FOUL PLAY.
Matt was greatly worried over the way that experience with the boat and the chest had worked out. Dick knew enough about handling the air ship to be able to look after her in ordinary weather, but those shifting air currents had bothered even Matt. It was so easy for some little thing to go wrong and either wreck or cause irreparable damage to an air ship. In that respect, an air ship was totally unlike any other craft.
But there had been no other way out of the dilemma and Matt, facing the situation with all the grace he could muster, dropped on the midship thwart, seized the oars, and headed the skiff upstream.
Fortune favored him a little, for a lugger from the oyster beds came lurching up the river, all sails set and bound for the landing. Matt hailed the lugger and the oysterman took him aboard.
He said nothing to the lugger's crew as to how he had happened to be in the skiff. Had he done that, one explanation would have led to another and it would have been necessary to speak of the iron chest—a subject which it was well enough to keep in the background.
When the lugger tied up at the landing, Matt left the skiff with her crew and went ashore. His object now was to find Carl, Dick, and theHawk, and he made his way along the river front in the direction of Canal Street. He could see nothing of theHawkin the air, but along the wharves he encountered several groups of roustabouts who were talking excitedly about the "flying machine" that had recently passed over the town.
By making inquiries, he learned that theHawkhad settled earthward in the vicinity of the Stuyvesant Docks. Instructions were given him as to the best way for finding the docks, and he hurried on.
Fully three hours had passed since the chest had been recovered and theHawkand Matt had parted company. A good many things could happen in three hours, and Matt continued to feel worried.
As he was passing the Morgan Line Docks he saw Dick bearing down on him. The look of elation in Dick's face was indirect evidence that all was right with theHawk.
"Hooray!" shouted the Canadian. "You were so long turning up, matey, that I was afraid something had happened to you. I hope we won't ever again part company like we did down there on the river. Confound this Louisiana wind, anyhow! It never blows twice from the same direction, seems like. You didn't row all the way to town against the current?"
"If I had, Dick," answered Matt, "I couldn't have got here before night. A lugger picked me up. Where's theHawk?"
"Safely berthed on the big dock. I gave the dock watchman a five-dollar note to look after her and keep curious people away. We've stretched a rope around the air ship and no one can get within a dozen feet of her. She's as snug as possible, and there couldn't be a better place for her. Why, the dock's better than that old balloon house in South Chicago!"
"Where's Carl?"
"He went away with Bangs, and——"
"Bangs? Who's Bangs?"
"Why, he introduced himself to Carl and me as soon as we got theHawkmoored. He's a friend of Townsend's and has been hanging out on the levee looking for us ever since Townsend sent that telegram asking us to come. He was there by Townsend's orders, and was to tell us where to berth theHawkand where to go our selves."
"I should think Townsend would have been there to meet us," observed Matt.
"Oh, that's all right—Bangs explained that point. Townsend is full of business, these days, and asked Bangs as a favor to watch for us."
"What did you do with the iron chest?"
"Bangs and Carl took it away in an express wagon. As soon as Carl delivers the chest to Townsend, he's coming back to the docks. I told him that, by that time, you'd probably be there, and that we could all go up to see Townsend. Bangs said that Carl would surely get back to the docks by noon."
As Dick finished speaking, the noon whistles took up their clamor.
"Did Bangs identify himself in any way?" asked Matt.
"Why, no," answered Dick, puzzled. "It was identification enough, I thought, to have him meet us, tell us all about Townsend, and say Townsend had sent him to watch for us."
"That might be a yarn, Dick, with not a particle of truth in it."
"But he was on the levee——"
"Everybody up and down the river front could see theHawk, so you were known to be coming. Well, maybe everything is all right. Carl went with Bangs and the chest, anyhow. He'll see that the chest is properly delivered."
"Bangs insisted on either Carl or me going with him to see Townsend," pursued Dick, "and that gives the whole business a straight look. If there was anything crooked about Bangs he wouldn't have wanted any one to go with the chest, see?"
Dick was so honest himself that he was rarely looking for treachery in others. Matt made no response to what he had just said, but turned the subject, as they walked together in the direction of the Stuyvesant Docks.
"Did you have any trouble making a landing, Dick?" he asked.
"There was a big freight boat alongside the docks and she blanketed us against the wind. If it hadn't been for the freighter, Carl and I might have had more than we could attend to. We just grazed the steamer's stacks, ducked under the dock roof, and rounded to as neat as you please. We were lucky rather than skillful, you see, for it would have been an easy matter to smash theHawkinto smithereens."
The boys continued on along the levee, and on every hand the queer craft that had dropped out of the sky was the topic of conversation. Not many people were allowed on the dock where theHawkwas moored, but there were a few curious ones clustered around the guard rope and surveying the craft.
Carl Pretzel, however, was not in evidence.
"He's probably been delayed," suggested Dick. "We'll just hang around and wait for him."
While they were waiting, the watchman came up to them.
"It's none o' my business," said he, "and I reckon you'll think I haven't any call buttin' in, but that fellerthat drove away with your friend, in the express wagon, hasn't got a very good character in this town."
"Is that straight?" queried Dick.
"Straight as a plumb-line. He's as crooked as a dog's hind leg. Proctor used to run a boat on the river, but he took to drinkin' an turned 'shady,' an' now he's not much better than a loafer. I'd have told you before, only I supposed you knew what you was doin' an' that you wouldn't thank me to interfere. I heard Proctor say, though, that your friend would sure be back here by noon. Well, it's noon, an' he ain't here. That's why I'm talkin' now."
"Proctor?" cried Dick. "Why, he said his name was Bangs."
"He's been known to change his name before now, so I ain't surprised at that. But his real name is Proctor."
The watchman went on about his business, and Matt and Dick withdrew by themselves in no very easy frame of mind.
"Dowse me!" growled Dick. "Can't Carl and I be away from you for a few hours, old ship, without making fools of ourselves? But Bangs told such a straight yarn——"
"If a trap was laid, Dick," interposed Matt, "it was a clever one and I don't see how you could avoid dropping into it. It's a pretty safe guess, I think, that there has been foul play. This fellow Proctor, or Bangs, wanted the iron chest and laid his plans to get it."
"But how could he lay his plans?" muttered Dick. "Sink me if I can understand that part of it. First off, he couldn't have known we had the iron chest, seeing that we fished it out of that skiff so recently."
Matt listened thoughtfully. He was trying to figure the matter out in his own mind, but it was a difficult problem.
"Then, again," continued Dick, "Bangs was here watching for us. If he wasn't a friend of Townsend's how could he have known we were coming?"
