In that position, totally unsuspicious of his presence, no one onEl Libertadwas paying attention to his side of the river mouth.
Two ideas, two courses of action, sprang into Tom’s mind. The first was this: he recalled that when the trio had lain, tied hand and foot on the floor of theLibertad’scabin, the drip-drip of the gasoline from a leaky carbureter gasket had become very noticeable.
He recalled that Mr. Coleson had mentioned it to Senor Ortiga, that night when they had returned from their fruitless hunt, and said he must fix it. The idea Tom had was that if he could manage to get on board, unobserved, and loosen the carbureter or destroy it, the white boat would be powerless to escape. But the men were all congregated at the stern, all except the steersman, up in the cubby where the wheel was located, at the forward end of the cabin.
The second idea grew from the first: in the bow was the main gasoline tank; a pipe line of copper ran along, close under the edge of the cabin flooring, and up forward there was a petcock in the line, so that the flow of what Mr. Coleson, in his English fashion, called “petrol” could be cut off in case of a break in the line. “Now,” decided Tom, “if I could get aboard and turn that cock without my action being discovered, the engine would stop as soon as it sucked the compression tank dry—about a tenth of a mile. Then they’d have to surrender or be starved out, and we could signal for help, and certainly pick them off. Maybe, with Cliff, I could plan to get Nicky free first! I’m going to try it!”
Tom made as little noise as he possibly could, climbing out of his retreat; if he was discovered, he must be shot!
But they were all busy listening to some plea or argument from the lieutenant. Tom made his dip into the water without apparently attracting the least bit of notice.
He waded softly, as far as he could, then with deft, quiet strokes, drew steadily, if slowly, closer—closer—closer!
If only they all kept out of range below the cockpit and cabin coaming! Evidently, in spite of the danger to Nicky, none of the desperate crew cared for a chance shot from the cutter. They stayed low.
Tom reached the side of the almost inert white hull; with only a slight drift taking her gradually past the cutter, she was evidently being permitted to lie still until the drift got her out of the way of the cutter, or far enough into open water so that she could be turned and steered in a forward run.
Tom, huddled close under the hull, holding to the loop of the anchor rope which hung down, listened. As he came on he noticed that the cutter was edging up, and that Nicky had been dragged off of the after deck. Tom believed that he knew why. They had threatened to do something to Nicky in order to stop the cutter from edging up.
A shrill cry from theLibertad, right over his head, made Tom almost let go of his rope; then he realized that to him it did not sound like Nicky’s voice! They were frightening the lieutenant with a falsified noise, the cry of a falsetto voice among the crew.
He could not see, clinging under the hull, but he guessed that the ruse had succeeded; he guessed, also; that, if ever, now was his moment to act.
El Libertadhad drifted at least a boat’s-length back from the river mouth; probably most of her crew would be looking toward the cutter which must, by the changed position, be off her forward beam. Tom lifted his hand until he could loosen it from the rope without letting the cable slap the side, then dropped back into the water, pulled alongside the hull toward the stern, and there reached up and caught the rail with one hand.
Would he be seen?
Slowly he drew the other hand to the rail. Nothing happened. He suppled his muscles and then with all their aid working in the slow, upward pull, he drew his eyes level with the deck.
They were all forward, intent on something—Nicky or the cutter!
Tom pulled himself up higher, made an effort, and by ill fortune, on the instant of success, slipped on the wet rail, and plumped down in a heap in the cockpit, aft.
Nicky, held, as he was, between two pairs of strong arms, with Mr. Coleson on one side of him and Tew on the other, saw that Lieutenant Sommerlee, with his two patrols in the cutter, was “in a fix.” It was plainly to be seen that the naval man did not dare to open fire, because of the threat to Nicky; nor did he dare to approach.
The lieutenant had prolonged the parley, making offers and trying, by threat, by pleading, by persuasion, to induce the desperate crew ofEl Libertadto see reason, to give themselves up.
