The Slipper Point Mystery Part 10

Perhaps it's behind one of these stones. Look! The plaster seems to be loose around these in the middle." She thrust the weight of her strong young arm against it, directing it at the middle stone of three large ones, but without avail. They never moved the fraction of an inch. Then she began to push all along the sides where the plaster seemed loose. At last she threw her whole weight against it--and was rewarded!

The three stones swung round, as on a pivot, revealing a s.p.a.ce only large enough to crawl through with considerable squeezing.

"Hurrah! hurrah!" she shouted. "What did I tell you, Doris? There's something else behind here,--another cave, I guess. I'm going through.

Are you going to follow?" Handing her candle to Doris, she scrambled through the narrow opening. And Doris, now determined to stick at nothing, set both candles on the ground, and pushed the struggling and resisting Genevieve in next. After that, she pa.s.sed in the candles to Sally, who held them while she clambered in herself.

And, once safely within, they stood and stared about them.

"Why, Sally," suddenly breathed Doris, "this isn't a cave. It's a _cellar_! Don't you see all the household things lying around? Garden tools, and vegetables and--and all that? Where in the world can we be?"

A great light suddenly dawned on her.

"Sally Carter, what did I tell you? This cellar is Miss Camilla's. I know it. I'm _certain_ of it. There's no other house anywhere near Slipper Point. I _told_ you she knew about that cave!"

Sally listened, open-mouthed. "It can't be," she faltered. "I'm sure we didn't come in that direction at all."

"You can't tell how you're going--underground," retorted Doris.

"Remember, the tunnel made a turn, too. Oh, Sally! Let's go back at once, before anything is discovered, and never, never let Miss Camilla or any one know what we've discovered. It's none of our business."

Sally, now convinced, was about to a.s.sent, when Genevieve suddenly broke into a loud howl.

"I won't go back! I won't go back--in that nas'y place!" she announced, at the top of her lungs.

"Oh, stop her!" whispered Doris. "Do stop her, or Miss Camilla may hear!" Sally stifled her resisting sister by the simple process of placing her hand forcibly over her mouth,--but it was too late. A door opened at the top of a flight of steps, and Miss Camilla's astounded face appeared in the opening.

"What is it? Who is it?" she called, obviously frightened to death herself at this unprecedented intrusion. Huddled in a corner, they all shrank back for a moment, then Doris stepped boldly forward.

[Ill.u.s.tration: She led the others up the cellar steps]

"It's only ourselves, Miss Camilla," she announced. "We have done a very dreadful thing, and we hadn't any right to do it. But, if you'll let us come upstairs, we'll explain it all, and beg your pardon, and promise never to speak of it or even think of it again." She led the others up the cellar steps, and into Miss Camilla's tiny, tidy kitchen. Here, still standing, she explained the whole situation to that lady, who was still too overcome with astonishment to utter a word. And she ended her explanation thus:

"So you see, we didn't have the slightest idea we were going to end at this house. But, all the same, we sort of felt that this cave was a secret of yours and that we really hadn't any right to be interfering with it. But won't you please forgive us, this time, Miss Camilla? And we'll really try to forget that it ever existed."

And then Miss Camilla suddenly found words. "My dear children," she stuttered, "I--I really don't know what you're talking about. I haven't the faintest idea what this all means. _I never knew till this minute that there was anything like a cave or a tunnel connected with this house!_"

And in the astounded silence that followed, the three stood gaping, open-mouthed, at each other.

CHAPTER XI

SOME BITS OF ROUNDTREE HISTORY

"But come into the sitting-room," at length commanded Miss Camilla, "and let us talk this strange thing over. You must be tired and hungry, too, after this awful adventure of coming through that dreadful tunnel. You must have some of this hot gingerbread and a gla.s.s of lemonade." And while she bustled about, on hospitable thoughts intent, they heard her muttering to herself:

"A cave--and a tunnel--and connected with _this_ house!--What _can_ it all mean?"

They sat in restful silence for a time, munching the delicious hot gingerbread and sipping cool lemonade. Never did a repast taste more welcome, coming as it did after the adventures and uncertainties of that eventful day. And while they ate, Miss Camilla sat wiping her gla.s.ses and putting them on and taking them off again and shaking her head over the perplexing news that had been so unexpectedly thrust upon her.

"I simply cannot understand it all," she began at last. "As I told you, I've never had the slightest idea of such a strange affair, nor can I imagine how it came there. When did you say that _Anne Arundel_ vessel was wrecked?"

"Grandfather said in 1850," answered Sally.

"Eighteen hundred and fifty," mused Miss Camilla. "Well, I couldn't have been more than four or five years old, so of course I would scarcely remember it. Besides, I was not at home here a great deal. I used to spend most of my time with my aunt who lived in New York. She used to take me there for long visits, months on a stretch. If this cave and tunnel were made at that time, it was probably done while I was away, or else I would have known of it. My father and brother and one or two colored servants were the only ones in the house, most of the time. I had a nurse, an old Southern colored 'mammy' who always went about with me. She died about the time the Civil War broke out."

There was no light on the matter here. Miss Camilla relapsed again into puzzled silence, which the girls hesitated to intrude upon by so much as a single word, lest Miss Camilla should consider that they were prying into her past history.