"From what we knew of Archibald Townsend," answered Matt, "we can bank on his being honest and square. If that's the case, he'd hardly have a friend like Bangs, would he? And certainly, if he knew Bangs, he'd hardly trust him to meet us, as Bangs told you he had done."
"I'm a swab," growled Dick, with profound self-reproach, "and Carl's a swab. We've dropped into a tangle of foul play, and it don't make it any brighter because we can't understand where Bangs got the information that enabled him to carry out his plot. I had an idea that I wouldn't let Bangs touch that iron chest until you got here, but he told such a straight story that I was argued out of my original intention. Oh, keelhaul me!"
Dick fumbled in his pocket for a handkerchief. When he drew it out, a bit of crumpled newspaper came with it.
"Ah," muttered Dick, picking up the bit of paper, "maybe Carl will have some luck. He unwrapped that little parcel Yamousa gave you as we were leaving the bayou. What do you think we found in it?"
"A rabbit's foot?"
"No, a dried frog! Carl, before he started away in the express wagon, put the frog in his pocket. He said he'd try it out before he turned it over to you. If we're right in thinking that Bangs is playing a treacherous game, then Carl will have plenty of chance to find out what the charm is good for."
"We've got to be doing something, Dick," said Matt. "We can't hang around and wait for the dried frog to help Carl."
"We might slant away and look up that expressman," returned Dick. "He could probably tell us where he took Carl, and Bangs, and the box."
"A good tip!" exclaimed Matt. "We'll go on a still hunt for the expressman."
After reassuring himself that theHawkwould be safely looked after by the watchman, Matt and Dick left the docks and began hunting for the man who had been hired by Bangs to take the iron chest into the town.
DRIED FROGS—AND LUCK.
Mr. Bangs had a very dark complexion, black hair, black eyes, and a ropy black mustache. His face had a puffed, unhealthy look—probably due to dissipation—and his walk was a sort of slumping process which proved, beyond the power of words, that he was dead to ambition and lost to hope. In the worst sense of the term, he had ceased to live for himself and was living for others—a mere tool for the unscrupulous whenever there was a dollar to be turned.
And yet there was something very plausible about Bangs. He had an engaging way with him, whenever he desired to put it forward, and he used it to the limit when accosting Dick and Carl on the docks.
Carl, no less than Dick, believed firmly that everything was all right, and that Bangs was really the friend of Townsend and had been sent to the levee to watch for the air ship. It pleased the Dutch boy to think that he was to go with Bangs and the iron chest, and he was delighted with the dried frog amulet, which Matt had seemed to forget about since leaving the bayou.
Of course Carl believed in charms. Having a wholesome regard for Yamousa's powers, it was natural for him to have abundant faith in the dried frog. Stowing the relic away in his pocket, he mounted the express wagon with the utmost confidence, waved his hand to Dick, and then rolled away with Bangs, the expressman, and the iron chest.
Carl's "luck" began the moment the express wagon turned into Canal Street. The old, square stone flagging, in that part of town, was deeply worn. The front wheel of the wagon on Carl's side plunged into a rut, and Carl fell forward on the backs of the mules and then rolled down under their heels.
The hind heels of a mule are dangerous objects to tamper with, and in less than half a second the expressman's team got very busy.
Carl distinctly remembered pitching over upon the backs of the mules, and he had a hazy recollection of slipping down inside the pole, but after that he drew a blank. When he opened his eyes and looked around, he was sitting up in the street, supported by Bangs. The expressman was picking up his hat, and a crowd was gathering.
"It was a right smart of a jolt," grinned one of the bystanders.
"Don't you-all know it's bad business t' tampah with the south end of a mu-el goin' no'th?" asked another.
"Vas it an eart'quake?" inquired Carl, mechanically taking his hat. "Der puildings vas shdill shdanding on der shtreet, und nodding vas dorn oop mooch, aber somet'ing must haf habbened."
"You done drapped on de mu-els," said the colored proprietor of the express wagon. "Dey's gentle, an' dey'll eat oats off'n de back of a choo-choo engyne, but dey won't stan' fo' no meddlin' wid dey feet."
"Hurt?" inquired Bangs, helping Carl erect.
"Vell," answered Carl, feeling himself all over, "dere don'd vas any vone blace vere I feel der vorst, but dere iss a goneness all ofer me, oop und down und sideways. Oof I hat a gun," he finished, his temper rising, "I vould go on a mule hunt."
Carl slapped the dust from his clothes and climbed back into the wagon. Before he gripped the seat with both hands, he transferred the dried frog from the left-hand pocket of his coat to the right-hand pocket.
"Meppy I ditn't put it in der righdt blace," he thought.
The express wagon turned from Canal Street into Royal, and from Royal into St. Peter, halting before a dingy building, with iron balconies, not far from Congo Square.
A mulatto woman sat in the doorway of the building with a basket of pralines in front of her on the walk. Carl took one handle of the chest, and Bangs the other. The chest, being of iron, was heavy. Somebody had spilled a pitcher of milk on the sidewalk and Carl's foot slipped as he crossed the wet spot. His end of the chest dropped, barking one of his shins and landing on the toes of one of his feet.
Carl gave a yell of pain and toppled over, sitting down with a good deal of force in the basket of pralines. The praline vendor had been knitting, but she sprang up, when she saw the destruction the Dutch boy was causing to her stock in trade, and tried to make a pin cushion of him with her knitting needles.
Bangs rushed to the rescue, and Carl, after placating the woman with a silver dollar, once more picked up his end of the chest and limped after Bangs.
The doorway through which they passed led them into a narrow, ill-smelling corridor, open to the sky and filled with rubbish. Out of the rubbish grew a number of untrimmed and uncared-for oleander bushes.
"Now," remarked Bangs, not unkindly, "you can sit down here and rest. I'll have the creole gentleman who lives here help me up to Townsend's room with the chest; then I'll tell Townsend about you, and he'll come down and give you a hearty greeting."
"Mebby I pedder go mit der chest?" objected Carl.
A look of pained surprise crossed Bangs' face.
"You don't think for a moment, my dear friend," said he, "that I'm trying to deceive you? I merely wish to announce your coming to my friend Townsend so that he'll come down here personally and give you welcome."
"Ach, vell go aheadt," muttered Carl, dropping down on a box near a clump of oleanders and nursing his foot.
