Pirate's Treasure

Chapter 31

The sun was refreshing to see in the morning. I fell asleep before I could blow out the candle, and it was burned out, the wax in a puddle surrounding the base. I stretched up and started mentally preparing myself for today. At least Val's ship should get here, hopefully soon, and hopefully before anyone is close to finding the treasure. Not like we have much of a chance, though. We've only been here a day. 

I fully woke up when David slammed the door open, grabbing my hand and yanking me up. "Come on, Captain wants us on board immediately." He pulled me before I could protest.

"We need to find the treasure fast." Arthur stated as soon as I was in earshot, but I could barely see over the bodies that stood tall in front of me. "I have a feeling that the scoundrel's ship is almost here."

The feeling in my stomach plummeted, and my heart stopped. He couldn’t possibly know where their location is. We have the map, right? They couldn’t have known they followed us. But it didn’t make me feel any better.

"Split up again. And now, everyone meet by the cave around three. I don't want anyone trying to search that place on their own. We'll do that together." Arthur released us, and David took me by the arm and dragged me off the ship, and we were on day two of searching for the treasure.

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It was now three o'clock, and my spirits were wearing thin. I haven't yet seen Vals' ship, which worried me a little. What if Coral was off on her time? Or what if they got hit by a storm or something? Whatever happened, it made me extremely nervous.

David had dragged me all around the island again, and we've dug in seven sand spots, three forest, and somewhere near the cave, but not quite in it. I wasn't exactly in the mood to go exploring into a deep, dark cave anymore. And if we were in a cave, we wouldn't be able to see any ships that came close. And one would be Val. Which meant Christian would be there.

It didn't take too long before everyone was gathered outside the cave, and Arthur ended up being the last one there. I looked all around discreetly one more time, but there were no other ships in sight. And that last, little glimmer of hope had faded.

"This cave isn't that big." Arthur stated, entering first, but only a few feet. "If it's not in here, I don't know what we'll do."

We all entered, flooding the cave entrance, and someone lit a torch, and someone got fire from that torch, and suddenly we could see the walls of the cave. They were dark, grey, and stone. What we all expected.

"I don't think it's here." I spoke up, and David squeezed my arm slightly, sending me the message to shut up. I bit my lip when Arthur turned to glare at me.

"Search it anyway." He ordered, and everyone started digging. But that was too obvious. It had to be somewhere else. That's why I've found all the other items.

I grabbed someone's torch and started examining the walls instead, carefully stepping over people as I did so. I bit my lip as I tried to figure out what it was. I tried brushing off some of the dirt as well, maybe looking for some sort of inscription or sign or something.

I traveled to the center of the room and examined the walls as a whole. There were no patterns, no picture, no nothing. Was it really buried somewhere? That's too obvious!

I raised the torch slightly to heighten my view, but my head jerked up when I saw something from directly above me. I stepped a couple steps backward and looked at the object from that viewpoint. It was only this iron rod with what looked like to be grass on the hanging end.

"Oh my God." I stepped forward again and held the torch up high, standing on my tiptoes until the flame touched the grass. And it lit up immensely.