CHAPTER XVTHE GREAT ADVENTURE
The news that old Captain Jules Fontaine, the retired pearl diver, whose history was a mystery to most of the inhabitants at Cape May, was to take Madge Morton down to the bottom of Delaware Bay with him spread through the town and seaside resort like wildfire. It was in vain that the houseboat party and Captain Jules tried to keep the affair a secret. There were necessary arrangements to be made, men to be engaged to assist in the diving operations; it was impossible to deny everything.
At first the plan seemed to outsiders like mere midsummer madness. Then the story began to grow. Cape May residents learned that Captain Jules had found pearls in the bottom of the bay. No one would believe the captain’s statement that the pearls were of little value; gossip made the tiny pearls grow larger and larger, until they were fit for an empress.
Captain Jules was besieged at his little house up the bay, although, as usual, he kept the door fastened against intruders. Half the fishermen and oystermen in the vicinity begged to be permittedto accompany the old sea diver in his descent into the water. Captain Jules politely explained that he needed no companions; he was merely going on a diving expedition to amuse two of his friends, Phyllis Alden and Madge Morton, who had a taste for watery adventure. He did not expect to find anything of value in the bottom of the bay. They were going down merely for sport.
There was one person at Cape May who listened eagerly to any tale of the fabulous riches that the old pearl diver was evidently expecting to unearth. He was Philip Holt. The time of his visit at Cape May was rapidly passing. Mrs. Curtis was exceedingly kind and interested in her guest, but Philip did not feel that he dared approach her too abruptly with the request for so large a sum of money as five thousand dollars. Besides, Philip Holt knew that Tom Curtis disliked him heartily. Tom was not likely to approve a man whom Madge mistrusted; nor would Mrs. Curtis give away or lend five thousand dollars without first consulting her son. So the marvelous tale of the pearls to be found in the Delaware Bay rooted itself in Philip Holt’s imagination. Here was another way to get out of his scrape. He was not fond of adventure, but he would do anything in the world for money. Perhaps he could find pearls enoughnot only to pay his debt, but to make him rich forever afterward.
Quietly, and without a word to any one, Philip Holt made a secret visit to the house of the three sails. He implored Captain Jules to make him his diving companion. He attempted to bribe him with sums of money that he did not possess. He even threatened the old sailor that he would make investigations about his life and expose any secrets that the captain might wish to keep. Captain Jules only laughed at these threats. He was not going down in the bay for treasures, he declared. He expected to find absolutely nothing of any value. Positively he would not allow any one to accompany him but the two girls.
Madge and Phyllis had a hard fight to persuade Miss Jenny Ann to give her consent to their plan for playing mermaid. But she was getting so accustomed to the exciting adventures of her girls that, when Captain Jules assured her there was really no special danger, so long as he kept a close watch on the diver with him, she finally agreed to the scheme. Captain Jules gave the two girls every kind of instruction in the art of diving that he thought necessary, and the day of the great watery adventure was set for the week ahead.
On the morning of Tuesday, July 12th, Madgeawoke at daybreak. She felt a delicious, shivery thrill pass over her that was one part fear and the other part rapture.
“Phil,” she whispered a few seconds later, when she heard her chum stirring in the berth above her, “can you feel fins growing where your feet are? Your flop in the bed sounded as though you were a real mermaid! Just think, at ten o’clock sharp we are going down to explore a new world! I wonder if there were ever any girl divers before? You are awfully good to let me go down first.”
“No, I am not,” answered Phil soberly. “If there is any danger, I am letting you go down to it first. But I shall watch above the water, with all my eyes, to see that everything goes right. The captain has explained the whole business of diving to us so thoroughly that I believe I can tell if anything is wrong with you below the surface. You’ll be careful, won’t you, Madge? You know you are usually rather reckless. Don’t stay down too long.”
“Oh, Captain Jules won’t let me be reckless this time. We are not going down into very deep water, anyway, and a professional diver can stay under several hours when the water is only about five fathoms deep.”
Madge and Phyllis ate a very light breakfast. Captain Jules had told them that a diver mustnever go down into the water on a full stomach, as it would make him too short-winded. While the two prospective divers were eating poor Miss Jenny Ann was wondering what had ever induced her to give her consent to so mad an enterprise as this diving.
Every effort had been made to keep a crowd away from the pier from which Captain Jules meant to send out the boats with the tenders, who were the men to look after the safety of Madge and himself.
As the girls came up, with Miss Jenny Ann, to join Captain Jules they saw twenty or thirty people about. Mrs. Curtis and Tom, accompanied by Philip Holt, had come down to the pier. Mrs. Curtis would hardly speak to Madge, she was so angry at the risk she believed the little captain was running. She and Madge had not been very friendly since they had disagreed so utterly in Madge’s report of the real character and name of Philip Holt.
Madge and Phyllis each wore a close fitting, warm woolen dress. Madge had tucked up her red-brown curls into a tight knot. Her eyes were glowing, but her face was white and her lips a little less red when Captain Jules came forward to fasten her into her diving suit.
“Don’t attempt it, Madge, if you are frightened,” urged Miss Jenny Ann, who was feelingdreadfully frightened herself. “I am sure Captain Jules will forgive you if you back out.”
Captain Jules looked at Madge searchingly. Her eyes smiled bravely into his, although her heart was going pit-a-pat.
“Miss Madge is not afraid,” answered Captain Jules curtly. “Robert Morton’s daughter has no right to know fear.”
Madge first slipped her feet into a pair of heavy leather boots. She gave a gay laugh as she slipped into her rubber cloth suit, which was made in one piece. “I feel just like a walrus,” she confided to Tom Curtis, who was watching her with set lips.
Then Madge and Captain Jules, who was in exactly the same costume, got into their boats and moved out a little distance from the shore.