Bangs gave a whistle. The creole gentleman, barefooted and wearing a red flannel shirt and tattered trousers, appeared in the courtyard from nowhere in particular, and he and Bangs passed a few words in French. The creole gentleman grinned a little and laid hold of one of the iron handles. Bangs took the other, and they carried the iron chest up a stairway to a gallery on the second floor.
Carl watched the two mount the stairs and pass around the gallery to a door; then the door opened and the two men and the iron chest disappeared. The creole gentleman did not show himself again, and if he left the room into which he had gone with Bangs he must have passed out by some other way than the gallery.
The moment Carl was by himself, he changed the dried frog to the breast pocket of his coat.
"I don'd got him in der righdt blace for luck," thought Carl. "Meppy dot iss pedder. Oof I lif long enough to ged der frog vere he ought to be, I bed you I haf some goot fortunes."
While Carl leaned back, and waited, there came a shrill cry from behind another clump of oleanders:
"Get out of here! Get out! Get out! Sic him, Tige!"
Carl, fearing the onslaught of a dog, snatched up a piece of wood and jumped to the top of the box. No dog came.
"Don'd you set some dogs on me!" he called. "I got as mooch righdt here as anypody. I vas vaiding for Misder Downsent. Who you vas, anyhow?"
"You're the limit!" came the shrill words. "Go soak your head! Police! Police!"
As the last word rang through the courtyard, Carl's cap was jerked off his head from behind. With an angry shout, he whirled just in time to see the branches shaking as the thief got away.
"I'm der limid, am I?" he muttered, crashing through the bushes. "Want me to go soak my headt, hey? Vell, py chiminy, I show you somet'ing."
When Carl got through the bushes the thief had disappeared, but a wild, rollicking laugh came from behind the other thicket of oleanders. Running in that direction he came upon a yellow-crested parrot chained to a perch. The parrot seemed to be getting a good deal of fun out of the situation, for he was lifting himself up and down and chuckling fiendishly.
"Vy," gasped Carl, a slow grin working its way over his face, "it vas a barrot! Pooty Poll! Sooch a nice pird vat it iss! Vant some crackers? Say somet'ing, vonce, und——"
Just at that moment, something hit Carl on the back of the head. Whirling away from the parrot, he looked upward. A black monkey was clinging to the ironwork of the gallery overhead. In one paw the monkey held Carl s cap, and with the other paw he was fishing bits of plaster out of the wall and throwing them downward.
"Und dere iss a monkey, too!" exclaimed Carl. "It looks like I vas in a menacherie. Say, you monk, gif me dot hat!"
"Sic 'im, Tige!" shrilled the parrot. "Police! police!"
The monkey chattered and flaunted the cap defiantly, at the same time getting ready to throw another piece of plaster.
"Nice leedle monk!" wheedled Carl. "Iss der leedle monkey hungry? Den come down und ged some peanuds vich I ain'd got! Pooty leedle monk! py shinks, I vill preak you in doo oof you don'd——"
Biff!
The piece of plaster came downward, straight as a die, and landed on Carl's chin. That was more than Carl's temper could stand, and he started up the stairway toward the gallery.
In order to get near the monkey he had to run aroundthe gallery, past the door through which the creole gentleman and Bangs had vanished with the chest.
There was a window, set in a sort of embrasure, beside the door, and one of the lights was broken out.
As Carl passed under the window, on his way around the gallery, he heard a voice that brought him to a gasping halt. All thoughts of his stolen cap, and the monkey, left his mind.
Staggering up against the balcony rail, he stood there blinking in stunned bewilderment.
"Vas I ashleep?" he whispered; "vas I treaming? I vonder oof I can pelief vat I hear, or——"
He broke off his words abruptly, turned and stepped to the wall. Here he paused just long enough to shift the dried frog from his coat to his trousers pocket, then, softly, climbed into the embrasure and peered through the broken pane of the window.
No, he had not been asleep, or dreaming.
He was peering into a room in which were two men, neither of whom was the creole gentleman.
One of the men was Bangs, and the other was—Lat Jurgens! Between them stood the iron chest.
THE PLOTTERS.
"You're a good one, Proctor!" Jurgens was saying, leaning over the chest and rubbing his hands. "This is the biggest piece of luck that ever came my way. Did Whistler have anything to do with it?"
"Whistler?" returned Bangs. "How could he have anything to do with it? He's not in town."
"I know that, but he went to see the voodoo woman to try and have her give him a line on the chest. He left yesterday, and here the chest drops into our hands. It looks to me as though old Yamousa had been giving us a helping hand."
"Bosh!" returned Bangs disgustedly, "Yamousa didn't have a thing to do with it. I was waiting for that air ship to come in, accordin' to that telegram Townsend sent to Motor Matt and which you found out about. It came, but there were only two boys in the car. They landed on Stuyvesant Dock, and they hadn't any more than got the craft secured before I was right there. I told 'em the yarn we had framed up—how Townsend was expecting them but was so busy he couldn't come, so had sent me." Bangs chuckled. "They swallowed the yarn, all right," he went on. "While I was talking I saw the iron chest in the car. Say, that almost took me off my feet. However did it happen to get into the hands of those boys?"
"Pass the ante, Proctor. Didn't they tell you?"
"Nary a word. They said Motor Matt would be along, in a little while, but that's all they told me about him. I suggested that one of them go with me to take the chest to Townsend, and the Dutch boy was the one who came. He's down in the courtyard now, waiting for Townsend to come and give him a welcome."
Bangs dropped into a chair as he finished and gave vent to a low laugh.
"Didn't they ask you how Townsend had come to get separated from the chest?" asked Jurgens.
"Yes."
"And what did you tell 'em?"
"The truth; that the chest had been stolen from Townsend. Even then the two boys wouldn't tell me where they had found the chest. I reckon Motor Matt, who seems to be pretty long-headed, must have warned them to keep mum."
Jurgens continued to chuckle and rub his hands.
"Blamed if things aren't coming our way better than I had imagined they would!" he exclaimed. "This is rich, and no mistake. And you say the Dutchman is down in the court?"
"That's it."
"Waiting for me to slip down and give him the glad hand?"
"That's what he's waiting for," guffawed Bangs.
"Well, I'll give him the hand, all right, but there'll be something in it. We've got to take care of him, in some way, until——"
Whatever Jurgens' plans were concerning Carl they did not appear. Fate, at that moment, hastened events toward a conclusion.
The square window, against which Carl was leaning and listening, was far from secure. In his interest and excitement, he bore rather harder upon the window than he intended. As a result, the window suddenly gave way and Carl fell crashing with it into the room.
