The astonishing meeting in the remote wilds of the African forest with a man they instinctively mistrusted bereft the lads of words for an interval.
Frank was the first to find his voice:
"Why, Mr. Barr, what are you doing here?" he exclaimed amazedly.
But if the boys seemed astonished Mr. Barr retained his usual icicle-like attitude. Except that he was dressed in tropical white and wore a huge pith helmet which set above his ill-favored features "like a mushroom over a toad," as Billy described it later, he might have just stepped out of his office on Wall Street, instead of from a wheezy launch on a steaming subequatorial river.
"Good-evening, boys, a little late for dinner, I see, but I daresay you can cook me something. After dinner I want to talk to you. I have come a long way for the purpose so you can guess my business is of importance."
"Of importance? I should say so;" sputtered the irrepressible Billy. "Pray did you come by air-ship, Mr. Barr?"
"No, sir, I came in my yacht the Brigand. She is almost as fast as a liner and as I came direct to this port I didn't take more than half the time occupied by you boys on the voyage."
"You had a good trip?" asked Frank as Mr. Barr sat down and began eating the hastily prepared meal which Ben served him.
"Yes, splendid;" said Mr. Barr, "we had one misfortune though. When we were two days out my captain—a splendid man, boys—slipped on the wet foredeck as the yacht was plowing through a heavy sea and struck on his head on a stanchion."
"I hope he was not badly hurt," said Frank.
"He is dead," said Mr. Barr, calmly stuffing half a sweet potato into his capacious mouth.
The boys gave an exclamation of concern.
"Yes, it was very annoying," commented Mr. Barr.
"You see I have had to trust since to the navigation of my mate, and while he is a careful fellow he is not much good as a navigator, and in addition to that he is a drinking man. I am afraid that he may be ashore now in my absence and indulging his taste for strong drink."
"I should have thought you would have forbidden him shore leave," commented Harry.
"No good, my dear boy, that fellow would swim ashore even if the harbor were swarming with sharks, to gratify his disgusting taste."
"But now," he continued with a change of tone, "to business. You have got the ivory?
"We have," replied Frank.
"Where?"
"We have it here," was the quiet rejoinder.
"What!" an amazed tone.
"What I tell you is true," and Frank-foolishly as he admitted afterward-led the way to the cache in the forest; "it is buried here so as to be safe from marauders."
Mr. Barr seemed lost in thought for a few minutes then he suggested a return to the camp-fire. Once there he drew out a paper from his pocket-book.
"Many things have happened since you left New York, boys," he said quietly, through a feverish gleam in his deep, crafty eyes belied his outward calm.
"This paper," he continued, holding it out, "is signed by Mr. Beasley, it resigns to me all claim in the ivory and I am here to take it."'
"Let me look at that paper."
It was Lathrop who spoke.
The boy's cheeks were angrily flushed and his eyes bad a dangerous flash.
"That is not my father's signature!"
"What do you mean?"
"Exactly what I say—that this writing which purports to be my father's was never penned by him."
"You are making a rash assertion."
"I am fully prepared to prove it when we get back to New York."
"And in the meantime the Boy Aviators retain their claim on the ivory that we fought so hard to get," put in Frank.
Old Mr. Barr turned on him with a wolfish fury.
Indeed in his rage he resembled nothing so much as a long, lean, timber wolf deprived of his expected prey.
"We will see all about that!" he raged. "There is a law in Fort Assini though there may not be here. I have this paper here which in the eyes of the law is a legal transfer to me of Beasley's claim on the ivory. It is mine now and I mean to have it."
Frank's heart sank. He did not know much about law and it looked as if old man Barr held the upper hand.
"But that is not my father's signature or writing," cried Lathrop.
"That will be a matter for the American courts to decide," was the frigid reply.
"I shall lay the whole matter before M. Desplaines—the consular agent of our government," cried Frank at last.
"It is too late to do that," retorted Mr. Barr, "anticipating that there would be some trouble I have already engaged a lawyer and M. Desplaines will keep his hands off this affair."
