He laughed at the ghastly, mirthless smiles with which they greeted his recognition of their secret intentions. And he also comprehended the thought that sprang in the mind of each: let the Irishman secure the loot for them, and lead them back to the trail before they killed him.
"Three of us are enough to lug the loot down from the cave," he said.
Harston laughed sardonically.
"Do you think I'm fool enough to go tip there alone with you and Villiers? My boatswain comes with me!" He designated a brawny, hard-faced giant, naked to his belt, with gold hoops in his ears, and a crimson scarf knotted about his head.
"And my executioner comes with me!" growled Villiers. He beckoned a lean sea- thief with a face like a parchmentcovered skull, who carried a great scimitar naked over his bony shoulder.
Vulmea shrugged his shoulders. "Very well. Follow me."
They were close on his heels as he strode up the winding path. They crowded him close as he passed through the cleft in the wall behind the ledge, and their breath sucked in greedily as he called their attention to the iron-bound chests on either side of the short tunnel.
"A rich cargo there," he said carelessly. "Garments, weapons, ornaments. But the real treasure lies beyond that door."
He pushed it partly open and drew aside to let his companions look through.
They looked into a wide cavern, lit vaguely by a blue glow that shimmered through it smoky mist-like haze. A great ebon table stood in the midst of the cavern, and in a carved chair with a high back and broad arms sat a giant figure, fabulous and fantastic—there sat Giovanni da Verrazano, his great head sunk on his bosom, one shrivelled hand still gripping a jeweled goblet; da Verrazano. in his plumed hat, his gilt-embroidered coat with jeweled buttons that winked in the blue flame, his flaring boots and gold-worked baldric that upheld a jewel-hilted sword in a golden sheath.
And ranging the board, each with his chin resting on his lace-bedecked breast, sat the eleven buccaneers. The blue fire played weirdly on them, as it played like a nimbus of frozen fire about the heap of curiously-cut gems which shone in the center of the table—the jewels of the Montezumas! The stones whose value was greater than the value of all the rest of the known gems in the world put together!
The faces of the pirates showed pallid in the blue glow.
"Go in and take them," invited Vulmea, and Harston and Villiers crowded past him, jostling one another in their haste. Their followers were treading on their heels. Villiers kicked the door wide open—and halted with one foot on the threshold at the sight of a figure on the floor, previously hidden by the partly-closed door. It was a man, prone and contorted, head drawn back between his shoulders, white face twisted in a grin of mortal agony, clawed fingers gripping his own throat.
"Gallot!" ejaculated Villiers. "What—!" With sudden suspicion he thrust his head into the bluish mist that filled the inner cavern. And he choked and screamed: "There is death in the smoke!"
Even as he screamed, Vulmea hurled his weight against the four men bunched in the doorway, sending them staggering—but not headlong into the cavern as he had planned. They were recoiling at the sight of the dead man and the realization of the trap, and his violent impact, while it threw them off their feet, yet failed of the result he desired. Harston and Villiers sprawled half over the threshold on their knees, the boatswain tumbling over their legs, and the executioner caromed against the wall. Before Vulmea could follow up his intention of kicking the fallen men into the cavern and holding the door against them until the poisonous mist did its deadly work, he had to turn and defend himself against the frothing onslaught of the executioner.
The Frenchman missed a tremendous swipe with his headsman's sword as the Irishman ducked, and the great blade banged against the stone wall, scattering blue sparks. The next instant his skull-faced head rolled on the cavern floor under the bite of Vulmea's cutlass.
In the split seconds this action had consumed, the boatswain regained his feet and fell on the Irishman, raining blows with a cutlass. Blade met blade with a ring of steel that was deafening in the narrow tunnel. The two captains rolled back across the threshold, gagging and purple in the face, too near strangled to shout, and Vulmea redoubled his efforts, striving to dispose of his antagonist so he could cut down his rivals before they could recover from the effects of the poison. The boatswain was driven backward, dripping blood at each step, and he began desperately to bellow for his mates. But before Vulmea could deal the final stroke, the two chiefs, gasping but murderous, came at him with swords in their hands, croaking for their men.
Vulmea bounded back and leaped out onto the ledge, fearing to be trapped by the men coming in response to their captains' yells.
These were not coming as fast as he expected, however. They heard the muffled shouts issuing from the cavern, but no man dared start up the path for fear of a sword in the back. Each band faced the other tensely, grasping weapons but incapable of decision, and when they saw Vulmea bound out on the ledge, they merely gaped. While they stood with their matches smoldering he ran up the ladder of handholds niched in the rock and threw himself prone on the summit of the crag, out of their sight.
The captains stormed out on the ledge and their men, seeing their leaders were not at sword-strokes, ceased menacing each other and gaped in greater bewilderment.
"Dog!" screamed Villiers. "You planned to poison us! Traitor!"
Vulmea mocked them from above.
"What did you expect? You two were planning to cut my throat as soon as I got the plunder for you. If it hadn't been for that fool Gallot I'd have trapped the four of you and explained to your men how you rushed in heedless to your doom!"
"And you'd have taken my ship and all the loot!" frothed Harston.
"Aye! And the pick of both crews! It was Gallot's footprints I saw on the trail. I wonder how the fool learned of this cave."
"If we hadn't seen his body we'd have walked into that death-trap," muttered Villiers, his dark face still ashy. "That blue smoke was like unseen fingers crushing my throat."
"Well, what are you going to do'?" their tormentor yelled sardonically.
"What are we going to do?" asked Villiers of Harston.
"You can't get the jewels," Vulmea assured them with satisfaction from his aerie. "That mist will strangle you. It nearly got me, when I stepped in there. Listen and I'll tell you a tale the Indians tell in their lodges when the fires burn low! Once, long ago, twelve strange men came out of the sea and found a cave and heaped it with gold and gems. But while they sat drinking and singing, the earth shook and smoke came out of the earth and strangled them. Thereafter the tribes all shunned the spot as haunted and accursed by evil spirits.
"When I crawled in there to escape the Indians, I realized that the old legend was true, and referred to da Verrazano. An earthquake must have cracked the rock floor of the cavern they'd fortified, and he and his buccaneers were overcome as they sat at wine by the poisonous fumes of gases welling up from some vent in the earth. Death guards their loot!"
Harston peered into the tunnel mouth.
"The mist is drifting out into the tunnel," he growled, "but it dissipates itself in the open air. Damn Vulmea! Let's climb up after him."
"Do you think any man on earth could climb those handholds against his sword?" snarled Villiers. "We'll have the men up here, and set some to watch and shoot him if he shows himself. He had some plan of getting those jewels, and if he could get them, so can we. We'll tie a hook to a rope, cast it about the leg of that table and drag it, jewels and all, out onto the ledge."