Just how much the dried frog in Carl's pocket had to do with the mishap is for those versed in superstitious lore to answer. Ever since he had taken possession of the charm he had encountered a run of hard luck, but everything that had so far happened to him was trivial as compared with this final catastrophe.
Before he could get to his feet he had been pounced upon by Bangs and Jurgens, dragged clear of the broken glass and held firmly down on his back.
"He's not so much of a fool as you thought, Proctor!" growled Jurgens. "He was in the window, listening."
"Much good it'll do him!" grunted Bangs. "We've got the chest, and what he discovered won't do him any good."
"You bet it won't! Get a rope."
Bangs secured a rope from somewhere in the room and Carl was expeditiously lashed by the hands and feet.
"Himmelblitzen!" ground out Carl. "You vas a humpug, Pangs! You say you vas somet'ing, und you peen somet'ing else. Py chincher, oof I hat der use oof my handts I vould make you t'ink you vas hit mit some cyclones."
"Oh, come," laughed Bangs, "don't be so fierce. We've got you, and we've got the chest, and that pal of yours is away off on Stuyvesant Dock and hasn't the least notion where you are. Sing small, my fat kiskidee; it won't do you any good to take on."
"Vait, py chinks!" flamed Carl; "schust vait ondil Modor Matt findts oudt vat iss going on. Den, I bed you, someding vill habben. I don'd know nodding, und Tick he don'd know nodding eider; aber Matt—vell, dere iss a feller vat knows more as you. Look oudt for him, dot's all."
"Where is Motor Matt?" demanded Jurgens.
"Ask me," said Carl.
"That's what I'm doing."
"Veil, keep on; und ven I dell you somet'ing, schust led me know. Churgens, you vas a pad egg, und youvill ged vat's coming by you vone oof dose tays. How you ged off dot islant in der Pahamas?
"Ask me," taunted Jurgens.
"Vat a frame-oop!" muttered Carl dejectedly. "Look here, vonce: Vere iss Downsent?"
"Ask me again," said Jurgens mockingly.
"How you steal dot chest from him?"
"I don't mind telling you that," grinned Jurgens. "The information can't possibly harm us, because we'll be out of the way long before you can tell any one; and I'd like to have Motor Matt, who's been bucking us ever since we first went on the trail of the chest, know just what we've done to his friend Townsend.
"Townsend bobbed up off the levee in that submarine boat of his, a few days ago, and Whistler and I were on hand watching for him to arrive. He got here at night, unloaded the chest, and had a man start for town with it on a wheelbarrow. It was a foolish thing for Townsend to do—try to wheel the chest away with only himself and the man at the wheelbarrow to look out for it."
Jurgens paused and gave Bangs a wink.
"Townsend never got to the place he was going with that chest, eh, Proctor?" he continued. "We'd just lowered the chest into a rowboat when a couple of watchman came along. We got off from the levee to wait until the watchman got past, and then, when we went after the boat, it had disappeared. We hunted good and hard for it, but haven't seen the boat since. Whistler went to talk with a voodoo woman he used to know to see if she could tell him what became of the boat and the chest. He hasn't got back yet; but here's the chest, big as life, all safely locked and ready for us to open it. Where did you fellows pick up the chest, Dutchy?"
"Talk aboudt der vedder," suggested Carl.
"Oh, well, if you don't want to loosen up you needn't. We knew you were coming here to help Townsend. Townsend sent you a telegram—or, rather, Cassidy, one of his men, sent the telegram the next day after we got hold of the chest. Townsend hadn't shown up on the submarine, but Cassidy had his orders, I reckon. An assistant of mine was shadowing Cassidy, and he discovered the contents of the message. After that, I had Proctor down on the river front waiting for you to arrive in theHawk. Proctor was surprised when he found that you were bringing the chest with you. It was a joyful surprise for all of us, and you and Ferral dropped into Proctor's trap too easy for any use. I wonder if you've got anything of importance about your clothes? Search him, Proctor."
Carl never had much money, and very little else of any importance, in his pockets. He had nothing, now, but, as Bangs knelt beside him and began his search, Carl thought instantly of the dried frog.
So far from being a luck bringer, the frog was a hoodoo. Carl was thoroughly convinced of that; and he had a feeling that no good fortune could come his way so long as he kept Yamousa's charm in his pocket. He wanted to unload it, and he would rather unload it upon Bangs or Jurgens than any one else. If he could give them the same run of hard luck that he had been having, it might be easier for Matt to recover the chest.
"I don'd got nodding," said Carl, squirming and playing a part which he had swiftly mapped out for himself.
"I reckon what he says is true," Bangs reported, having discovered only a jackknife, a fishline, a stump of a lead pencil, and a ham sandwich. "He's panning out mighty slim, Jurgens. If—— Ha! what's this?"
Bangs pulled the dried frog out of Carl's hip pocket, looked at it curiously and held it up for Jurgens' inspection.
"Great guns!" exclaimed Jurgens. "It looks like a dead frog."
"Gif it pack!" cried Carl, to all appearances greatly perturbed. "It vas Moder Matt's charm, his luck pringer. It don'd vas vort' anyt'ing to you."
"Motor Matt's luck bringer, eh?" muttered Bangs. "Well, from all I heard of that fellow his luck has been phenomenal. Do you want this thing, Jurgens?"
"Not I, Proctor," answered Jurgens.
"Then," went on Bangs, coolly appropriating the charm, "I'll just take it myself and see if some of Motor Matt's luck won't come my way."
"I thought you didn't believe in such things?"
"No more I don't, but I'm going to test this amulet and see what it will do for me."
"Take efervt'ing else vat I got," begged Carl, "only gif me pack dot charm!"
"Not on your life!" said Bangs. "If it's so valuable to Motor Matt it ought to be worth just as much to me."
Carl, it is needless to say, was delighted to have the trouble maker in Bangs' possession. It was the first bright spot in his experiences since leaving the docks with Bangs and the expressman.
"Get a cold chisel and a hammer, Proctor," said Jurgens, briskly; "it's high time we got the chest opened and pulled out with the treasure."
"You leaf dot chest alone!" fumed Carl.
"Yes?" laughed Jurgens. "Well, hardly. Just lie there, Dutchy, and see us dig out more treasure than you ever set eyes on in your life before. When you leave here, you can tell Townsend how we got away with the loot. Inform him, for me that Lat Jurgens wasn't born yesterday, and that it will take a better man than Nemo, Jr., to get the best of him."
At that moment, Bangs came up with a cold chisel and a hammer and fell to work on the treasure box.
THE HEAD OF OBBONEY.