Tom Curtis had asked Captain Jules’s consent to sit in one of the boats with Phil. At the last moment Philip Holt stepped calmly into the other. No one stopped to argue with him, or to thrust him out; the whole party was too much excited.
Not for all the pearls in all the seas would Captain Jules Fontaine have allowed one hair of Madge’s head to be injured. But he really did not believe that she would be in any danger under the water with him. He had arranged every detail of the diving perfectly. He wouldwatch her every movement at the bottom of the bay. To tell the truth, Captain Jules was immensely proud of Madge’s and Phil’s bravery in desiring to accompany him.
The final moment for the dive arrived. Madge waved her hand to the crowd of her friends lining the shore. She flung back her head and looked gayly, triumphantly, up at the blue sky above her, with its sweep of white, sailing clouds. Below her the water looked even more deeply blue.
“Remember, Madge,” whispered Captain Jules calmly, “the one quality a diver needs more than anything else is presence of mind. Keep a clear head under the water and nothing shall harm you, I swear. But above all, don’t forget your signals.”
With his own hands Captain Jules fastened the brass corselet about Madge’s slender neck and set a big copper helmet which he screwed over her head to her corselet. Madge then surveyed the world only through the glass windows at each side of her head and in front. Her air-tube entered her helmet at the back. Two men in one of the boats were to keep the young girl diver supplied with oxygen by pumping fresh air down through this tube.
A moment later Captain Jules stood rigged in the same costume as Madge.
“Steady, my girl,” Captain Jules warned her.
“Aye, aye, Captain,” returned Madge quietly, “I’m ready. Let us go down together to the bottom of the bay.”
“Pump away,” ordered the captain.
There was a splash on the surface of the clear water, a long-drawn gasp from Madge’s friends; then a few bubbles rose. Rapidly, skillfully, Madge’s tenders played out her life and pipe lines, and Madge Morton disappeared from the world of men. Captain Jules made his plunge a few seconds in advance of his companion.
In the boat where Tom Curtis and Phyllis Alden sat there was a breathless, intense silence. The boy and girl happened to be in the boat with the men who were looking out for the welfare of Captain Jules. Philip Holt was with Madge’s tenders.
Phyllis knew that there was but one way in which she could follow her chum’s course below the surface of the water. She could watch her life and air lines. Captain Jules had made it plain to Phyllis that all the time the diver is under water small ripples will appear near his air line. These bubbles are caused by the air that the diver breathes out from the valve in the side of his diving helmet.
Phyllis watched the lines doggedly. Captain Jules was to keep Madge under water only about fifteen or twenty minutes, but at that a minute may appear longer than an hour.
Suddenly Phyllis Alden discovered that the man who was tending Madge’s air pump seemed to be working less vigorously. He pumped unevenly. Once he swayed, as though he were about to fall over in his seat.
In a second it flashed over Phyllis that the man was ill. He was a strong, red-faced individual, but his face turned to a kind of ghastly pallor. It was all so quick that Phil had no time to speak from her boat. Philip Holt, who was in the same boat with the man, grasped the situation as quickly as Phyllis did. With a single motion he took the tender’s place at the air-pump. Phil saw that he was pumping away with vigor.
At this moment Phil turned to speak to Tom Curtis. “Tom, how long have they been under the water?” she whispered.
“Ten minutes,” returned Tom, glancing hastily at his watch.
“It seems ten hours,” murmured Phil, as though she dared not speak aloud.
Tug, tug! Phil thought she saw Madge’s air line give two desperate jerks. Two pulls at the line was the diver’s signal for more air. Philknew that without a doubt. Yet Philip Holt seemed to be pumping vigorously. At least, he had been only the second before when Phil last looked at him.
Again Phil saw Madge’s air line jerk twice.
Tom Curtis and the two men in Captain Jules’s boat were vainly trying to interpret some signals that Captain Jules was making to them. The two boats were at no great distance apart.
“I am afraid something is the matter below, Phil,” Tom Curtis turned to mutter hoarsely. But Phyllis Alden, who had been sitting near him a moment before, was no longer there.
Phyllis believed she saw that Philip Holt was only pretending to pump sufficient air down to Madge. She may have been wrong. Who could ever tell? But Phil knew there was no time to discuss the matter. One minute, two minutes, five or ten—Phil did not know how long a diver at the bottom of the water can be shut off from his supply of fresh air and live. She did not mean to wait, to ask questions, or to lose time. Phil made a flying leap from the skiff that held her to the one in which Philip Holt sat by the air-pump. She landed in the water, just alongside the boat. Quietly, though more quickly than she had ever moved before in her life, Phil climbed into the boat and thrust Philip Holtaway from the air pump. In the minute it had taken her to make her plunge she had seen Madge’s signal again, but this time the line jerked more feebly than it had before.
Phil set the pump to working again; the signal answered from below, “All is well!”
The tender had recovered from his attack of faintness and resumed his work at Madge’s airline.
But Philip Holt sat crouched in the bottom of the boat, his face white with anger. What would Phyllis Alden’s action suggest but that he was trying to suffocate Madge in the water below?
Whether or not Philip Holt meant to stifle Madge Morton he himself never really knew. The impulse came to him as he placed his hands on her air-pump. It flashed across his mind that it was Madge who had tried to injure his prospects with Mrs. Curtis, and who had kept him from going down with Captain Jules to search for the pearls that he firmly believed would be found at the bottom of the bay. It was while these thoughts passed through Philip Holt’s mind his pressure on Madge’s air-pump had wavered. But Phyllis Alden had discovered it. She gave him no opportunity either for action or regret.
CHAPTER XVIA STRANGE PEARL
Madge felt herself in a great fairy world peopled with giants. Every thing below the water is magnified a thousandfold. Slowly she went down and down! The fishes splashed and tumbled about her, hurrying to get away from this strange, new sea-monster that had come into their midst.
