He wondered how long they would maintain contact. Suppose some fanatic, inspired by his example, should decide to keep him company across the Pacific. But when he considered this idea in the cool light of reason he saw that it was not a possibility. However much another yachtsman might have wished to keep in touch, he would not have been able to do so; in the very first night the two vessels would inevitably draw apart.
He need have had no qualms; when the next day dawned he was alone. He looked towards the horizon beyond the bows of the yawl and already he could almost feel the gold in his hands. Now it was only a question of time — time to reach the reef and time to lift the treasure from the strong-room.
In the event it took just three weeks to get there. It was a day of clear skies and calm sea — perfect for his purpose. Years had passed since he had last been near this spot, and often in the course of those years he had been tormented with the fear that somebody else might have discovered the Valparaiso and might have taken the gold. But always he had consoled himself with the thought that the wreck was so small and the sea so vast; the chances were a million to one against its being sighted.
He saw the reef at last; he saw the surf creaming over it just as he had seen it so many times; just as he had remembered it. Only one thing was missing to make the picture complete — the ship.
At first he refused to believe it; it must be some trick of the light, an optical illusion; the Valparaiso must be there, for where else could she be? But when the yawl drew closer he could no longer disguise from himself the bitter, inescapable truth: there was no ship.
It occurred to him that perhaps his navigation had been at fault, that this was the wrong reef. But he had only to look at it to know that there had been no mistake; too many times in the past had he gazed at this pale coral outcrop to be deceived by it now. This was indeed the place, but the ship had gone.
He let go the anchor in shallow water and felt it bite. He went back to the cockpit and took up his binoculars and began to search the reef from one end to the other. He saw the gap where the ship had been wedged and where he had thrown the rifle overboard. Everything was the same; nothing was changed, except for the one missing feature, that which had drawn him like a lodestar across so many miles of ocean — the iron wreck with its golden treasure; that alone had gone.
His shoulders drooped with the disappointment of it all; he was about to lower the binoculars when something caught his attention and made his heart give a sudden leap. It was only just visible, between the yawl and the reef; now and then as the surface of the water heaved slightly it vanished completely; then it appeared again like a finger pushed up by a drowning man. But Keeton knew that this was no finger; he knew that what he was looking at was the tip of one of the Valparaiso’s masts. And below the mast must surely lie the ship, resting peacefully on the bottom.
‘It must have been a storm,’ he muttered. ‘It sank her. It finally sank her the way Bristow feared it would. The poor devil was right.’
He wondered when this had happened; how long after he and Bristow had got away. Perhaps no more than a few days; perhaps if he had not left her when he had, he too would have been drowned with the Valparaiso. Of one thing he need have had no fear; no one would have found this wreck; no one but he, knowing precisely where to look. And even he had almost missed that small tip of mast barely projecting above the surface of the sea.
He decided to take a closer look. He launched the dinghy and rowed over to the spot where the wreck lay submerged. Keeping warily clear of the mast, which might have holed his boat, he leaned over the side and peered down into the limpid water. There, sure enough, was the Valparaiso, lying with a slight list to starboard so that the mast came up at an angle. And down there, enclosed in this iron coffin, was the cache of gold, as securely guarded from his itching fingers as it would have been in the vaults of a bank.
In a momentary frenzy of angry frustration Keeton was tempted to throw himself over the side of the boat and dive down to where the treasure lay; as if with his bare hands he would have hauled it up from its resting place. But the frenzy passed; he regained control over himself; and his mind, which had been briefly clouded by the mists of emotion, became clear again.
Of one thing he could now feel perfectly certain — the gold was there. It was still his for the taking if only he could find a way of taking it. And there must be a way; it would be more difficult than he had anticipated, but some way there must surely be.
He rowed thoughtfully back to the yawl and hauled the dinghy on board. Then he stripped and dived into the clear water, washing the sweat from his body and feeling a reinvigoration of the spirit from this immersion.
Back aboard, he lay on his bunk and smoked a cigarette. And with the smoke that he drew from the cigarette he drew also an inescapable conclusion: the job was no longer a one-man operation. He would have to get help. But not Rains and Smith, not on any account those two. It had to be someone less grasping, someone who would not demand a half-share in the profits.
In the morning he weighed anchor and set his course back towards Australia.
Chapter Five
Preparations
Keeton lay on the hot sand and let the sun cook his already deeply tanned body. In the bay, sheltered by a curving arm of the land, the yawl rode peacefully at anchor. On his return to Australia he had given Sydney a wide berth and instead had put in at Boonville, a small town midway between Sydney and Brisbane, notable for little except its fine beach, the local fishing and the number of its inhabitants who appeared to have nothing to do.
He heard the soft scuffle of feet in the sand and saw Ben Dring walking towards him.
‘You take life easy, Skipper,’ Dring said. ‘You got nothing better to do than lie in the sun?’
He was a strong-looking man, not tall, but muscular; and his straw-coloured hair was cropped close to his head. He looked younger than Keeton, but was in fact four years older. Keeton knew this; and he knew a lot of other things about Dring too: that he had served with the Australian Army in New Guinea, that the scar on his right arm was from a Jap bullet, that he was a restless character who had never settled down to any regular job, and that, most important of all, he was enthusiastically interested in underwater swimming.
‘The kid wants to come too,’ Dring said. ‘Just for the ride.’
‘No,’ Keeton said, getting to his feet. ‘Not even for the ride.’
‘That’s what I told her you’d say. It didn’t seem to have much effect.’
‘It’ll have to.’
Dring was carrying two sets of aqualung gear — compressed air bottles, masks and fins.
‘We’re all complete. You’re going to enjoy this. It’s the kind of swimming you’ve always dreamed about. You don’t have to come up for air; you take your own supply with you.’
‘How long does one of these cylinders last?’
‘Depends on the depth. You don’t want to try much deeper than a hundred and twenty feet; not as much as that for a start. At that depth one bottle would last maybe seven or eight minutes; at the surface about forty. It varies.’
‘I see.’ Keeton was thinking of the strong-room of the Valparaiso. How deep was that? Twenty feet? Thirty?
‘There’s the kid now,’ Dring said. He was looking over Keeton’s shoulder.
Keeton turned his head and saw the girl coming towards them. She was nearly as tall as her brother and her hair was the same colour. She was wearing shorts and a loose cotton shirt, and the sun had turned her skin a rich golden tint like honey. Her feet were bare and she was carrying a swimsuit and a towel. She was twenty years old.