Carl's pleasure in getting rid of the charm was rather tempered by this attack on the iron chest.
That chest had had a checkered career. Where the Man from Cape Town got it, or what he had put into it, no one knew. The Man from Cape Town had declared that it contained treasure, and he had drawn a chart, showing an uninhabited sand key in the Bahamas and indicating a cave on the key where the chest could be found.
The chest had passed rapidly into the hands of Jurgens and Whistler, then into the possession of Motor Matt and his friends, then to Townsend, then back to Jurgens, then once more to Motor Matt, and now, for the final time it seemed, to Jurgens. All these changeswere attended with more or less violence and astonishing adventure.
With keen eyes Carl watched proceedings. Sturdy blows of the hammer drove the point of the cold chisel into the old lock, destroyed its mechanism and rent it apart. As Bangs dropped his hammer and chisel and prepared to lift the lid, Jurgens approached and leaned over excitedly.
"There ought to be enough treasure in that chest," said he to Bangs, "to make Whistler and you and me independent, Proctor."
A gleam arose in Bangs' watery black eyes and a deeper red ran into his puffy face.
"All I want's enough to keep me in liquor," said Bangs.
"It's a modest ambition," returned Jurgens. "I've got other plans for myself—but every man his own way. Lift the lid."
The heavy cover grated on its hinges as Bangs pushed it back. The chest appeared to be filled with brownish particles. With a disappointed oath, Jurgens scooped up a handful of the particles and held them close to his eyes.
"Sawdust!" he exclaimed; "mahogany sawdust!" and he cast the stuff from him fiercely.
"That's your treasure, is it?" sneered Bangs. "That's what we've been workin' for, and playin' tag with the law for, and gettin' into trouble for, is it? Pah!" Bangs got up disgustedly. "I was a fool ever to go into this thing. That Man from Cape Town has been playin' a joke. Sawdust! A box of sawdust!"
Carl chuckled, but the two men were so wrought up they did not hear him, or pay any attention to him. Carl felt sure that the dried frog was getting in its work. The spell of the hoodoo was over Jurgens, and Bangs, and the iron chest.
Of course, Carl was wide of his reckoning when he allowed his thoughts to take this course. But, then, he was superstitious.
Why Yamousa, a friend of Matt's, should want to load him up with hoodoo and tell him it would bring him luck, was a point Carl had already considered. He explained that point, to his own satisfaction at least, by imagining that the charm would bring luck to Matt alone, and bad luck to everybody else. Explanations are always easy when a fellow wants to prove anything!
"Wait a minute, Proctor," called Jurgens.
Bangs had started for the door with the evident intention of going away and washing his hands of the whole affair. At this call, however, he turned back.
"Well?" he queried.
"I'll bet money there's something in here besides sawdust. Let's not form any snap judgments till we dig to the bottom."
"Pirates don't pack pieces-of-eight in sawdust!" scowled Bangs.
"Pirates didn't have anything to do with this treasure. It came from South Africa and was brought to the Spanish Main in a modern ship."
"You half told me Cap'n Kidd had stowed that away on Turtle Key!"
"I said that to get you interested, and secure your help."
"And I've rung the creole gentleman that owns this house in on the deal! Well, you'll have to make it right with him, that's all."
"I'll take care of the creole gentleman!"
With that, Jurgens turned the chest upside down, pushed it away and began kicking the heap of sawdust right and left.
Something was found—but it was not what Jurgens and Bangs seemed to hope for.
A round object rolled out of the brownish particles and stopped rolling directly at Jurgens' feet. Jurgens leaped back with a startled exclamation, and stood staring. Bangs muttered something, and backed away.
The round object was a carved head—and as hideous a bit of work as Carl had ever seen. The eyes were black and beady, and set under heavy overhanging brows; the nose was wide at its base and suggested the negroid type; the mouth had thick lips and was twisted into a grin. But it was not a mirthful grin the face wore—far from that. There was something demoniacal, menacing and uncanny in that petrified grin—something that caught the heart with clammy hands and sent chill after chill along the nerves.
Carl turned his face away. Bangs, with a terrified yell, jumped for the door, but Jurgens grabbed him before he could get out of the room.
"Hold up, you fool!" stormed Jurgens. "Are you going to run from a piece of carved wood?"
"Hanged if I want to be anywhere near that thing!" palpitated Bangs. "Let's get out of here!"
"Wait. Put a clamp on your nerves and don't make a fool of yourself."
Leaving Bangs to watch him with bulging eyes, Jurgens returned to the head and picked it up.
"There are letters carved in the top of it," said he.
"Do they spell anything?" whispered Bangs, moistening his dry lips with his tongue.
"'Obboney.' That's what I make out of them."
"What's Obboney?" queried Bangs. "Does it mean anything? If it does, what?"
"Dere iss a baper in der sawdust," spoke up Carl, whose interest in the head was about as terrifying as Bangs.
Jurgens looked down, saw a bit of white in the sawdust, then reached for it and shook it clear of the brown particles. He unfolded a note, written on parchment or some sort of tanned skin.
"Well!" he exclaimed.
"What is it?" asked Bangs, anxiously.
"It's a key to the mystery. Listen."
Thereupon Bangs read the following:
"'The Head of Obboney. Read and give heed, for the head of Obboney contains many things, perilous and otherwise to human beings."'Obboney is a malicious deity of the Koromantyn, or Gold Coast negroes, of Africa; he is the author of all evil, and when his displeasure is signified by the infliction of pestilential disorders, or otherwise, nothing will divert his anger but human sacrifices; and these sacrifices are selected from captives taken in war, or, if there be none, then from the slaves of the Koromantyns.'"
"'The Head of Obboney. Read and give heed, for the head of Obboney contains many things, perilous and otherwise to human beings.
"'Obboney is a malicious deity of the Koromantyn, or Gold Coast negroes, of Africa; he is the author of all evil, and when his displeasure is signified by the infliction of pestilential disorders, or otherwise, nothing will divert his anger but human sacrifices; and these sacrifices are selected from captives taken in war, or, if there be none, then from the slaves of the Koromantyns.'"
Jurgens paused. The paper shook in his fingers and fell fluttering to the floor. He lifted a hand to his face and rubbed his eyes.
"What's the matter with you?" demanded Bangs.
"I don't know," answered Jurgens, hoarsely. "Do you smell a peculiar odor in this room?"
"I've been smelling that for several minutes. Where does it come from?"
"I—I don't know, but it seems to lay hold of muscle and brain, like—like poison."
