The Emerald Storm

Chapter 39

I realized why no one had ever retrieved the treasure of Montezuma when I attempted to exit with a handful. The seawater didn’t dead-end in the cavern; it found another underwater crack and continued, possibly all the way through Diamond Rock. This meant there was a constant tide running into this cave, and none out. Without help, it was a tunnel of no return. No wonder it contained bones of the dead!

I plunged into the pool, strapped inside the diving bell, and jerked the rope for Jubal to pull me out, and that’s the only way I emerged alive. Escape was like trying to breast a river while encased in a sausage. My black friend had returned the longboat to its hiding place and swum to a perch above the cave entrance to handle the towline, but even with that platform he had to haul like a longshoreman.

His reward was when I unstrapped myself, surfaced, and held up a golden necklace heavy enough to make its wearer stoop from the weight.

“It’s really there, Jubal!”

“By Damballah’s scales, that collar alone is enough to start rebuilding my country.”

“Ezili favors us, I think.”

“Ezili favors herself, as our French partner favors himself. Everyone has their own dreams.”

Yes. Once we got the treasure out we’d have more temptation than schoolboys at a brothel. In the meantime, we all had to work on trust.

“I’ll swim this underwater to the buoy anchor, drop it on the bottom, and go get more.”

He pointed toward the sky. “Hurry. The weather’s getting worse.”

I looked. The sea was grayer, waves higher. I could still hear the artillery duel, but it was beginning to be muted by the drum pound of surf. I hoped our bomb ketch would pull away soon, before my family got hurt. “Maybe that will make it easier to sneak under the noses of the British.”

“Agwe, the sea loa, is restless. Something’s wrong, Ethan.”

“Jubal, if you saw the wonders of that cave, you’d realize that everything is finally very right.”

His nod conveyed doubt. “Why did the Maroons bring and hide it here? Why did they never come back for it?”

“They left their bones. We won’t.”

“Maybe we should just leave Martel now, and go, with the necklace and the longboat.”

“No, his men have my family. And there’s an entire treasury down there. This is payback for all you’ve suffered, Jubal: years of war, the loss of your lover.”

“I don’t think life balances its ledger.” He sighed. “How many trips to carry it all out?”

“Dozens.”

“I can’t pull that long.” The black glanced upward. There were flashes like thunder against the clouds, the crash of British artillery. “It’s too hard to pull you or Monsieur Martel through the tunnel so many times. You send him out next to help me. Then you fill a sack, tie it to the barrel, and we just pull that. We empty the treasure, you pull back this line, and together we transfer all the gold and jewels to the anchor. The last time you come out with the diving bell.”

“Agreed. I trust you. But you shouldn’t trust Martel.”

“Ethan, I was a slave. I don’t trust nobody.”

So we set to work, and work it was. I strapped myself back into the barrel and drifted into the cavern to inform Martel of our plan. I was amazed at how much shorter the distance seemed now that I had traversed it before.

Martel was at first as skeptical at leaving me alone with the treasure as I was of leaving him with Jubal. I explained that, first, I had nowhere to go without his help, and second, as we transferred I would be leaving him with the growing heap of gold. “But not the toy birds, or whatever you want to call them.”

“Flying machines.”

“Those stay until I come. And if you try to betray me or kill Jubal, you lose them. And remember, my blacks are aboard your ketch.”

“As is your wife and child. And my inspectors and sailors.”

“The only way this will succeed is if we all work together.”

“I’ve tried to explain that to you from the beginning, Monsieur Gage. It’s good to have partners, no?” And with a Gallic snort he plunged into the diving bell and jerked on the line to be pulled out, the water helping neutralize the golden alligator that weighed at least a hundred pounds and that he cradled in his arms.

I set to work before my candle burned down completely.

We set up an efficient system. Jubal and Martel traded tasks, one swimming gunnysacks of gold and precious stones out to our anchor depository, the other tugging on lines to haul out the treasure or to signal me to pull the empty bell back. With each relay I loaded a gunnysack with loot, hung it on the floating barrel, and watched it jerk away before returning empty ten minutes later. Slowly the Aztec hoard diminished, my labor as mechanical as if I were shifting coal. The hoard was only half depleted when I swam down to attach a sack and found a crude note that Jubal or Martel had tacked inside the air chamber before I pulled it back.

“Storm coming. Finish now.”

I didn’t argue. Yes, I left a dragon’s nest of gold behind, but we had enough treasure to buy Napoleon’s palace at Saint-Cloud three times over. The candle was guttering. So I took the flying models, tucked them in my shirt, filled the gunnysack with some last precious idols, strapped myself into the leaded rum barrel, and gave a tug.

I still braced for betrayal. If the line went slack from being cut, I was determined to grab the rough sides of the tunnel and try to kick my own way up and out.

But no, my journey went smoothly. Hands grabbed. I came to the surface with the last of the treasure, blinking away water. Light was rapidly failing. I heard no more gunfire.

“Did the British hit our vessel?”

“No, we would have heard cheers.”

The twilight was an odd, ominous green, and the swells were growing higher. It was so hazy I couldn’t see the top of the rock. I bobbed uneasily up and down in the waves, and I could hear our longboat scraping where it was hidden in the cleft. The air felt very heavy.

“Yes, no time for more gold,” I said. “When will the ship come back?”

“Midnight,” Martel said. “You brought the flying machines?”

“If that’s what they really are, yes. You’ll win my consternation if you make them into something that actually flies.”

“Your challenge is accepted, monsieur. French science leads the world.”

“You have the lunacy of a true savant, Martel.”

“And you the nerve of a good grave robber.”

Compliments exchanged, we swam to the tiny cove where the longboat was moored, hauled ourselves aboard, donned more clothes-I had a vest-and gobbled cheese and wine. Our bread, alas, had gone soggy, and I missed a spoon of sugar, too. Jubal eyed the storm while Martel tried to puzzle out the triangular objects, and I watched Martel. The first priority was to safeguard Astiza and Harry, waiting on the ketch. And then?

If all else failed, I still had the emerald.

I’ve learned to be cautious around my enemies so I’d swallowed it, in case Martel tried to take it back from me. To time its emergence correctly, I shouldn’t eat much anyway. So I dropped my share of the spoiled bread overboard and watched fish come to gobble.

“So can you fly to London?” I idly asked Martel.

“Look, here are the wings. And here a man sitting between to steer. This is sculpted from something the Aztecs had seen, I’m certain of it. But did the wings flap? This will require much study.”

“I’ve been on a glider that crashed. It would be a brave man who first mounts a contraption based on a toy.”

“I will be that man.”

Night came, and we lost all sight of Martinique. It was as if we were marooned, no stars overhead, the wind continuing its alarming rise. Surf was beginning to boom against stone. The longboat bucked uneasily up and down. Anchoring the ketch to scoop up the treasure wouldn’t be easy.

Time dragged. Were the French not coming? I’d row to shore before dawn rather than risk another day here.

Then there was a scrape above and bits of grit and pebbles rained. A hundred feet above a horn lantern swayed in the wind. “Look, a glim,” I whispered to the others, pointing to the light.

Men were working down the cliff. Had they seen us?

One if by land, two if by sea, the British were coming.