"Why did you anticipate trouble?" shot out Frank, "was it because you knew that signature was false?"
For a fragment of a second the old man's pale face grew paler—or rather turned a sickly yellow.
"Bah," he said the next minute, "this is a business matter and not one for boys to enter into. I will see that you are well paid for your part of the work. If you like I will write you a check now."
He drew out an ever-ready check-book and fountain pen.
"I would rather have fair play than money," was Frank's stinging retort.
"And so say we all of us," chorused Harry, Billy and Lathrop.
Mr. Barr was plainly irritated. In a snappish tone he said at length:
"If you can show me where I am to sleep I think I will go to bed. I am very tired. We will discuss this matter further to-morrow."
Ben Stubbs, with a very ill grace, made up a bed for the New Yorker at some distance from the others.
"I'd like to stuff it full of barb-wire," he confided to Frank afterward.
As for Sikaso, he eyed old Mr. Barr from time to time, and then eyed his axe in a way that made it very plain that the two were connected in his mind in a manner that would have made it very uncomfortable for the old financier.
But if Mr. Barr felt the atmosphere of repugnance to him that pervaded the camp he did not show it.
He rolled up in his blanket as if he had been used to a rough bed all his life and was soon apparently wrapped in deep sleep. The boys, tired out as they were and not a little downcast at the turn events had taken, soon followed him. An hour later the River Camp was as silent as a graveyard with the exception of Ben Stubbs' mighty snores.
It was then that old Mr. Barr, who had seemed so sound asleep, cautiously raised his head from his blankets and peered about him.
After a few minutes of this he slipped into the few clothes he had discarded when he went to bed and tiptoed past the sleeping adventurers down to the river bank and the launch.
There was an evil smile on his face as he went that to those who knew Luther Barr would have said as plain as print "Some mischief is in the wind."
* * * * * * *
When the boys awoke the next morning the sun was streaming down on their sleeping place with a strength that showed that it had been up some time. With a start Frank sat up and looked about him.
What was the matter with him? His eyes felt heavy and his throat was parched. In his ears, too, there was a wild ringing sound and his limbs felt stiff and inert. Shouting to the others, who were gazing about them in a bewildered sort of way, Frank described his symptoms.
They all felt as badly as he did.
"I feel like I'd been boiled in the ship's boiler along with the cook's dish-rags," announced Ben Stubbs.
Even old Sikaso shook his head mournfully and said that he didn't feel at all well.
"I wonder how old man Barr feels?" said the irreverent Billy rubbing his red-rimmed eyes.
The next minute there was a shout of astonishment from them all.
Mr. Barr's blankets were empty and he was nowhere to be seen about the camp!
Forgetting their painful feelings in the shock of this discovery the boys hastened to the river bank to see if by any chance he was down at the steam launch.
The launch, too, was missing!
With a cry of rage Ben Stubbs shook his fist down the river.
"I see it all, boys," he exclaimed. "The old scallywag drugged us—doped us—that's why we feel so badly and—"
"Howling bob-cats! I'll bet he's stolen a march on us and got away with the ivory,"—this was Billy.
There was a rush for the spot in which the precious stuff had been cached.
A few broken tusks lay there.
But of the great hoard that the Boy Aviators had worked so faithfully to salvage not a vestige remained.
"Bilked, by the great hornspoon!" yelled Ben.
"But not beaten yet," was Frank's calm rejoinder. "Come on, boys, we've got to be stirring. Barr's got a long start of us, but we'll get him yet. Ben, you and Sikaso will take one of the Arabs' canoes—the ones they left at the river bank when they started after us—Harry, Billy, Lathrop and I will fly to the coast in the Golden Eagle II. We've just enough gasoline."
"All right, sir," said Ben, touching his forelock with an old sailor trick—a token of respect involuntarily forced from him by Frank's manly promptitude in taking the bull by the horns, "We're with you to the last ditch, the top of the main-top gallant, the bottom of the deep-blue sea, or the ends of the earth."
"That goes for us too, Frank," supplemented Billy.