The little captain felt no mental sensation except one of wonder and of awe; no physical impression save a pressure as of a great weight on her head and a roaring of mighty waters in her ears. She no longer had any idea of being afraid.
At the first plunge into the water she had shut her eyes, but now, as she approached the bottom of the bay, she kept them wide open.
The water was clear as crystal, like the reflection in a mammoth mirror. She could see nearly fifty feet ahead of her. Captain Jules walked just in front of her, swinging his great body from side to side, peering down into the sandy bottom of the bay. Madge discovered that the only way in which she could get a view, except the one directly in front of her, was byturning her head inside her helmet, to look through her side window glasses. The goggles over her eyes gave her just the view that a horse has with blinkers.
There were hundreds of things that Madge would have liked to confide to Captain Jules. However, for once in her life, she was compelled to hold her tongue. Her eyes, her hands, and her feet she could keep busy. Now and then she gave a little ejaculation of wonder inside her copper helmet at the marvels she saw. No one heard her cry out. Captain Jules wasted no time. He was exceedingly business-like. He motioned to Madge just where she should go and what she should do, and she obediently followed.
There were long, level flats of sand in the bottom of Delaware Bay, like small prairies. Then there were exquisite oases of waving green seaweed, gardens of sea flowers and ferns, and hillocks of rocks, with all sorts of queer sea animals, crabs, jelly-fish, and devil-fish, scurrying about them.
Caught in the moss, encrusted on the rocks, sunken in the yellow sands, were opalescent, shining shells and pebbles, each one more beautiful than the last. Madge did not realize that if she carried these shells and pebbles above the water they would look like ordinary stones.Every now and then the young diver would stoop and drop one of them in her netted bag with a thrill of excitement.
Again and again Captain Jules had assured Madge that she must not expect to find any pearls of much value in Delaware Bay. There were few pearls in edible oysters. The beds about Cape May were meant to supply the family table, not the family jewels. Of course, it was true, the Captain admitted, that a pearl did appear now and then in an ordinary oyster. Yet this was an accident and most unlikely to occur.
Madge had really tried not to believe that she was going to find any kind of prize in the new world under the water. In spite of all her efforts she had been thinking and planning and hoping. Perhaps—perhaps she would find a pearl of great price. Then her troubles would be at an end.
All this time Madge had been breathing naturally and comfortably inside her helmet as she traveled along the bed of the bay. She was so unconscious of any difficulty that she was beginning to believe that she was, in truth, a mermaid, and that water, and not air, was her natural element. Suddenly she felt a little uneasy, as though the windows of her room had been closed for too long a time. It was nothing, shewas sure. The stifling sensation would pass in another second.
At this moment Captain Jules gazed hard at Madge. He had never forgotten his charge for a moment. But all seemed well with her, and the captain thought he saw ahead of him something that was well worth investigating. He dropped on his knees in the soft mud. With him he had a small hammer and a fork, not unlike a gardener’s. Shining through some green sea moss so soft and fine that it might have been the hair of a water-baby, Captain Jules had espied some glittering shells. To his experienced eye the glow was that of mother-of-pearl. It is the mother-of-pearl shell that usually covers the precious pearl. The old sailor set to work. Madge was eagerly watching him, when once again the faint stifling sensation swept over her. Surely it was not possible to faint in a diving suit. Besides, Madge’s heart was beating so furiously with excitement that it was small wonder she could not get her breath. She believed that Captain Jules was about to discover a wonderful pearl. He had wrenched the shells free and was trying to open them. Madge stood some feet away from him, quivering with excitement.
“‘And the sea shall give up its treasures’,” she quoted softly to herself as she watched.
The next moment her hands made an involuntary movement in the water. Had she been on land her gesture would have meant that she was fighting for breath. To her horror she realized that she was slowly suffocating. Something must have happened to her air-pump above the water. She was not faint from any other cause, but was getting an insufficient supply of fresh air.
At this moment Madge proved her mettle. She remembered Captain Jules’s injunction, “Keep a clear head under the water and there is nothing to fear.” She knew the signal for more fresh air, and gave two hard, quick pulls on her life line. Then she waited. Relief would surely come in a moment.
For the first and only time since their descent to the bottom of the bay Captain Jules had temporarily neglected Madge. He certainly had not expected to find any pearls in so unlikely a place as Delaware Bay; yet the shells he held in his hand were most unusual. The thrill of his old occupation seized hold of the pearl fisher. His big hands fairly trembled with emotion. He felt, rather than saw, Madge jerk her life line twice, but it never dawned on him that her signal for more air might fail to be answered.
Madge signaled again. A loud buzzing seemed to sound in her ears. Her tongue feltthick and swollen. She could not see a foot ahead of her. All the dazzling, shimmering beauty of the world under the water had passed into blackness. The little captain’s eyes were glazing behind the glass windows of her helmet. She felt that she must be dying. But she had strength to give one more signal. Air! air! How could she ever have believed that there was anything in the world so precious as fresh air? Madge had a vision of a field of new-mown hay in her old home at “Forest House.” The wind was blowing through it with a delicious fragrance. Had she the strength to pull her life line once again? The water that she loved so dearly was to claim her at last. She made a motion to go toward Captain Jules, but she had no control of her limbs.
Then Captain Jules became aroused to action. He realized that Madge had signaled for air, not once, but several times. This meant that her signal had not been answered. The captain had been for too many years a deep-sea diver not to guess instantly the girl’s condition. The groan inside his helmet came from the bottom of his heart. Captain Jules’s hands shook. He dropped the shells that he believed might contain priceless pearls down into the soft sand in the bed of the bay.