Nicky had somewhat loosened the rope around his wrists, but he did not let this be known because he knew that he could not make his escape and he wanted to save his strength for a surprise at a more advantageous time.
Tom, flopping his wet, naked body onto the after deck and tumbling unceremoniously into the cockpit, turned every man’s attention in that direction.
“So help me!” shouted Tew, “it’s a mermaid—no, a merman—what’s come floppin’ aboard.” He released one of Nicky’s arms and crawled aft. Don Ortiga still kept Nicky covered with his weapon, a menacing glow in his eyes. All of the crew crouched because they did not want to risk the chance of an unexpected shot from the cutter. Crawling to where the engineer was rocking the flywheel, getting the engine to start again, Tew confronted Tom.
“What brought you aboard?” he demanded.
“I came to be with my chum!” declared Tom. “If you’ll let me get Mr. Coleson’s jumper out of the engine locker, I’ll thank you.” Tew nodded and Tom secured the jumper with which to cover his body.
Lieutenant Sommerlee saw the naked body land onEl Libertadand realized that it was Tom’s, but did not see why the boy had deliberately gone into danger.
However, as attention seemed to be distracted from him he seized the opportunity to make a sign to the man at the cutter’s engine and that sailor, with careful hand, advanced his throttle, so that the engine got more gas and picked up. The cutter began to nose in to closer quarters with the white boat.
At the same time Senor Ortiga drew a weapon and pointed it toward Tom.
“You come forward,” he commanded. “Tew—or somebody—tie him up.”
“All right, if you think I can do any harm,” said Tom quietly, “but take that handkerchief out of Nicky’s mouth. What can he do by talking that can hurt you? It’s simply cruelty to gag him!”
“Take it out!” snapped Don Ortiga. “We don’t intend to be cruel, but you fellows are interfering with us and we are going to use you to cover our escape—then we will see what to do with you later.”
“All right,” agreed Tom, pretending to extend his arms toward Tew.
“Keep away!” shouted Senor Ortiga to the cutter.
But she had headway and was coming on. Lieutenant Sommerlee had decided that he must risk the possibility of harm to the boys—he held that they would hesitate a long moment before they would stain their hands with a crime against life.
In that he was right, because the most hardened criminals are really cowards and, unless maddened or morally perverted, they will be more afraid of death than of imprisonment, and will weigh their chances of escape to the last instant before actually committing a major crime.
Nicky, seeing that his chance might have come, suddenly wrenched his shoulder out of the grip of the sailor, at the same instant giving the sailor a thrust with his hands, and ripping them free of the rope. The sailor staggered, being off balance in his crouching position; he cannoned against Don Ortiga.
Tom, fastening the strap of the jumper he had donned, saw Nicky’s move, and, being upright, saw Lieutenant Sommerlee rise in the cutter and take aim at one of the men.
With a catlike leap he sprang against Tew, knocking him off his feet against the engineer; the two men clutched one another for support.
Tom, his plan of action made sure, had seen a wrench lying on the floor. For this he reached; he got it in his hand and arose. He turned toward the engine. The wrench rose in the air and came down with all Tom’s force, sidewise, toward the carbureter.
But Tew had divined his purpose and with a superhuman effort caught the swinging arm and by his superior strength diverted the blow enough so that it clanged harmlessly against the water-cooling outer casing of the motor.
Tom, seeing the futility of his blow, released the wrench.
As he sprang back there came a report from the cutter.
But at the same instant Don Ortiga fired back, crying “Down—flat—everybody!” They all crouched.
“Jump—Nicky!” cried Tom. “Jump overboard.”
Nicky leaped onto the cushioned side seat and tried to elude the gripping hands. Tom, on his end of the cabin floor, made a similar effort. The engine roared as contact was made, and theLibertad, gathering headway, swung her nose and made straight for the cutter.
Lieutenant Sommerlee and his two men were firing, but while woodwork in the cabin window sashes flew in splinters, they had to fire carefully so as not to touch the two boys.