"And count me in on that," cried Lathrop.
As for Harry, he gripped his brother's hand and the boys at once set about their preparations to outwit their treacherous enemy. In the midst of their bustle an interruption as utterly unexpected as it was for a moment alarming occurred.
The bushes parted and from them there stepped no less a person than Muley-Hassan.
He was followed a minute later by half-a-dozen fatigued-looking followers.
The boys' hands flew to their revolvers and Ben grabbed up a rifle. Sikaso's ever-ready axe was in the air in a second.
But the Arab put up his hand.
"I have not come to fight but to bargain," he said.
"You have beaten me at every point of the game. Diego is dead—"
"Dead," cried Frank.
"He was bitten by an adder as we were vainly searching for the ivory," said the Arab sadly, "he died almost instantly."
Of course the boys felt no sorrow for the death of the treacherous scamp and did not pretend to. They had no great reason to love Muley-Hassan either, so Frank said coldly:
"What is it you want?"
"Permission to take my canoes and leave this cursed country forever."
Frank waved toward the river.
"Your canoes are where you left them the night you made the cowardly attack on our camp. You can have them all but one. That one we need."
"Alas," sighed the Arab, "I do not need as many as I did when I came. Of all my followers these alone remain."
He pointed to the scant six, skinny, fever-stricken wretches who stood behind him.
"Good-by," said the stately Arab, holding out his hand in farewell, "we shall never meet again, but I shall ever remember that you dealt by me far better than I would have dealt by you."
"At all events you have one good deed to look back to in your life," exclaimed the impulsive Billy.
The Arab looked at him questioningly.
"You saved George Desmond's life," said the reporter shortly.
"That was many years ago," said the Arab with a start of recognition at the name of the dead explorer, "I have changed since."
With a wave of the hand he strode to the river's edge and half-an-hour later he and the remnant of his band were out of sight round a bend in the upper river.
At almost the same instant the boys soared aloft in the Golden Eagle II, and the chase for the ivory was on.
Below the flying aeroplane Ben Stubbs and old Sikaso—the latter as silent as ever—paddled down the river in silence.
It was a time for deeds, not talk.
The Brigand, a black, schooner-rigged yacht of about 1800 tons, with a yellow funnel amidships, and flying the red and blue burgee of the Transatlantic Yacht Club, lay at anchor on the rolling blue swells off the harbor of Assini in the early dawn of the day following the treachery of Luther Barr. Her crew—for the most part a riff-raff collection picked up in a hurry, for the old man had only made up his mind to make his daring grab for the ivory at the last minute—lolled about the decks idly. There was no one aboard to give command, for Jack Halsey, the mate who had been in command since the death of the captain had gone ashore the night before.
As old Barr had prophesied, the mate's love for strong liquor had overcome him and he was now lying hopelessly intoxicated in a low drinking den. The raw "trade gin" that he had drunk had rendered him insensible and so he would remain for many hours to come.
Some sort of animation diffused itself among the crew as they saw a low-laden launch headed toward them from the shore. In it were seated Luther Barr and several negroes including the black captain.
"Here, you lazy loafers!" hailed Barr, who was evidently in a bad temper and also in a furious hurry, as the launch ranged alongside, "bear a hand here and rig a sling and get this stuff aboard."
The "stuff" referred to was the priceless collection of ivory which lay higgeldy-piggeldy in the bottom of the launch just as it had been thrown in by the negroes in Barr's pay. Anticipating that the boys would put up a stiff fight for the ivory he had taken the precaution to hire these ne'er-do-wells, who would do anything, from cutting a throat to stealing a chicken, for pay. Barr had paid them well and when he had arrived at the camp he had taken the precaution to leave them down the river about half-a-mile while he went on alone with the launch and her captain to see how the land lay. When he realized that the boys were not fooled by his forged order from Mr. Beasley he decided to use the chloroform he had bought for just such an emergency, and then rousing his followers when the boys were drugged it had not taken long with their united efforts to load the ivory.
Urged on by Barr's promise of a large reward the captain of the launch had spun his little vessel down the river at top speed and thus had been able to make the coast in record time.