It was at this moment that Tom Curtis andPhyllis Alden, as well as the captain’s boat tenders, caught his confusing signals from below. More fresh air was pumped down the tube to Captain Jules, but not to Madge.
Phil’s leap and quick work at Madge’s air-pump must have taken place not more than three minutes afterward, but they were horrible, agonizing moments. Madge hardly knew how they passed. Captain Jules suffered the regret of a lifetime. How could he have been so unwise as to entrust the safety of this girl, whose life was so dear to him, to the perils of a diver’s experiences? In the few weeks of their acquaintance Madge Morton had become all in all to Captain Jules Fontaine.
There was but one thing for Captain Jules to do for his companion. He must signal to have her drawn up to the surface of the water again, trusting that she would not suffocate for lack of air in her ascent.
Madge was near enough to lay her hand on Captain Jules’s arm. Phil’s relief had come just in time. The life-giving fresh air from the world above pressed into her copper helmet. It filled her nose and mouth, it poured into her aching lungs. She received new life, new energy. Now she was no longer afraid. She did not wish to go above the surface of the water. Surely all above was now well. Sheyearned to continue her adventures on the under side of the world.
She it was, not Captain Jules, who dropped down on her hands and knees to grope for the captain’s lost pearl shells.
But the sand had covered them up forever, or else the water had carried them away!
Captain Jules wished to take Madge out of the water immediately, yet he yielded for a minute to her disappointment. What treasures had they lost when he threw the mother-of-pearl shells away? Neither of them would ever know. The old diver looked about in the soft mud, while Madge raked furiously near the spot where she thought the sailor had dropped the shells. Captain Jules walked on for a little distance. He had seen beyond them a tangled mass of other shells and seaweed and it occurred to him that the water might have carried his shells into some hidden crevice nearby.
But Madge never left her chosen spot. Deeper and deeper she dug. What a swirl of mud arose and eddied about her, darkening the clear water in which she stood! The little captain’s hammer struck against something hard. Was it a rock embedded in the sand? Yet a distinct sound rang out, as of one metal striking against another!
Madge did not know how she summoned CaptainJules back to her side. She was wild with curiosity and excitement. Captain Jules was smiling behind his copper mask. The young girl diver had probably found a piece of old iron cast off from some ship. Still, she should unearth whatever she had discovered so near the dark kingdom of Pluto.
The captain worked with her. Whatever her find might be, it was larger and heavier than Captain Jules had expected. They could afford to spend no more time with it. It was time for Madge to leave the water.
It is difficult to make an imploring gesture in a diver’s suit. Yet, somehow, Madge must have managed to do so. For one moment longer the old pearl diver relented. The hole that they were digging in the bottom of the bay was widening before them. A chunk of what looked like solid iron was visible. Then a triangular end came into view. It was rusted until it shone like beautiful green enamel. The top was absolutely flat and of some depth, as it was so hard to excavate.
The time was growing short. Madge had been under the water as long as was safe for any amateur diver. The captain was a man to be obeyed, as she knew instinctively. She gave one more dig into the mud about her iron treasure. It now became plain, both to her and to CaptainJules, that she had found an old iron chest. The captain tugged at it with both his great, strong hands. It was strangely heavy. But he managed to lift it in his arms.
Straightway he gave the signal to ascend; three sharp tugs at his life line. Madge followed suit. But she cast one long backward glance at the watery world into which she might never again descend, as slowly, steadily, the boat tenders pulled up her long life line. Her feet dangled above the sandy bottom of the bay. Now she could see even farther off. About forty feet from the rapidly filling hole from which she and the captain had extracted the iron chest was a spar of a ship jutting above the sand. The little captain may have been wrong, but it looked like the very spar on which Tania’s dress had caught the day she was so nearly drowned. Madge could not tell how far she and Captain Jules had traveled on the bottom of the bay, but she knew they had made their descent at a place no very great distance from the spot where Roy Dennis’s yacht had run down their skiff, and Captain Jules had rescued Tania and herself.
Thought travels swifter than anything else in the created world. So Madge’s thoughts had reached the upper world before she followed them. She wondered if the girls would be very sadly disappointed when she returned bearing,instead of a costly pearl, nothing but a rusted iron box!
Would Phil have better luck when she descended to the depths of the bay? What had happened in the outside world since she had disappeared from it a long, long time ago?
A flare of blinding sunlight smote across the glass goggles in Madge’s copper helmet. She felt herself picked up and lifted bodily into a boat. Her helmet and corselet were unscrewed. She lay still, smiling faintly as the boat made for her friends who crowded, watching, on the pier. Captain Jules, bearing the small iron chest, landed a moment later. The little captain had been in a new world, into which few men and rarely any women have ever entered. She had been out of her human element, a creature of the water, not of the air, and it seemed to her that she must have lived a whole new lifetime as a deep-sea diver.
Tom Curtis stared anxiously at his watch and smiled into her white face. He breathed a sigh of relief and of wonder. Captain Jules Fontaine and Madge Morton had been down at the bottom of Delaware Bay exactly thirty minutes!
CHAPTER XVIITHE FAIRY GODMOTHER’S WISH COMES TRUE
Captain Jules decided to wait until another day before taking Phyllis Alden on the journey from which he and Madge had just returned. The old sailor was too deeply thankful to see his first charge safe on land. Poor Miss Jenny Ann could do nothing but lean over Madge and cry; the nervous strain of waiting while the girl was under the water had been too great. Indeed, even the people who, Madge knew, were not in the least interested in her, appeared dreadfully upset. Philip Holt’s face was very pale and his eyes shifted uneasily from Phyllis’s to Madge’s face.