Tom and Nicky were struggling, each caught by the legs. They strove manfully against the heavy odds, but while the men dared not show their heads, or expose their bodies to the fire from the cutter, they could drag at the boys in safety.
The uneven struggle lasted only a moment and the boys were lying, pinioned, panting, helpless on the cabin floor.
TheLibertad, veering suddenly, made a sweeping curve, turning aside from the cutter. In the position which the cutter was faced, coming head-on, she had to pass astern of theLibertadbefore her men could control the tiller and turn her rudder.
Nicky and Tom, lying on the floor, could not see; but they heard the foul words of theLibertad’screw and saw the flashes of their weapons. Directed against the three in the cutter, their superior fire was a menace that Lieutenant Sommerlee could not overcome; before he could, under the circumstances, get the cutter around,El Libertadwas racing, full speed, for the channel that led outward. The cutter came on, but theLibertadhad the headway and the advantage of her straight course while the cutter had to swing in a wide circle before she could take full advantage of her speed.
“You boys will be sorry for what you tried,” grated Don Ortiga.
“We’re sorry now,” said Tom shortly. “We are sorry that we tried to get away.”
“Yes,” panted Nicky, “we ought to have succeeded.”
He turned his head toward Tom, his lips shaped words, but only Tom, reading his lips, got the message.
“There’s only one hope,” Nicky’s lips formed, “Cliff!”
Cliff, on board the strandedSenorita, with Sam and Jim and the naval patrol sailor, Jack, knew nothing of the exciting events that had just occurred.
Nor did he guess that an escaping white boat full of desperate men was laying its course to pass his station.
Tom’s effort to destroy the carbureter had drawn the attention of the crew to the engineer’s repeated assertions that the leaky old carbureter was wasting gas, and that they ought to be sure they had enough to run the channel and escape.
“But where can we get any more?” said Senor Ortiga.
“On the wreckedSenorita, of course,” snapped his brother. “Her tanks are almost full.”
“But with the cutter coming, how can we stop for gas?” demanded Tew.
“Easy,” said a sailor, and revealed a plan.
Of all that Cliff was ignorant. He, with Sam, Jim and the sailor, had stood watch-and-watch through the night and up into the day.
But nothing had altered the monotony.
But excitement was coming, and coming fast!
Nicky and Tom had been unceremoniously roped and flung into the open cockpit aft of the engine compartment. The cockpit was a low step higher than the cabin flooring, but its coaming and sides were so high that all the two chums could see was the sky and, when they ran close to an islet, the tops of the trees where these grew near the water.
The cutter had been delayed for a moment to pick up Mr. Neale and Brownie, who had rowed with all their might and had sighted the cutter in time to hail her and to be taken aboard. Lieutenant Sommerlee wanted Brownie, a good shot, and Mr. Neale would be able to play a part if hand-to-hand fighting came about.
He sent Brownie forward and bade him scan the water closely as they put full speed on to chase theLibertad, long since passed out of view beyond the first island of the archipelago.
“I suspect they will try to do something to delay us,” the lieutenant said. “They may drop something in the channel, for there is one place where it is very narrow and quite shallow, and almost any large object—an anchor, sticking up on the coral, would crush our bow planks at the speed we’re making.”
Brownie kept a sharp watch, and soon discovered, as they approached the narrowest and shallower part of the channel, something dark on the bottom.
“Cliff and Jack and the colored men will stop them I hope,” said the commander as they slowed and drew near to the submerged danger.
“They will, if they can do it,” Brownie said. He dropped over the bow and discovered that his commander had foreseen exactly what had been done; theLibertad’sanchor had been cut loose, and, with some spare engine parts, had been flung from the white boat’s stern into the channel with the hope that the cutter would run onto them and be entirely disabled, before they were noticed.
While the damage was averted, it took time to lift the heavy metal under the water, and to displace it.
Meanwhile Cliff sat on the slanting deck of theSenorita, with Jack and Sam, while Jim hung close above them on the top of the cabin, his eyes fixed on the distances of the channel.