"Where in thunder is that mate Halsey?" roared Barr as he saw the bos'n—a seedy-looking fellow from the London slums—taking charge of the transfer of the ivory from the launch to the deck of the Brigand.
"He went ashore last night," rejoined the other.
"And I suppose he is helplessly drunk now," raged Barr. "How in the name of fortune are we going to get the yacht out of here?"
"Wait till he gets sober," was the bos'n's grunted reply as the men hastily transferred the last of the precious freight of tusks to the Brigand's deck.
Barr jumped to the accommodation ladder and was aboard in a second, despite his apparent feebleness. His face was distorted with rage and cupidity.
"We have got to get out of here at once—now do you understand?" he roared, crazed with rage.
"I'll give a thousand dollars to the man that will get me out of this harbor and well off to sea."
"If it comes to that I guess I can take a chance of navigating the yacht even if I don't hold a master's ticket," replied the bos'n.
"But are you a navigator?" questioned Barr eagerly
"Well, Mr. Barr, I held a master's ticket once before drink got me and I piled my ship on a reef," was the answer.
"You're good enough for me!" shouted Barr overjoyed, "and now we'll up anchor and get away from this abominable coast."
He scanned the sky shoreward anxiously. He did not confide to his new captain, however, the fact that at any moment he expected to see swift vengeance in the shape of the Golden Eagle II pursuing him.
With the roustabout crew that had been shipped in New York from a West Street boarding-master it took some time to get the anchor broken out—the men going at their work sulkily. At last, however, it was "up and down" as the sailors say, and Luther Barr himself signaled on the engine-room telegraph "Full speed, ahead." The engines of the yacht begin to revolve and the crafty old pillager almost gave a cry of joy as he felt the vibration beneath his feet.
The Boy Aviators could not cross the Atlantic in the aeroplane and there would not be a ship leaving the coast for a month.
Luther Barr chuckled.
He had beaten the boys at their own game.
By the time they arrived in New York the ivory would have been sold in London and he would be traveling in Europe on his ill-earned gains. That Beasley (his unsuspecting partner) would be ruined gave the money-crazed old man no care at all.
But even as the launch cast loose from the moving yacht and headed back to the shore—her occupants greedily fingering the bills Barr had given them for their work—Barr, from his station on the bridge, gave a start and an exclamation.
High in the air, and not more than ten miles inland, a black object that looked like a huge bird, but which Barr knew in his guilty soul was the Golden Eagle II, was rapidly winging its way toward them.
"More steam," he shouted down the tube to the engineer and the yacht, a long creamy wave curving away from her sharp black bow, began to move even faster.
"What are we making?" Barr asked eagerly of the late bos'n who, binoculars in hand, was taking the ship out through the treacherous harbor entrance as confidently as if he were once more a captain.
"Twelve knots," was the reply.
"We must do better," raged Barr.
"Impossible!" was the answer. "We are risking the yacht now. I am not familiar with this harbor and there are shoals and reefs all about us stretching many miles out to sea. At any moment, unless we proceed cautiously, we may run aground. Five knots would suit me better than twelve."
Barr chafed silently. The reply was unanswerable.
Better to go slow than to run the ship ashore. Suddenly he snatched the binoculars from the man beside him and turned them on the aeroplane. He almost uttered a cry of triumph as the craft swung into his field of vision.
There was something the matter with her.
She was no longer rushing straight ahead.
As Luther Barr watched her he saw the great aircraft swoop in a huge circle above the town and then settle down so swiftly that it looked as if she must have been dashed to pieces. But the town was hidden behind a point and he could not see it.
"I hope she has been dashed to pieces," he gritted between his teeth savagely, "that would mean the saving of a lot of trouble for me."
But even as he prepared to put the binoculars back in the pocket alongside the binnacle with an evil smile playing about his thin lips, there came a startling shock.
Barr was almost thrown from his feet and only saved himself from falling by grasping a stanchion. The ship quivered from stem to stern as if she had been hit a staggering blow.