Phyllis was the most self-possessed of the four girls. She was greatly disappointed at the captain’s determination to put off the time for her diving expedition until a later date. But Phyllis was always unselfish. She realized that her chaperon and her friends had had about as much anxiety as they could endure in one day. Madge had been under the water, and she could not dream of what the others had suffered above, while awaiting her return.
Mrs. Curtis put her arms about the little captain and embraced her with an affection she had not shown her during the summer.
“My dear,” she murmured, “will you ever stop being the most reckless girl in the world? What possible good could that wretched diving feat of yours do anybody on earth? If my hair weren’t already white I am sure it would have turned so in the last half-hour. Look at poor Philip Holt. He seems as nervous as though you were his own sister.”
Madge and Captain Jules had both taken off their heavy diving suits and were soon shaking hands with every one on the pier. Even Roy Dennis and Mabel Farrar, much as they disliked Madge, could not conceal the fact that they thought her extremely plucky.
Captain Jules had laid the iron chest on the ground and for the moment they had forgotten it.
It was little Tania who danced up to it and tried to lift it.
“Show us the pearls you found, Madge,” Eleanor begged her cousin at this instant, her brown eyes twinkling.
The little captain looked crestfallen. “I am afraid we didn’t find anything of value,” she said, trying to pretend that she was not disappointed. “I have only some pretty shells andstones that I gathered on the bottom of the bay for Tania.”
She pulled her sea treasures out of her netted diving bag. Sure enough, the water had dried on them and the shells and stones appeared quite dull and ugly. There were almost as pretty shells and pebbles to be picked up at any place along the Cape May beach.
“Why, Madge!” exclaimed Lillian, before she realized what she was saying, “surely, you didn’t waste your time in bringing up such silly trifles as these?”
Madge shook her head humbly. “We didn’t find anything else but this old iron chest. Captain Jules, may I take it back to the houseboat with me as a souvenir, or do you wish it? Tania, child, you can’t lift it, it is too heavy.”
Tom Curtis brought the chest to Captain Jules. Some of the crowd had moved away, now that the diving was over. But a dozen or more strangers pressed about the girls and their friends.
“There is something in this little chest, Captain,” declared Tom Curtis quietly, as he set it down before the captain and Madge. “I could feel something roll around in the box as I lifted it.”
Captain Jules shook the heavy safe. Something certainly rattled on the inside.
There were bits of moss and tiny shells and stones encrusted on the upper lid of the box. Deliberately Captain Jules scraped them off with a stick. The houseboat party and Tom were beginning to grow impatient. What made Captain Jules so slow? Philip Holt, who was standing by Mrs. Curtis’s side, gazed sneeringly at the operations. He was glad, indeed, that he had not risked his life in descending to the bottom of the bay in search for pearls, only to bring up a rusty chest.
“The box is fastened tightly; it will have to be broken open,” remarked Madge indifferently. She was feeling tired, now that the excitement of her diving trip was over. She wished to go home to the houseboat. She did not wish Captain Jules to guess for an instant how disappointed she was that they had found nothing of value on their diving adventure. If only the captain had not dropped the shells in which there might have been a chance of finding pearls!
Captain Jules had hold of the iron hammer that he used when diving. Click! click! click! he struck three times on the lock of the iron safe. Like the magic tinder-box, the lid flew open. Tania’s long-drawn childish, “Oh!” was the only sound that broke the tense and breathless stillness that pervaded the group.
A single pearl! The scorned iron chest almost full of shining coins and precious stones! There were coins of gold and silver—strange coins that no one in the watching crowd had ever seen before. Some of them bore dates and inscriptions of English mintings of the early part of the eighteenth century.
Of course, it was incredible! No one believed his eyes. A treasure-chest unearthed after more than two hundred years? It was impossible!
Yet instantly each one of the girls remembered that the pirates had sunk many vessels in Delaware Bay in the latter part of the seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth century. In those days many wealthy English families came over with their servants and their treasure to settle in the new country of America.
Phil’s book on the history of piracy had recalled this information to the girls only ten days before. It was then, when Madge lay with her head resting in her hands, looking dreamily out over the waters, that she had wondered how anything so remote from her as the story of the early American battles with pirate ships could help her to solve her present troubles? Yet here, like a miracle before her eyes, lay the answer!
The little captain was the last of the onlookersto know what had happened. She was too dazed, perhaps, from her stay under the water.
It was only when Tania flung her eager, thin arms about her beloved Fairy Godmother’s neck that Madge actually woke up.
“The fairies who live under the water have given you these wonderful things,” whispered Tania. “I prayed that they would come to see you, bringing you all the good gifts that they had.”
Captain Jules reached over and set the priceless box before Madge. She was encircled by Miss Jenny Ann and her beloved houseboat chums.
“It is all yours, Madge,” asserted Captain Jules solemnly. “You found it, child. I should never have discovered it but for you.”
Madge shook her red-brown head. “Captain Jules, that chest is far more yours than it is mine. I should never have gone down under the water but for you. If Phil had only dived first, instead of me, she would have found it, I won’t have any of the money or the jewelry unless I can share it with the rest of you.”
Then, to Madge’s own surprise, she began to cry.
“There, there, little mate, it will be all right,” Captain Jules assured her quietly. “You’ve had a bit too much for one day. We don’t knowthe value of what we have found just yet, but the old jewelry will make pretty trinkets for you girls. We’ll see about the rest later on.”
Miss Jenny Ann put her arm about Madge on one side. Phil was on the other side of her chum.
“We will go home now, dear,” said Miss Jenny Ann to Madge. “You are worn out from all this excitement.”
“I’ll look after the girls, Captain,” promised Tom Curtis quietly, “then I will come back to you.” A flash of understanding passed between Captain Jules and Tom Curtis. They had both guessed that Madge’s iron box of old jewelry and coins represented more money than the girls could comprehend, and that it was better for the news of the discovery to be kept as quiet as possible for the time being.
