hole in it that we almost forgot to take the bottle when we went home. We did forget Aunt Ailsa's hatpin, and Greg had to run back for it, because he can run faster than any of the rest of us, and Captain Lewis held the ferry for him. Everybody leaned out from the rail and peered up the landing, because they thought it must be a fire or the President or something. ”

“ Greg and Jerry had dragged all these things up from the edge of the water in big empty armfuls, and we stamped the sand down over them. It really looked exactly as if the tinfoil moidores were a handful that was left over. Greg was just giving the final stamp, when Jerry crooked his hand over his ear and said:
“Hist, men! What was that?” They were having artillery practice down at the Fort, and just then a terrific volley went sputtering off.
“’Tis a broadside from the English vessel!” Jerry said. “We are pursued!” ”

“ Instead there was a strange captain, a scraggly, cross-looking person, staring at a little book and not watching the people who came on board, the way Captain Lewis does. Jerry and I sat on campstools on the windy side, and Greg went to watch the walking-beam, which he thinks will some day knock the top off its house. It always stops and plunges down just when he thinks it surely will forget and go smashing on up through the roof. He is quite disappointed that it never does. It behaved perfectly properly this time and paddled the old ferry-boat over to Wecanicut as usual. ”

“ With dawning comprehension it came over me that these creatures inhabited the desolate, sea-filled city, lived in the mighty golden halls that once had echoed to the footsteps of Peruvian kings, fared about the rich streets where coral now grew instead of tree and flower. ”

“ We knew that if the cave was going to be flooded we must get Greg out of it before the water came much higher, but it was still raining pitch-forks outside, and we did n't know whether to risk waiting a bit longer or not.
"Perhaps there's sea-weed and we can feel high watermark," I said. "Try, Jerry."
We felt all the way around the sides of the cave toward the bottom, but as far as we could tell there was no sea-weed at all.
"That does n't help us much," Jerry said, "because we don't know whether the tide is really full now and has covered it, or whether it just does n't grow here." ”

“ Jerry said, “safe once more from an ignominious death. But, Chris, look at the Sea Monster! What’s happened to it?”
The Sea Monster is a bare black rock-island off the end of Wecanicut. We called it that because it looks like one, and it hasn’t any other name that we know of. We’d always wanted awfully to go out there and explore it, but the only time we ever asked old Captain Moss, who has boats for hire, he said, “Thunderin’ bad landin’. Nothin’ to see there but a clutter o’ gulls’ nests,” and went on painting the Jolly Nancy, which is his nicest boat. ”

“ The wind began to rise outside. I could hear it whisking around and bumping in the chimney, and I thought how glad I was—oh, how glad, glad I was—that we were all at home, and I listened hard to the 'cello and tried not to remember the horrible old Sea Monster. ”

“ There is a long cornery sort of closet full of carpets that runs back under the eaves in our attic, and if you strew handfuls of beads and tin washers among the carpets and then dig for them in the dark with a hockey-stick and a pocket flash-light, it’s not poor fun. Unfortunately, my head knocks against the highest part of the roof now, yet I still do think it’s fun. But Aunt Ailsa is twenty-six and she likes it, so I suppose I needn’t give up.
The day Aunt Ailsa really laughed was when Greg rigged himself up as an Excavator. ”

“ By this time there may be naught left of you but a whitening huddle of bones, surf bleached on the end of Wecanicut,—for I know well what meager fare are eiligugs’ eggs and barnacles. However, I take the chance of finding at least one of you alive, and address you fraternally as a companion in distress. ”

“ I think none of us will ever forget the way the house looked as we swung around the corner and came up Luke Street. Just the end of the gable first, behind the two big beeches in the front garden,—oh, we had n't seen it for years and centuries,—and then the living-room windows open, with the curtains blowing, and the little box-bush that grows in a fat jar on the porch-steps. ”