"We've struck a reef!" exclaimed the late bos'n.
"A reef!" yelled Barr, beside himself with fury.
"I told you we would if you insisted on keeping up such a speed," angrily replied the other.
Beside himself with rage Barr picked up a heavy belaying pin to which, the signal halyards had been attached and struck the man before him a terrible blow with it.
Fortunately for his intended victim—for Barr in his rage would not have cared had he killed him—he ducked just in time and the blow was a glancing one. The man came at him like a tiger, but Barr, quick as a flash, slid his hand into his coat pocket.
"If you advance a step nearer I'll blow your brains out," he said coldly.
There was a glitter in his eyes that showed he meant what he said and with a muttered:
"I'll get even with you, Barr, as sure as my name is Al Davis," the late captain of the Brigand left the bridge.
Barr's active mind was at work at once planning schemes to get the ivory off immediately. Accustomed to crises of all kinds, the recent scene with the man Davis hadn't even warmed his chilly blood.
Calling the engineer he ordered an immediate inspection to be made. The result was discouraging. The Brigand lay with her bow hard and fast on a low sunken reef and while there was no apparent leak the chief engineer shook his head at the vessel's plight.
That there was grave danger was evidenced a short while after when the fire-room force—which had been ordered to keep steam up in the hope of backing the ship off later—came pouring on deck crying that there was three feet of water in the fire-room.
"That settles it," said the chief. "We are on a doomed ship."
"The boats! The boats!" shouted the men.
"Stay where you are," bellowed Barr, mad with rage, "get that ivory off first."
"To blazes with your ivory," shouted a grizzled old fireman, "do you think we are going to perish aboard here for such an old skinflint as you?"
"Why, if we had time we'd run you up at your own main-gaff you old land-shark," shouted another.
"Come on! the boats—the boats!" they yelled.
Barr stood irresolute while they lowered the four boats that the Brigand carried and piled into them. The shore was only a few miles off and they would reach it in a few hours.
While Barr hesitated he felt the ship give a lurch. She was settling!
That decided him.
Ivory or no ivory he feared such a death as he felt convinced would come to any one unfortunate enough to be aboard the ship in a few hours' time even more than he did the loss of the ivory.
"Hold on!" he shouted to the men in the boats, "I'm coming along."
"Not much you ain't," yelled Davis—the man he had dealt the blow to, "you stay there and rot with your ivory—you old crook."
With mocking laughs the men pulled away and Luther Barr, master of millions, was left alone on the sinking yacht.
The cause of the sudden swoop of the Golden Eagle II that Barr had seen from the yacht with such satisfaction was the need of replenishing her gasoline tank. The big craft landed in the dusty public square of the city where pretty well every one in the town was on hand when her runners and pneumatic tired supporting wheels struck the ground. The young adventurers were out of her in a few minutes and the first man to grasp their hands was M. Desplaines.
"I am delighted to see you," he exclaimed, "but if you anticipated catching Luther Barr you are too late."
"We saw his yacht steaming out to sea," rejoined Frank, "but if only we can get more gasoline we can catch him yet."
"What, you mean to pursue him?"
"We certainly do. He has stolen the ivory that we recovered at so much risk to ourselves."
"I didn't realize, of course, what your errand was," said M. Desplaines in reply, "till Mr. Barr arrived here in his yacht the other day and informed me that you had stolen a cache of ivory belonging to him and asked my aid to help in capturing you. I had no means of disproving his story so I lent him the steam launch, but I see now by his action in hastening to the yacht that he is, as you say, the real thief."
Hastily Frank told a part of their adventures and if he had had any remaining doubt of the boys' sincerity the consular agent was soon convinced of the truth of their story and of the villainy of Barr.
"I can get you some gasoline—," he said. "A merchant here in town recently bought a launch and as the freight boats do not touch in here often he has laid in a large supply of the fuel. I have no doubt that at my request he will be glad to sell you as much as you require."
This was good news indeed, and the boys hastened round to the house of M. Desplaine's friend. To their unspeakable regret, however, he was absent on a fishing expedition in his launch.