“You will walk home with me, won’t you, Philip?” Mrs. Curtis asked her guest. “I am rather tired from the excitement of this most unusual morning.”
But Philip Holt had forgotten that he wished to keep on the good side of his wealthy hostess. His eyes were staring eagerly and greedily at the closed iron box which old Captain Jules was guarding. He took a step forward, stopped and looked at the little crowd standing near.
“No; I can’t go back with you now, Mrs.Curtis,” he answered abruptly, “I have some important business to transact.”
Mrs. Curtis walked away deeply offended. Philip Holt, however, was too fully occupied with his own disappointment to note this. A sudden daring idea had taken possession of him. Perhaps Madge Morton was not so lucky after all. Finding a treasure did not necessarily mean keeping it.
CHAPTER XVIIIMISSING, A FAIRY GODMOTHER
Several days after the finding of the treasure-chest experts came down from Philadelphia to appraise its value. It was not easy to decide, immediately, what market price the old jewels, set in quaintly chased gold, would bring. But the least that the coins and stones would be worth was ten thousand dollars! It might be more. An extra thousand dollars or so was hardly worth considering, when ten thousand would make things turn out so beautifully even.
Madge and Captain Jules, Miss Jenny Ann and the other houseboat girls had many discussions about Madge’s discovery of the iron safe.
The little captain was entirely alone on one side of the argument. The others were all against her. Yet she won her point. She continued to insist that her wonderful find was purely an accident. How could she ever have unearthed a box, lost from a sunken ship, that had probably been buried for centuries, if Captain Jules Fontaine had not listened to her pleadings and taken her on the wonderful diving trip with him? Though she had actuallystruck the first blow on the piece of iron embedded in the bay, she could never have dragged the safe out of the mud, or been able to carry it up to the surface, without Captain Jules’s assistance.
Madge and the old sailor started their discussion alone. The captain had come over to the houseboat, bringing the iron safe with him so that the girls might have a better view of its wonders. He had firmly made up his mind that Madge must be made to understand that the money the treasure would bring was to be all hers. He would not accept one cent of it. Fate had been kinder to him than he had hoped in allowing him to guide Madge to the discovery of her fortune.
“Ten thousand dollars!” exclaimed Madge ecstatically, when the old sailor reported the news to her. “It’s the most wonderful thing I ever heard of in my life. I didn’t dream it was worth so much money. Will you please lend me a piece of paper and a pencil, Captain Jules. I never have been clever at arithmetic.” Madge knitted her brows thoughtfully. “Ten thousand dollars divided by two means five thousand dollars for you and the same sum for us.”
The captain cleared his throat. “What’s the rest of the arithmetic?” he demanded gruffly. “I don’t think much of that first division.”
But Madge was hardly listening. She was biting the end of her pencil. “Six doesn’t go into five thousand just evenly,” she replied thoughtfully, “but with fractions I suppose we can manage. You see that will be eight hundred and thirty-three dollars and something over for Miss Jenny Ann to put in bank to take care of her if she ever gets sick, or has to stop teaching; and the same sum will pay for Phil’s first year at college and for Eleanor’s graduating at Miss Tolliver’s, so uncle won’t have to worry over that any more. Then my little Fairy Godmother can go to some beautiful school in the country, and not be shut up in a horrid home with a capital ‘H,’ which is what Philip Holt has persuaded Mrs. Curtis ought to be done with her. And Lillian can save her money to buy pretty clothes, because she is not as poor as the rest of us and dearly loves nice things, and——” Madge’s speech ended from lack of breath.
The captain rubbed his rough chin reflectively. “Oh! I see,” he nodded, “I am to get half of the money and you are to get a sixth of a half. Is that it?”
Madge and Captain Jules Started Their Discussion Alone.
Madge and Captain Jules Started Their Discussion Alone.
Madge lowered her voice to a whisper. “Dear Captain Jules,” she said in a wheedling tone, “you’ll help me, won’t you? The girls and Miss Jenny Ann declare positively that they won’t accept a single dollar of the money. I shall be the most miserable girl in the world if they don’t. Why, we four girls and Miss Jenny Ann have shared everything in common, our misfortunes and our good fortunes, since we started out together. If any one of the other girls had happened to discover the treasure instead of me, she would certainly have divided it with the others. Phil, Lillian, Eleanor and Miss Jenny Ann don’t even dare to deny it. So they simply must give in to me about it.”
“Well,” continued the captain, “I am yet to be told what Madge Morton means to do with the one-sixth of one-half of her wealth when it finally gets round to her.”
The little captain’s eyes shone, though her face sobered. “I am not going to college with Phil, though I hate to be parted from her,” she replied. “Somehow, I think I am not exactly meant for a college girl. I believe I will just advertise in all the papers in the world for my father. Then, if he is alive, I shall surely find him. With whatever money is left I shall go to him. If he is poor, I will manage to take care of him in some way,” ended Madge confidently.
“You will, eh?” returned Captain Jules gruffly. “It seems to me, my girl, that this is a pretty position you have mapped out for me. I am to take half of our find—nice, selfish old codger that I am—while you divide yours withyour friends. I am not going to take a cent of that money, so you can just do your sums over again.”
It was at this point that Madge called Miss Jenny Ann and the other houseboat girls into the discussion. It ended with the captain’s agreeing to take one-seventh of the money, if all the others would follow suit.
“Because, if you don’t,” declared Madge in her usual impetuous fashion, “I shall just throw this chest of money and jewelry right overboard and it can go down to the bottom of the bay and stay there, for all I care.”