Jurgens had been holding the head of Obboney in the crook of his left arm. Just when he finished speaking, the head dropped with a thump into the sawdust; Jurgens staggered back, tried to recover his balance, failed, and crumpled to the floor.
"Are you sick?" demanded Bangs, stepping hurriedly to Jurgens' side.
"I—I don't know what's the matter with me," whispered Jurgens. "Some—some infernal power has—has laid hold of me and——"
His head sank back, his limbs relaxed, and he lay with closed eyes, silent save for his stentorous breathing.
Carl was also conscious of a slow stupor creeping through his nerves.
"Let me oop!" he gasped, struggling to sit up. "Take der ropes off oof me und led us ged oudt oof here. Oof ve don't leaf, ve vill be deadt men pefore you can say Chack Ropinson!"
"But—but where does that—that odor come from?" demanded Bangs, himself rapidly losing consciousness.
"From—from der headt!" stuttered Carl, wildly. "Take it avay! Trow it from der vindow! It iss pad—pad meticine! It vas a hootoo, py shinks, und——"
Carl's words faded into silence. Like Jurgens, he fell backward and began breathing heavily.
Bangs stared for a moment, then staggered toward the door, intent on reaching purer air. But he never gained the entrance. The mysterious odor claimed him and he sank to the floor with a hollow groan.
He tried to roll away, but gave a gasp and his senses left him.
Thus the malicious Obboney was doing his deadly work.
The head, lying face upward in the sawdust, grinned vindictively and the jetty eyes glittered.
Could any one have seen the carved head, just then, it would have seemed to be exulting over its power, and what its power had accomplished.
Heavier and heavier came the breathing of the sleepers, and thicker and thicker grew the odor in the room.
It seemed certain that death must overtake the three who were under the head's evil influence.
Then, suddenly, a black shape bounded into the embrasure of the window. It was the monkey, and the monkey was still playing with Carl's cap.
Standing on all four paws in the embrasure, the monkey danced up and down and surveyed the scene below him. He seemed to wonder at the silence of the figures sprawled on the floor.
His simian senses were attracted by the gleaming eyes of Obboney, and he began to chatter; in another moment he had leaped into the room, bounded to the heap of sawdust and picked up the head.
Then, like a thief fearing detection, he bounded chattering back to the window, dropping the cap and clinging with both his forepaws to the head.
In the space of a breath, he was out of the room and upon the gallery.
ON THE TRAIL.
It looked as though Bangs, in carrying out his plot to secure the chest, had overreached himself in one important particular. The expressman he hired to carry the iron chest to the house in St. Peters Street had a stand near the railroad station, close to the levee, and it was here that Matt and Dick found him.
Prudence in carrying out his treachery should have made Bangs wary about hiring an expressman who could be found so easily. However, Bangs had probably but little time to spare, and no doubt he expected to be away from the St. Peters Street house before any one could suspect what he was up to and follow him there.
"You're the fellow who came to Stuyvesant Dock about half-past ten this morning and took away an iron chest, aren't you?" inquired Dick, facing the expressman.
"Ah reckons you-all's got de wrong pig by de ear, boss," said the darky. "Ah didn't tote no iron chest fo' nobody."
"Stow it!" cried Dick, looking at the man keenly. "You're the swab, all right."
"Positive of it, Dick?" put in Matt.
"I'd take my solemn Alfred he's the man!"
"Then," went on Matt, quietly, "Bangs has probably paid him something to keep still! I'll watch him, Dick, while you go and get a policeman."
At that, the darky rolled up the whites of his eyes, and showed other signs of trepidation.
"Hol' up dar, cap'n," he called to Dick, who had started away. "Doan' go an' hurry off daterway. Mebby Ah was de feller. What ob it?"
"Now you're talking sensibly," said Matt. "Do you remember where you took the chest?"
"Ah doan jis' riccolect," the negro answered, scratching his woolly head. "Ah wisht Ah did, sah, if it would be any help t' yo, but mah mem'ry is dat sho't Ah done kain't seem tuh remembah nuffin'."
This was so plainly a falsehood that Matt turned to Dick.
"Go on after the officer, Dick," said he. "This fellow don't intend to play fair with us. Perhaps we can take him to jail and make him talk."
"Wait, dar!" cried the darky. "You-all is so quick tuh go off an do somefin'. Yassuh, Ah reckons Ah kin remembah de place. Hit was in Toulouse Street. Ah'll take yo' dar if yo' wants tuh go."
"We'll go," answered Matt. "Get into the wagon, Dick."
The darky drove over his former course, but instead of keeping on to St. Peters he turned to the left at Toulouse, and brought up before a building two blocks from Royal.
"Dar's de bery place," said he, pointing to the building with his stump of a whip.
Matt had one of his swift "hunches" that the darky was still trying to fool them.
"You stay here with him, Dick," said he, starting to get down from the wagon. "It won't take me long to find out whether or not the chest is in that house. If it isn't there, we'll know we haven't been brought to the right place, and then we can call in the officer."
"Ah reckon yo' bettah sot right down ag'in, boss," said the expressman to Matt. "Dishyer ain't de place.Hit's on St. Peters Street, an' dis time I'll take yo' dar, hones'. 'Clar tuh goodness, Ah nebber seen sich fellers as you-all tuh stick an' hang. Now, den, we's goin' tuh de right place."
He started up his mules again.
"You're going to run foul of a lot of trouble if you keep trying to fool us," warned Dick.
"Ah ain't gwine tuh try hit no mo'," returned the darky, earnestly.
"How much did Bangs give you to keep still about that iron chest?" queried Matt.
"Bangs?" echoed the darky. "Whaffur yo' call him Bangs, boss? Dat feller's name is Proctor."
"Well, Proctor, then. How much did he give you?"
"He done gib me five dollahs. Yo' ain't expectin' tuh take hit away from me, is yo'?"
"If we find you're still trying to fool us," answered Matt, severely, "we'll not only have the money taken from you, but your license, as well."
"Ah's gwine tuh do de right thing now, boss," was the earnest response. "You-all kin bank on dat."
A little later he stopped at the right place, and Matt and Dick got down from the wagon. The praline woman had repaired the damage Carl had caused her stock in trade and was still in the doorway.
"How long have you been here, aunty?" Matt asked, dropping a quarter in the negress' lap.
"All day, boss," was the answer.
"Did you see a man and a boy go in here with a big iron box?"
"'Deed Ah did, sah!" said the woman, vehemently. "De fat boy done slipped on de walk an' squashed down en mah basket ob pralines. I was paid fo' dat, dough, an' dey went on into de house."