"If that isn't tough luck," exclaimed Billy disgustedly, "what can we do now?"
"Wait till he gets back or else break into his warehouse," said Harry.
"We cannot commit burglary," said Frank, "we shall have to wait."
M. Desplaines invited the party to lunch at his house but as may be imagined they did not eat much. Each was in too much of a hurry to ascertain if the fisherman had not returned. Immediately the meal was dispatched, therefore, they hastened out into the street and here they encountered a strange scene.
A score or more of rough-looking characters had just landed from four ship's boats that lay moored at the small wharf. They had joined forces with the crew of the launch that had aided in the ivory hunt and all were bent on a carouse. The boys were hardly able to speak from excitement when they read on the stern of each of the boats the words "Brigand N. Y."
"Those boats are from Barr's yacht," cried Frank.
"So they are," cried M. Desplaines, "and from some of these men perhaps we shall be able to hear what has happened."
It was an easy matter to get the story from the crew.
The only trouble was they all wanted to talk at once. Bit by bit, however, the boys got the story and learned that the Brigand was sinking with a big hole in her bottom. While the others were talking a tall man, who formed part of the crew that had just landed, beckoned Frank aside:
"Come here, young master," he said, "I want a word with you. You are one of the Boy Aviators?"
"I am!" replied Frank, "who are you?"
"My name's Al Davis; I was a skipper once—but never mind that now. But if you want to make a piece of money out of salvage I'll tell you how if you make it worth my while."
"What is it you have to tell me?" asked Frank.
For reply the man put his hand up to Frank's ear and whispered cautiously.
"Is that worth anything?" he asked after he had imparted the information.
"Well I should say so," cried Frank joyously, and he slipped the man a bill of large denomination.
"I'll buy everybody a drink," shouted Davis, shuffling off.
"Come on, boys, we've no time to lose!" Frank exclaimed the next minute and they hastened round to the house of M. Desplaines' friend.
This time that worthy was at home and greeted them warmly. He had a plentiful stock of gasoline more than enough, he said—and he gladly sold them all they wanted.
In a few minutes the Golden Eagle II's main and reserve tanks were replenished to the full and the boys were ready for a record flight to the wreck.
So far Frank had not divulged to the others what his information concerning the wreck was that he had received from Davis, and he did not now though he felt sorely tempted to.
Amid cheers from the crowd the Golden Eagle II, with all the adventurers aboard, soared once more into the air; but this time headed out to sea. They had not risen a hundred feet before they sighted the wreck, which had struck round a low point out of sight from the town. She lay, a dismal-looking object, heeled over to one side; but Frank saw, to his intense joy, that there was still a feeble curl of smoke coming from her stack.
This meant that the water had not yet extinguished her fires and was favorable to the daring plan he had conceived.
As the Golden Eagle II drew nearer, the figure of old Luther Barr could be plainly seen rushing about on the upper bridge.
He seemed demented with terror.
"Save me! save me! the ship is going down!" he cried in agonized tones, as a few minutes later the aeroplane swung in big circles above his head.
The boys, despite their righteous anger at the wicked old man, yet could not help feeling some pity mingled with their amusement as the old coward ran about the bridge like a crazy man.
"We'll get you off if you'll agree to do something for us," hailed Frank through his megaphone as the aeroplane soared in big circles round the wreck and the distracted old man.
"Anything, anything!" cried back old Barr piteously.
"Will you sign a release for the ivory you stole from us, admitting your theft?" asked Frank.
"Yes, yes, my boys. I'll sign anything, but get me off. I don't want to die like this. Oh this is a terrible end!"
"What are you going to do, Frank?" asked Billy, as the Golden Eagle II, in obedience to Frank's controlling hand, began to drop.
"You see that sand bank that the falling tide has exposed," was Frank's reply.
They all nodded.
"I am going to land there and we can wade through the water to the yacht. I judge the water isn't more than three feet deep at the deepest part."
The landing was made without a hitch—the sand being of the hard-ribbed variety that covers the numerous reefs along the west African coast.