“What will you do if they come in daylight?” Cliff looked up at him to ask.
“Shoot at the waterline and let the water in,” said Jack.
“But they’ll shoot back,” objected Cliff.
“That’s the chance we have to take,” Jack answered.
“We might load up the signal cannon with some slugs, or something,” suggested Jim. He had begged Cliff’s pardon for his part in the tying-up and other maltreatment aboard theSenorita; Jim was not a bad being at heart; he had been employed by Senor Ortiga and Mr. Coleson and had only done their bidding, with no animosity or cruelty in his actions. Cliff had readily forgiven him. Jim, thus made happy, was just as determined to help the side of right and justice as he had been, before, to earn his pay honestly, as he saw honesty and his duty to his employers.
“The cannon wouldn’t carry the slugs any distance,” said Sam.
“But they’d have to pass within three feet of us,” said Jim.
He pointed overside to the channel, where the deep water was at the side of the wrecked vessel. “This boat ran onto coral because her tiller rope broke, remember! There’s plenty of water, and they can pass us, but they’ll have to steer close.”
Cliff nodded.
“If you fellows won’t think I’m bossy,” he said, modestly, “and if Jack won’t be mad and think I want to be the leader, I’d like to say something.”
“Go ahead,” said Jack. “Always open to good ideas, buddy!”
Cliff expounded a plan: his first idea was that to fire at the vessel, if she ever came, would bring about firing in response. If they could in some way lure some of the hi-jackers onto theSenorita, without their own numbers being endangered, several of them might board the other boat and destroy her steering gear, or even capture her.
Jack liked the plan better than he did his own.
“I’m for it,” he said. “If you can get them to stop—if they come out at all, and if they get past the cutter, which I don’t see how they can!”
“Jim, they know, is on board,” Cliff said. “My plan would be for Sam, and you, Jack, and me, to hide behind the cabin where they couldn’t see us, and have Jim hail them, if they come close enough and slow up enough to let him jump aboard—and they might not. But if they didn’t, Jim could be up forward on the cabin, and keep their attention on that end of the boat, and when they come abreast maybe one or more of us could run around the after end of the cabin and jump aboard.”
“Pretty wild chance,” commented Sam. “But it’s better than risking our necks standing up to be shot at—we’d have at least the chance of surprising them, and if we got aboard——”
“There’s a rocket!” cried Jack. “And another—” They all scrambled onto the cabin and stared toward the distant coast. Three puffs of smoke hung in the air, low over the trees.
“Nicky’s signal—or the cutter’s,” Cliff cried. “Be ready for—for anything!”
The wait was tedious. Their nerves were taunt and their voices when they spoke briefly were rather shrill and shaky. They did not know what was happening or what might happen. Would they be called on, really, to try to stop a band of hi-jackers? It seemed very easy when they discussed it in calm security; but with those signals shredding into nothing in the air, the reality and seriousness of their position came home to them all.
The time seemed endless, but finally Jim, alone on the cabin roof, whispered down, without moving enough to disclose the fact to his oncoming adversaries, “here she comes—El Libertad—and a-hummin’.”
“How many on her? Who can you see?” asked Cliff, tensely.
The white craft came ahead at her full speed. After a brief wait Jim answered Cliff. “I see my old boss, Senor Ortiga,” he said, “and Marse Coleson! And some other men—why, it’s the men who used to be in business with my boss, only they turned hi-jackers. Yes, sar, there’s Don Ortiga, the brother—and Tew—and all o’ them, the very ones we sent you to with that message in the can.”
“I know,” said Cliff. “Never mind, now—hail them, aren’t they near enough?” Being under the cabin wall for concealment he was not able to see.
“Now they are,” said Jim softly and sent a hail across the water.
“Take me off, stop and take me off—Master Coleson, it’s Jim!” he shouted. There was no answer. The white boat, as he reported in low tones, between hails, was slowing up, and coming closer, losing way—stopping. Jim, to carry out his part, sprang down from the cabin.