Captain Jules remained to dinner on the houseboat that evening. After dinner the girls proceeded to adorn themselves with the old sets of jewelry found in the safe. Madge wore the pearls because, she insisted, they were her special jewels, and she had gone down to the bottom of the bay to find them. Phil was more fascinated with some old-fashioned garnets, Lillian with a big, golden topaz pin, and Eleanor with some turquoises that had turned a curious greenish color from old age.
It was well after ten o’clock when the captain announced that he must set out for home. Tom Curtis had been spending the evening on the houseboat with the girls, but he had gone home an hour before to join his mother and her guest,Philip Holt. Before going away the captain concluded that it would be best for him to leave the iron safe of coins and precious stones on the houseboat for the night. It was too late for him to carry it back to “The Anchorage” alone. As no one but Tom knew of its being on the houseboat, the valuables could be in no possible danger. The captain would call some time within the next day or so to take the iron box to a safety deposit vault in the town of Cape May.
Together Miss Jenny Ann and the captain hid the precious chest in a small drawer in the sideboard built into the wall of the little dining room cabin of the houseboat. They locked this drawer carefully and Miss Jenny Ann hid the key under her pillow without speaking of it to any one.
In spite of these precautions no one on the houseboat dreamed of any possible danger to the safety of their newly-found prize. Remember, no one knew of its being on the houseboat save Tom Curtis and Captain Jules. Up to to-night Captain Jules had been guarding the treasure at his house up the bay. No one had been allowed to see it since the famous day of its discovery, except the experts who had come down from Philadelphia to give some idea of the value of Madge’s remarkable find.
Little Tania was in the habit of sleeping in the dining room of the houseboat on a cot whichMiss Jenny Ann prepared for her each night. She went to bed earlier than the other girls, so in order not to disturb her, she was stowed away in there instead of occupying one of the berths in the two staterooms. Soon after the captain’s departure Miss Jenny Ann tucked Tania safely in bed. She closed the door of the dining room that led out on the cabin deck and also the door that connected with the stateroom occupied by Madge and Phil. The cabin of the “Merry Maid” was a square divided into four rooms, and Miss Jenny Ann’s bedroom did not open directly into the dining room.
It was a dark night and a strangely still one. The weather was unusually warm and close for Cape May. Over the flat marshes and islands the heat was oppressive. The residents of the summer cottages left their doors and windows open, hoping that a stray breeze might spring up during the night to refresh them. No one seemed to have any fear of burglars.
On the “Merry Maid” the night was so still and cloudy that the girls sat up for an hour after Captain Jules left them, talking over their wonderful good fortune. They were almost asleep before they tumbled into their berths. Once there, they slept soundly all night long. Nothing apparently happened to disturb them, but Madge, who was the lightest sleeper in theparty, did half-waken at one time during the night. She thought she heard Tania cry out. It was a peculiar cry and was not repeated. She knew that Tania was given to dreaming. Almost every night the child made some kind of sound in her sleep. Madge sat up in bed and listened, but hearing no further sound, she went fast asleep again without a thought of anxiety.
Miss Jenny Ann was the first to open her eyes the next morning. It must have been as late as seven o’clock, for the sun was shining brilliantly. She slipped on her wrapper and went into the kitchen to start the fire. A few moments later she went into the dining room to call Tania and to help the child to dress. But the dining room door on to the cabin deck was open. Tania’s bedclothes were in a heap on the floor. The child had disappeared.
Miss Jenny Ann was not in the least uneasy or annoyed. She knew that Tania had a way of creeping in Madge’s bed in the early mornings and of snuggling close to her. Miss Jenny Ann tip-toed softly into Madge’s and Phil’s stateroom. There was no dark head with its straight, short black hair and quaint, elfish face pressed close against Madge’s lovely auburn one. Madge was slumbering peacefully. Miss Jenny Ann peered into the upper berth. Phil was alone and had not stirred.
Tania was such a queer, wild little thing! Miss Jenny Ann felt annoyed. Perhaps Tania had awakened and slipped off the boat without telling any of them. She had solemnly promised never to run away again, but she might have broken her word. Miss Jenny Ann explored the houseboat decks. She called the child’s name softly once or twice so as not to disturb the other girls. There was no answer. She went back into the cabin dining room. Neatly folded on the chair, where Miss Jenny Ann herself had placed them the night before, were Tania’s clothes. The child could hardly have run away in her little white nightgown.
When the girls finally wakened Madge was the only one of them who was alarmed at first. She recalled Tania’s strange cry in the night. She wondered if it could have been possible that she had heard a sound before the little girl cried out. But she could not decide. She would not believe, however, that Tania had forgotten her promise and gone away again without permission.
As soon as Eleanor and Lillian were dressed they went ashore and walked up and down near the houseboat, calling aloud for Tania. Phyllis was the most composed of the party. She had two small twin sisters of her own and knew that children were in the habit of creating just suchunnecessary excitements. Still, it was better to look for a lost child before she had had time to wander too far away.
“Madge,” suggested Phil quietly, “don’t be so frightened about Tania. I have an idea the child has walked off the houseboat in her sleep. She must have done so, for the dining room door is unlocked from the inside. Our door on to the deck was not locked, but Tania’s was, because Miss Jenny Ann recalls having locked it herself. She came through our room when she joined us outdoors after putting Tania to bed. You and I had better go up at once to find Tom Curtis. Dear old Tom is such a comfort! He will help us search for Tania. Then, if it is necessary, he will ask the Cape May authorities to have the police on the lookout for her. If Tania has wandered off in her sleep, the poor little thing will be terrified when she wakes up and finds herself in a strange place. Surely, some one will take her in and care for her until we find her.”
Madge and Phil were wonderfully glad to find Tom Curtis up and alone on his front veranda. He had just come in from a swim. He seemed so strong, clean, and fine after his morning’s dip in the ocean that his two girl friends were immediately reassured. Tom would tell them just what had better be done to find Tania.