After a short interval of wading the boys stood on the deck of the Brigand, where she hung on the edge of the reef. Frank's sharp eyes noticed that except for her forefoot the vessel was in deep water, as the reef dropped off quite abruptly.
Old Barr received them with almost hysterical joy.
"This is better than I deserve, boys; better than I deserve," he kept repeating.
"You had better stop your sniveling," said Frank sharply, thoroughly disgusted with the cowardly old rascal. "Where are pens, ink and paper?"
The ivory merchant led the way to the chart-house. "Be quick, boys—she might sink," he stuttered.
The document that Frank dictated, Luther Barr signed and the others witnessed, read like this:
"I, Luther Barr, of New York, do here by deed, make over and assign to the Boy Aviators—namely Frank and Harry Chester, William Barnes and Lathrop Beasley, all my share, claim or equity in the ivory which I wrongfully stole from them, which fact I with shame acknowledge. I hereby affix my signature which I admit in the presence of witnesses to be my true manner of signing."
"Now," said Frank, "just to show we are not mean, there is some ivory left in the Moon Mountains, near the spot which is indicated on your map. Sikaso, a faithful Krooman, hid it for us when we could not carry it away. If you find it you can have it."
The old man rubbed his hands in greedy glee.
"Oh thank you, boys; thank you, I'll find it, I'll find it," he croaked, his wrinkled old face wreathed in smiles.
"Lathrop," ordered Frank, "you and Billy take Mr. Barr back to shore. Harry and I will stay here.
"We have a lot to do. Leave the Golden Eagle ashore to be packed and forwarded later. Hurry back in the launch."
"What are you going to do?" demanded Barr.
"I think that your interest in our movements ceased with the signing of this paper," rejoined Frank.
At that moment the Brigand gave a violent shudder as if she was indeed about to go down. With a shrill scream of terror old Barr ran out on deck and hastily clambered down on to the reef. From there he waded with Billy and Lathrop to the Golden Eagle II, and was taken ashore.
"Now then to work," said Frank as the aeroplane winged her way shoreward with their enemy.
"What are you going to do?" demanded Harry in an astonished tone. There didn't seem to be much to do to his mind but wait till they were taken off the stranded yacht by the launch.
"You'll see," replied Frank. "In the first place, Harry, the Brigand was never in any danger of sinking. She is as sound as a dollar."
"Are you crazy?" cried Harry, "why there's a lot of water in her engine-room. She must have sprung a leak as big as a house."
Frank laughed.
"There are more ways of killing a cat than by choking it with cream," was his cryptic remark. "What would you say if I told you that in an hour's time we, will have every drop of water out of the yacht, and that following that we will have her afloat again at high-water."
"That you are a marvel."
"Well, it's going to happen—come with me."
Frank led the way to the engine-room.
"Luckily I know something about marine engines since we took that trip on the gun boat in Nicaragua."
He examined the gauges. They showed sixty pounds of steam still in the boilers.
"Not much—but enough," was Frank's comment. He then turned to two valve wheels on the working platform and started to screw them up.
"What in the world are you doing?" asked Harry.
"Closing the sea-cocks which were opened by Al Davis, the former bos'n, in revenge for a blow Luther Barr struck him when the ship went aground," was Frank's astonishing reply.
"But how in thunder do you know about that?"
"Davis told me while you were trying to get something out of those fellows who were all gabbling at once."
"And when you have closed up the sea-cocks?"
"Then I shall start the centrifugal pumps going to empty the engine-room, and we'll soon have her as sound as a dollar."
Luckily the water had not, as Frank had surmised, reached the fires, and though low there was enough pressure of steam to run the pumps till the boys were able to work in the stoke-hold. Then both boys set to work with a will and soon had the furnaces going full-blast, and the steam gauges registered seventy, then eighty and then one hundred and fifty pounds.
"There, that will do," exclaimed Frank, as, pretty well tuckered out, they threw aside their shovels. "Now we have to wait for the tide and reinforcements."
They had not long to wait.