"The trail's getting hot," spoke up Dick.
"Who lives in the house?" asked Matt.
"M'sieu Rigolette."
Matt turned and pulled a bell at the door. After a minute or two some one came out on an iron balcony over the door and looked down. It was the creole gentleman, still in his bare feet and wearing his tattered trousers and flannel shirt. There was a wild, apprehensive look in his face, and he would have withdrawn as suddenly as he had appeared if Dick had not caught sight of him and given a yell.
"Ahoy there, you!"
"Vat you vant?" came the query.
"Your name Rigolette?"
"Oui—yes. Why?"
"Come down here," said Matt. "We want to talk with you."
"I haf done nozzing wrong," returned Rigolette, in a whining, apologetic voice.
"We don't say you have," answered Matt, fully convinced now that something unusual had taken place in the house, "and all we want you to do is to come down and talk with us."
The fellow disappeared from the balcony and presently showed himself in the door.
"Vat eet ees?" he inquired.
There was fear in his shifty eyes as he flashed them over Matt and Carl.
"Is there a man named Townsend in your house?" returned Matt.
"Non—no. Zere ees no man lak dat.'
"A man named Jurgens, then?"
Rigolette started and hunched his shoulders.
"No, Jurgens ees not here, m'sieu."
"He's talking double, Matt," struck in Dick; "I can see it in his eyes."
"Zere ees no sooch man," cried Rigollette, "non, I swear eet!"
"Or Proctor?"
Rigolette quailed under Matt's steady look. The creole, with a groan, flung out his hands.
"Oui—yes," he murmured, "zey was here,maisnot no more. Zat ees ze trut'."
"Where are they? And where is the German boy who came with Proctor? And the iron chest they brought with them?"
"Zat ees ze puzzle—ze riddle, wat you call. Ze chest, ah, ha, I show heem;maisze boy, Proctair an' Jurgens, zey haf gone. One by one zey go, run down ze stairs lak ze wild man, zen t'roo de court and out ze door, and away. Zey was cr-r-razy, an' zey keel ze P'tit Joujou!" Rigolette wrung his hands. "Ze P'tit Joujou," he wailed.
"The more he talks," said Dick, "the less we know."
"Take us to the chest," ordered Matt, turning to the creole.
"Zenallons!" returned the owner of the house. "I haf done nozzing wrong, for I be ver' good Frenchmans, creole Frenchmans," he called over his shoulder.
"Something has happened, we can be jolly sure of that, matey," remarked Dick, moving along at Matt's side.
"That's an easy guess, Dick," said Matt. "The question is, what's happened?"
In the court the creole paused beside a black shape lying on the ground. It was a monkey, and the monkey, as could be seen at a glance, was dead. Its hairy arms were embracing the head of Obboney, holding it in such a position that the beady eyes stared upward into the faces of the boys.
"Wow-whoosh!" gulped Dick, starting back. "Keelhaul me if I ever saw anything like that before. Br-r-r! It sends the cold shivers up and down my spine. What do you make of it, Matt?"
Matt, an odd, uncanny feeling racing through him, bent down and examined the head.
"It looks like the head of some heathen idol, Dick," he replied. "What killed the monkey, Rigolette?" he asked.
"Zat I do not know, m'sieu," whimpered the creole. "Ze poor P'tit Joujou!"
"I smell something that's powerful strong," observed Dick, lifting his head and sniffing. "Don't you, mate?"
"Yes," said Matt, "and it's something that makes me dizzy. Where did that head come from, Rigolette?"
"Me, I do not know, m'sieu. Ze hor-r-rible head! Ou, ai, I don't like zat to be here, but I plenty scare' to take heem away from ze P'tit Joujou."
"Well," and Matt turned away, "where's the chest? Take us to the chest, Rigolette."
The creole led the way to the stairs and up to the room on the first balcony.
"Here ees w'ere zey breeng ze chest," said he, "an' zere you see heem."
With the last words he stepped into the room and pointed.
The chest, with the lid thrown back, lay to one side of the room. Near it was the pile of sawdust. Dick, catching sight of something near the heap of sawdust, stepped forward and picked the object up.
"Carl's cap!" exclaimed Matt.
"Right-o!" returned Dick. "But why should the cap be here and not Carl? We're in deep waters, matey. Look at that raffle of cord on the floor. Some one's been tied, here, and slipped the lashings. Sink me, but it must have been Carl!"
Matt whirled on the creole.
"Did Proctor and Jurgens make the boy a prisoner?" he demanded.
"I know nozzing, m'sieu," replied the creole; "I haf done nozzing wrong."
"Did you——"
Just at that moment a door opened—a door opposite the one leading upon the gallery that overlooked the court.
"Bangs!" shouted Dick, pointing to a wild figure that appeared in the doorway.
With a snarl like that of an angry panther, the figure turned and leaped for an open window. Matt and Dick both sprang in pursuit.
A BLACK MYSTERY.
Bangs, it seemed clear, had entered the other room through a window in the side of the house. The roof of a one-story building came close up under the window, so that it was comparatively easy to enter Rigolette's house in that manner.
And Bangs was trying to make his escape in the same way he had come. He jumped from the window to the neighboring rooftop and started for the edge of the roof.
Matt and Dick, however, were upon him before he could get over the roof's edge and drop to the ground.
Bangs fought fiercely, clawing and growling, like a wild animal. His eyes were wild, he was bareheaded and his hair was tumbled over his forehead.
"The man's crazy," said Matt.
"Is it drink did it?" asked Dick. "Has he been topping the boom too much?"
"No, it wasn't drink; it's something else. Let's get him back to Rigolette's and see if he's able to give us any information."
Getting the squirming Bangs back to the creole's was not an easy matter. However, Rigolette dropped the pieces of rope lying in the room where Carl had been confined, from the window, and the boys made their captive's wrists and ankles secure; then they heaved Bangs upward, and the creole caught him by the shoulders and dragged him through the opening.
"He ees wild," chattered Rigolette; "ever'body ees wild. I was wild myself."
"I say, Bangs!" called Dick, kneeling beside the prisoner and shaking him. "What's the matter with you?"
Bangs mumbled incoherently and stared fiercely.
"Do you think he's putting it on, mate?" said Dick, appealing to Matt.
"No, he's not putting it on. The man's really daft." Matt turned to Rigolette. "You say the boy and Jurgens were like Bangs, here?"
"Oui—yes," said the creole. "Zey run from ze house; now Proctair, he ees come back by ze roof. W'y he do zat w'en he could come by ze door? Zat ees a mystery."