“Mrs. Curtis’s and Philip Holt’s windowblinds are still down, thank goodness!” whispered Madge to Phil, “so I suppose they are both asleep. Let us not tell them anything about Tania’s disappearance. They would just put it down to naughtiness in her, and that would make me awfully cross.”
Tom Curtis felt perfectly sure that he would soon run across the lost Tania. So he left word for his mother that he had gone to the houseboat and that she was not to expect him until she saw him again.
For two hours Tom and the houseboat party continued the hunt for the lost child without calling in assistance. Then Madge and Tom went to the town authorities of Cape May. The police investigated the city and the houses in the nearby seaside resort without finding the least clue to Tania. Toward the close of the long day Tom Curtis began to fear that Tania had fallen into the water. Cape May is only a strip of land between the great ocean and the bay, and the land is broken into many small islands nearly surrounded by salt water and marshes.
Tom managed to get the girls safely out of the way; then, with Miss Jenny Ann’s permission, he had the water near the houseboat thoroughly dredged. But Tania’s little body was not found for the second time down in the bottom of the bay. It was not possible to have allthe water in the neighborhood dragged in a single day, so Tom said nothing of his fears to his anxious friends.
It was late in the evening. Miss Jenny Ann had prepared dinner for the weary and disheartened girls. She had snowy biscuit, broiled ham, roasted potatoes, milk, and honey, the very things her charges usually loved. Tom Curtis felt impelled to go back home. All that day he had seen nothing of his mother or of their visitor, Philip Holt, and Tom was afraid they would begin to wonder what had become of him.
Madge caught Tom by the sleeve and looked at him with beseeching eyes. “Please don’t go, Tom,” she begged, with a catch in her voice, “I am sure your mother won’t mind. She has Mr. Holt with her, and I can’t bear to see you go.”
Tom and Madge were near the gangplank of the houseboat and Tom was trying to make up his mind what he should do, when he and Madge caught sight of a gray-clad figure walking toward them through the twilight mists.
“It’s Mother,” explained Tom in a relieved tone. “Now I can make it all right with her.”
“And that horrid Philip Holt isn’t along,” declared Madge delightedly, “so I can tell her about poor little Tania.”
Mrs. Curtis caught Madge, who had run outto meet her, by the hand. “My dear child, what is the matter with you?” the older woman asked immediately. “Even in this half-light I can see that your face is pale as death and you look utterly worn out. If one of you is ill, why have you not sent for me?”
When Madge faltered out her story of the lost Tania Mrs. Curtis hugged her to her in the old sympathetic way that the little captain knew and loved.
“I am so sorry, dear,” soothed Mrs. Curtis, “but I am sure than Tom and Philip Holt will find her. I suppose that is why they have both been away all day.”
“Philip Holt!” exclaimed Tom in surprise. “He hasn’t been with us. I thought he was at home with you.”
Mrs. Curtis shook her head indifferently. “No; he hasn’t been at the cottage all day. Have any of you thought to send word to Captain Jules to ask him about Tania? It may be that the child is with him. In any event, I know Captain Jules would give us good advice.”
“Bully for you, Mother!” cried Tom, glad to catch a straw as he saw the shadow on Madge’s face lighten. “As soon as I have had a bite of supper with the girls I’ll get hold of a boat and go after the captain.”
Tom did not have to make his journey up thebay to “The Anchorage” that night. While he and his mother were at supper with the girls they heard the sound of Captain Jules’s voice calling to them over the water. He had to come ashore lower down the bay, where the water was deeper than it was near the houseboat, but he always hallooed as he approached.
“O Jenny Ann!” faltered Madge, trembling like a leaf, “it is our captain. Perhaps he has brought Tania back with him. I—I—hope nothing dreadful has happened to her.”
Without a word Tom fled off the houseboat. A moment later he espied Captain Jules coming toward him, alone!
“Halloo, son!” called out Captain Jules cheerfully. “Glad to know that you are down here with the girls. Funny thing, but I’ve had these girls on my mind all day. It seemed to me that they needed me, and I couldn’t go to bed without finding out that everything was well with them. What’s wrong?” Captain Jules had caught a fleeting glimpse of Tom’s harassed face. “Is it—is it Madge?” he asked anxiously. “Is anything the matter with my girl?”
Tom shook his head reassuringly. It took very few words to make the captain understand that the trouble was over Tania and not Madge.
When, a moment later, the captain wentaboard the “Merry Maid” he was able to smile bravely at the discouraged women.
“Here, here!” he cried gruffly, while Madge clung to one of his horny hands for support and Eleanor to the other, “what is all this nonsense I hear? Tania is not really lost, of course. I’ll bet you we find the little witch in no time. She has just gone off somewhere in these New Jersey woods to join the fairies she talks so much about. They are sure to take good care of her. We can’t do much more looking for her to-night, but I’ll find her first thing in the morning.”
Both Captain Jules and Mrs. Curtis insisted that the girls and Miss Jenny Ann go early to bed. Just as Captain Jules was saying good night it occurred to Miss Jenny Ann that she would rather turn over to the old sailor the box of coins and jewelry. While Tania was lost there would be so many persons in and out of the houseboat that Miss Jenny Ann feared something might happen to the valuables.
She went to the drawer in the sideboard in the saloon cabin without thinking of the key under her pillow, and took hold of the knob. To her surprise the drawer opened readily. There was no iron safe inside it. Miss Jenny Ann ran to her bed and felt under her pillow. The key was still there as though it had never been disturbed.
Captain Jules and Tom decided that the simple lock to the houseboat sideboard had been easily broken open. When, or how, or by whom, nobody knew, but it was certain that the jewels and money were gone. Fortune, the fickle jade, who had brought the houseboat girls such good luck only a short time before, had now cruelly stolen it away from them.