Of course at the height the tide now was the reef was pretty well covered and it would have been impossible to make a landing in the air-ship, so Billy had chartered the power launch of the friend who had sold them the gasoline.
Ben Stubbs and Sikaso, who had arrived late that' afternoon, were on board the little craft and Ben's loud "Ahoy!" brought the Boy Aviators to the rail on the jump—waving and shouting greetings.
But there were others in the launch, and among them the boys spied several faces of bronzed men who looked thorough seamen. M. Desplaines, who was in the launch, explained that they had formed part of the crew of a steamer that had been wrecked down the coast some weeks previously. They had been waiting for a ship and were willing to work their passage home: to New York. Among them was their captain, a good seaman and a former yacht skipper.
"But—but," said Frank amazedly, as the men piled on board and the boys all shook hands madly with everybody. "We can't take this yacht—it isn't ours, we have no right."
M. Desplaines held out a piece of paper; smiling as he did so. It was covered with writing in Luther Barr's cramped hand and was a characteristic document. Stripped of its legal phraseology it was an agreement to the effect that if the boys would make no salvage charges for saving the yacht, they could have her free of cost to sail back to New York.
"But," said Frank, "how did he know we intended to save her?"
"'The man Davis got boisterously drunk and when arrested admitted that the yacht was in no danger and that he had flooded her stoke-hold out of revenge," explained M. Desplaines.
"In that case, why does not Mr. Barr come back to New York on her?" demanded Frank.
The consular agent smiled.
"He thinks he is on the track of more ivory and has already engaged part of an expedition," he replied. "To tell you the truth, his anxiety to save expense on the yacht has had quite as much to do with his loaning her to you as anything else. He expects you to pay the crew. If you wish to go back to New York on this yacht I will have your aeroplane dismantled and forwarded by freight."
"Well," laughed Frank, "will we, boys?"
"I should say we will!" came in a chorus.
"And steam back to old New York?"
"You bet."
As Frank had anticipated, at flood-tide the yacht was backed off under her own power and then came the time for farewells—and warm ones they were. To Sikaso the boys presented a rifle and an automatic revolver as the noble old fellow would not hear of taking money. The last glimpse they had of their black friend, as the yacht headed due west for America, he was standing gloomily in the stern of the launch—one hand on his faithful axe and the other raised against the blue sky as if in benediction.
"Well," said Frank, as the distance shut out the picture, "we are bound for home at last."
"What ever will they say when they hear of our adventures?" cried Harry.
"And the recovery of the ivory?" chimed in Lathrop, "my father's business is saved. We must cable from the Canaries of our success."
"And the narrative of George Desmond and our own experiences with the Flying Men?" chimed in Billy.
"Oh, you'll have to can that rarebit dream!" cried Harry.
"I will not!" exclaimed Billy indignantly. "I'm going to print it."
"On the funny page maybe. I'd like to see the newspaper that would publish such a yarn."
Alas for poor Billy! Harry was right.
Nobody would believe his strange tale and last he grew tired of telling it, and even to hardly credit it himself.
As for George Desmond's time-yellowed pages they repose in the Smithsonian Institute, and after a learned wrangle between savants of all countries—lasting many months—it was agreed that the poor explorer must have lost his mind and that the narrative of the Flying Men was the offspring of a brain crazed by suffering.
"It's a strange termination to our adventures to be steaming home on Barr's yacht," said Frank, after a long pause in which they had all gazed back at the fast dimming shore of the Dark Continent.
"I should say so," cried Lathrop. "It's as near as I ever want to get to him, too."
"Same here," joined in Billy, "but I don't suppose we shall ever hear from him again."
But Billy was wrong.
The boys did hear from Luther Barr again and in an extraordinary manner. The malevolent old man was to be the cause of some surprising adventures in which the boys at the risk of their lives were once more pitted against powerful enemies.
With what flying colors they emerged from their dangers, difficulties and adventures will be told in the next volume of this series—"THE BOY AVIATORS' TREASURE QUEST; or THE GOLDEN GALLEON."
THE END