"Aye, a black mystery!" cried Dick.
"Carl was certainly here," mused Matt; "the finding of his cap proves it. And it's almost equally clear that he was a prisoner. Something locoed him, as well as Bangs and Jurgens; and Carl, in some manner, got out of his ropes. Where is he now? That's the point. And the iron chest—was that all that was in it?" and Matt nodded toward the heap of sawdust.
At that moment the scrap of paper, which Jurgens had dropped, met his eyes. He picked it up.
"What is it, mate?" asked Dick, anxiously. "Does it shed any light?"
Matt read the paper aloud.
"Strike me lucky!" exclaimed Dick. "That head—it must have been in the box. Wasn't there anything else?"
Matt dropped to his knees excitedly and began running his fingers through the sawdust.
"That was all," said he, "the head of Obboney and this paper."
Dick laughed harshly.
"And that's the treasure Jurgens and Whistler have been hunting for!" he exclaimed. "The head of an idol—a heathen idol! I wonder what Townsend will say to this? The Man from Cape Town seems to have pulled the wool over the eyes of everybody."
"Why didn't Jurgens take the head away with him if it was in the box?" Matt queried, thoughtfully.
"Probably he didn't think it was worth bothering with; either that or else he was too crazy to think of it."
"Go down and get the head, Dick," said Matt. "We might as well put it back in the chest and try and deliver everything to Townsend just as we found it."
"Aye, aye," answered Dick, and started.
Matt was astounded by the situation which confronted him and Dick in the creole's house. Bangs had engineered a piece of successful treachery, but, in the end, the treachery had somehow turned against him and Jurgens. What had caused the death of the monkey? And what was it that had turned the brains of Bangs, Jurgens and Carl? Bangs was clearly demented, and if Rigolette was to be believed, so were Jurgens and Carl.
And only that idol's head had been in the iron chest! Yes, truly, the affair was a mystery—and a black one.
While Matt was struggling to think of something that might help to a solution of the problem, Dick came bounding up the stairs and along the gallery.
"It's gone!" he panted.
Matt whirled on him in consternation.
"What, the head of Obboney?" he asked.
"Nothing else, old ship! It's not where we saw it and it isn't anywhere in the court. The negro woman at the door says that a man answering Jurgens' description rushed into the house and out again. He had something when he went out, but she couldn't see what it was. I'll bet it was that idol's head, mate!"
"It must have been!" exclaimed Matt. "Perhaps a little reason returned to Jurgens and he came back after the head. Did he seem to be crazy, or in any manner off his balance?"
"The woman says he looked wild, didn't say a word and went like a streak."
"Well," said Matt, regretfully, "we've been beaten out, after all. What we've got to do now is to find Carl."
"Where'll we look for him? We can go cruising around, but this is a big town and, if Carl is off his bearings, there's no telling where he'll go."
"If he's very much off his bearings, the police will pick him up. And the same with Jurgens. But——"
Matt halted and gave a glance at Rigolette, who was leaning moodily against the wall.
"Come over here, Dick," said Matt, stepping to one side. When his chum joined him, he lowered his voice so the creole could not hear what was said.
"You remember that smoke picture of Yamousa's—the one you and I saw?"
"Dowse me, mate, if I could ever forget that!"
"What do you think of Yamousa and her smoke pictures, by now?"
"Why, I'm not much of a hand to believe in things like that," replied Dick, slowly, "but that first smoke picture, showing the boat and the chest, with theHawkoverhead and you below—why, that was a dead ringer for what happened. Blow me tight! I'm fair dazed to account for that picture."
"So am I," continued Matt, earnestly, "but this is what I'm trying to get at. If one picture gave a truthful forecast of what was to happen, isn't it possible that the second picture was equally truthful and to be depended on?"
"More than possible, Matt—probable."
"Do you recollect what that second picture was?
"Why, a room with stone walls and a man who looked like Townsend lashed by the hands and feet and lying on the floor!"
"Then, if you remember, we saw the outside of the building—or what Yamousa said was the outside of it—And the lower story was occupied by an antique shop."
"Right-o! The sign above the shop bore the name of Crenelette."
"Exactly. Now, Dick, it strikes me we ought to go down Royal Street and look for Crenelette's place of business. There's nothing we can do for Carl, just now, inasmuch as we don't know where to go to find him, and there may be something wecando for Townsend."
"Your head's level, matey, like it always is. We'll go on a hunt for Townsend. If the contents of the iron chest can't be recovered, we must do the next best thing and help Townsend out of a hole—provided heisin a hole, which seems almost certain."
Matt turned away and addressed himself to Rigolette.
"How long was Jurgens here, in your house, Rigolette?" he asked.
"Two—t'ree day, m'sieu."
"What was he doing here?"
"Zat I do not know.Sapristi!My head ees buzzing wit' all dese zings vat I don't onderstan'."
"You may not have been doing anything wrong, of your own knowledge, by harboring and helping Jurgens and Proctor, Rigolette, but those men are criminals, and you've got to walk pretty straight from this on if you don't want to get yourself into trouble."
"I no want ze trouble, m'sieu!" whined the creole. "I have ze trouble enough wizout making more."
"Then keep Proctor here, just as he is. He may come to himself, before long, and when he does we'll try to get back and have a talk with him. Comprenny?"
"Oui—yes. He ees my friend, but I keep heem lak you say. Zen, bumby, eet may be he can tell what keel ze P'tit Joujou."
"I haven't any doubt but that he can let in a good deal of light upon the mystery. We'll try and return here, in a few hours. Meanwhile, if the Dutch boy wanders back, try and keep him."
"I do w'at I can, m'sieu."
Matt and Dick, puzzled and bewildered but hoping for results from their fresh line of inquiry, inquired their way to Royal Street and turned along it in the direction of Canal.
Fortune favored them, for they had not gone a block along Royal Street before they saw an antique shop with the sign, "M. Crenelette, Antiques," over the door.
Matt and Dick went to the other side of the street and took in the appearance of the building. In every particular it conformed to the smoke picture which they had seen, miles away, in the hut of Yamousa.
"I'm all ahoo!" admitted Dick. "Yamousa must know a whole lot of things that scientists haven't yet discovered. That's the building, to a dot!"
"It's amazing!" murmured Matt. "Our cue seems to be a good one and it's up to us to follow it and see where it leads."
"Right-o! Heave ahead and I'll tow along, ready for anything that happens."
As the boys pushed across the street toward the door of the antique shop, a face dodged away from a second-story window. And it was a face which, if the boys had seen it, would have warned them to be on their guard.