wild-goose chase, after all?
“Nothing? About Dolores being deserted, and—”
“He shall marry my daughter!” boomed a gruff voice as Guiteras shouldered his way through the little group, his hand shooting back to a pocket where bulged a huge Colt.
Like a flash Kennedy, who had been watching, caught his wrist. “Just a second, Captain,” he shouted, then turned to us, speaking rapidly and excitedly. “This thing has all been carefully, diabolically laid out. All who stood in the way of the whole of the treasure were to be eliminated. One person has sought to get it all—at any cost.”
In Craig’s own hand now gleamed a deadly automatic while with the other he held Guiteras’s wrist.
“But,” he added, tensely, “an insane passion has wrecked the desperate scheme. A woman has been playing a part—leading the man on to his own destruction in order to save the man she really loves.”
I looked over at Norma. She was pale and agitated, then burning and nervous by turns. It was only by a most heroic effort that she seemed able to restrain herself, her eyes riveted on Kennedy’s face, weighing every word to see whether it balanced with a feeling in her own heart.
“The Antilles,” shot out Kennedy, suddenly, “was burned and sunk, not by accident, but with a purpose. That purpose has run through all the events I have seen—the use of Mr. Everson, his yacht, his money, his influence. Come!” He strode down the passage to our state-room, and we followed in awed silence.
“It is a vast, dastardly crime—to get the Mexican millions,” he went on, pausing, his hand on the knob of the door while we crowded the narrow passage. “I have brought up from the wreck a skull which I found near a safe, unlocked so that entrance would be easy. The skull shows plainly that the man had been hit on the head by some blunt instrument, crushing him. Had he discovered something that it was inconvenient to know? You have heard the stories of the ill-fated ship—”
Craig flung open the door suddenly. We saw a weird face—the head apparently streaming blood from a ghastly wound. There was a shrill cry beside me.
“It’s his ghost—Captain Driggs! God save me—it’s his ghost come to haunt me and claim the treasure!”
I turned quickly. Dominick had broken down.
“You were—just leading him on—tell me—Norma.” I turned again quickly. It was Gage, who had taken Norma’s hand, quivering with excitement.
“You never cared for her?” she asked, with the anxiety that showed how in her heart she loved him.
“Never. It was part of the plot. I sent the message to get her here to show you. I didn’t know you were playing a game—”
Suddenly the sharp crack of a pistol almost deafened us in the close passageway. As the smoke cleared, I saw Dolores, her eyes blazing with hatred, jealousy, revenge. In her hand was the pistol she had wrenched from her father.
On the floor across the door-sill sprawled a figure. Dominick had paid the price of his faithlessness to her also.
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