"Wait a moment!" she suddenly exclaimed, sitting up very straight and wiping her gla.s.ses again in great excitement. "I believe I have the explanation." She looked about at her audience a minute, hesitantly. "I shall have to ask you girls please to keep what I am going to tell you entirely to yourselves. Few if any have ever known of it, and, though it would do no harm now, I have other reasons for not wis.h.i.+ng it discussed publicly. Since you have discovered what you have, however, I feel it only right that you should know."

"You may rely on us, Miss Camilla," said Doris, speaking for them both, "to keep anything you may tell us a strict secret."

"Thank you," replied their hostess. "I feel sure of it. Well, I learned the fact, very early in my girlhood, that my father and also my brother, who was several years older than I, were both very strict and enthusiastic abolitionists. While slavery was still a national inst.i.tution in this country, they were firm advocates of the freedom of the colored people. And, so earnest were they in the cause, that they became members of the great 'Underground Railway' system."

"What was that?" interrupted both girls at a breath.

"Did you never hear of it?" exclaimed Miss Camilla in surprise. "Why, it was a great secret system of a.s.sisting runaway slaves from the Southern States to escape from their bondage and get to Canada where they could no longer be considered any one's property. There were many people in all the Northern States, who, believing in freedom for the slaves, joined this secret league, and in their houses runaways would be sheltered, hidden and quietly pa.s.sed on to the next house of refuge, or 'station,' as they were called, till at length the fugitives had pa.s.sed the boundary of the country. It was, however, a severe legal offense to be caught a.s.sisting these fugitives, and the penalty was heavy fines and often imprisonment. But that did not daunt those whose hearts were in the cause. And so very secret was the whole organization that few were ever detected in it.

"It was in a rather singular way that I discovered my father to be concerned in this matter. I happened to be at home here, and came downstairs one morning, rather earlier than usual, to find our kitchen filled with a number of strange colored folk, in various stages of rags and hunger and evident excitement. I was a girl of ten or eleven at the time. Rus.h.i.+ng to my father's study, I demanded an explanation of the strange spectacle. He took me aside and explained the situation to me, acknowledging that he was concerned in the 'Underground Railway' and warning me to maintain the utmost secrecy in the matter or it would imperil his safety.

"When I returned to the kitchen, to my astonishment, the whole crowd had mysteriously disappeared, though I had not been gone fifteen minutes. And I could not learn from any one a satisfactory explanation of their lightning disappearance. I should certainly have seen them, had they gone away above ground. I believe now that the cave and tunnel must have been the means of secreting them, and I haven't a doubt that my father and brother had had it constructed for that very purpose. A runaway, or even a number of them, could evidently be kept in the cave several days and then spirited away at night, probably by way of the river and some vessel out at sea that could take them straight to New York or even to Canada itself. Yes, it is all as clear as daylight to me now."

"But how do you suppose they were able to build the cave and tunnel and bring all the wood from the wreck on the beach without being discovered?" questioned Sally.

"That probably was not so difficult then as it would seem now," answered Miss Camilla. "To begin with, there were not so many people living about here then, and so there was less danger of being discovered. If my father and brother could manage to get men enough to help and a number of teams of oxen or horses such as he had, they could have brought the wreckage from the beach here, over what must then have been a very lonely and deserted road, without much danger of discovery. If it happened that at the time they were sheltering a number of escaped slaves, it would have been no difficult matter to press them into a.s.sisting on dark nights when they could be so well concealed. Yes, I think that was undoubtedly the situation."

They all sat quietly for a moment, thinking it over. Miss Camilla's solution of the cave and tunnel mystery was clear beyond all doubting, and it seemed as if there was nothing further for them to wonder about.

Suddenly, however, Sally leaned forward eagerly.

"But did we tell you about the strange piece of paper we found under the old mattress, Miss Camilla? I've really forgotten what we did say."

Miss Camilla looked perplexed. "Why, no. I don't remember your mentioning it. Everything was so confused, at first, that I've forgotten it if you did. What about a piece of paper?"

"Here is a copy of what was on it," said Sally. "We never take the real piece away from where we first found it, but we made this copy. Perhaps you can tell what it all means." She handed the paper to Miss Camilla, who stared at it for several moments in blank bewilderment. Then she shook her head.

"I can't make anything of it at all," she acknowledged. "It must have been something left there by one of the fugitives. I don't believe it concerns me at all." She handed the paper back, but as she did so, a sudden idea occurred to Doris.

"Mightn't it have been some secret directions to the slaves left there for them by your father or brother?" she suggested. "Maybe it was to tell them where to go next, or something like that."

"I think it very unlikely," said Miss Camilla.

"Most of them could neither read nor write, and they would hardly have understood an explanation so complex. No, it must be something else. I wonder--" She stopped short and stood thinking intently a moment while her visitors watched her anxiously. A pained and troubled expression had crept into her usually peaceful face, and she seemed to be reviewing memories that caused her sorrow.

"Can you get the original paper for me?" she suddenly exclaimed in great excitement. "Now--at once? I have just thought of something."

"I'll get it!" cried Sally, and she was out of the house in an instant, flying swift-footed over the ground that separated them from the entrance of the cave by the river. While she was gone Miss Camilla sat silent, inwardly reviewing her painful memories.

In ten minutes Sally was back, breathless, with the precious, rusty tin box clasped in her hand. Opening it, she gave the contents to Miss Camilla, who stared at it for three long minutes in silence.