Cliff, Sam and Jack crouched; they were no longer able to tell what was happening, but they knew that Jim would call out “Bless you for saving me!” if he got aboard and then they could act quickly, knowing that the boat would be opposite their end of the cabin.
Instead, another voice came, loud and clear.
“We’ll see about taking you off; we’re stopping! We need gas.”
“How’d you get gas?” asked Jim, from the deck rail. “You ain’t got no way to pump it from one tank to the other!”
“Yes we have,” called the voice. Cliff thought it sounded like Tew. “We got a hose rigged to our bilge pump, and we’ll pump with that.”
The white boat scraped along theSenorita’stilted side, and men swarmed over onto her deck; the crouching three heard their boots scrabble, thud and clump about. They were forward, and Jim had run along the forward end of the craft to continue his talk. The after end of theSenoritawas, therefore, beyond the after rail of the shorter boat.
Cliff inched his way around the aft side of the cabin until he could peer forward, taking a big chance, but feeling that he must see.
Jack, and Sam, creeping close behind him, waited in suspense.
Cliff took a swift peep and ducked back.
“They’re stretching a hose to theSenorita’sforward tank,” he breathed. “There are some men on theSenorita, and—let me look again!”
He protruded his head again, and then he thought he heard a low whistle.
Cliff turned, looking down toward the stern of the white vessel.
There, trussed up like two turkeys, in the cockpit of theLibertad, lay Tom and Nicky, the latter grinning a little sheepishly.
Cliff turned to his companions. His voice came in swift, whispered words. Jack nodded.
“We’ll do it!” he answered, hoarsely. “Inch as close as you can and we’ll be behind you. You take the cockpit, and free your chums. I’ll race forward, shooting, call Jim to help, and try to prevent the others from getting off our wreck. Sam, you shoot—in the air, in the water—anywhere; but shoot, load again and shoot—holler and try to scare them if you can’t hit them!”
“All right,” said Sam. Cliff inched along the deck. He was in plain view, now, from forward on theSenorita, or from theLibertad.
But the trio in the cabin of the latter vessel were deep in conversation, and the men were busy with the hose.
“Start your bilge pump!” called a sailor. Tew, on the white boat, bent and engaged a clutch; there was a heavy grind of gearing and the slow pulsation of a pump.
“Now!” whispered Cliff, and dashed for the rail.
“Look out—we’re caught!” yelled a man, on guard atop theSenorita’scabin, watching for the cutter. He fired at Cliff, but Sam, reaching a black arm over the cabin studding, yanked his leg, threw him off balance, and spoiled aim. Shooting, yelling, Jack charged up narrow deck, Sam at his heels.
Cliff leaped and landed beside Nicky!
Things happened so fast and so thick that no one could have told a story of all that went on. Cliff, landing on all fours, beside Nicky, was up on his knees in an instant, tugging his knife from his pocket, ripping open its blade.
He slashed at Nicky’s rope, and loosened it; again he slashed and then, at a warning cry from Tom, he looked over his shoulder, but too late.
Nicky, frantically tugging to loosen the cut rope, saw Tew coming but was as helpless as Tom.
Cliff dropped his knife and tried to get up, to turn, to ward off the blow. Tew, his face working in a rage, his whole, muscular frame behind his stout arm, drove a fist at Cliff’s head. Cliff instinctively threw up his arm. The fist crashed against it, flung him by its force against the cockpit thwart, and Cliff felt sick and faint, struggled to rise, saw the world turn black, big and little pinwheels whirl before his eyes, and sank in a heap.
Tew turned, and raced back to his engine. Nicky, his whole being burning with a fire of fury, tore at his rope and began to loosen it.
On theSenorita, the man atop her cabin was firing at Sam and Jack but they, under the shelter of the cabin, were crouched low, scampering up the deck, loading their pistols.
The men forward with the hose, taken by surprise, without their weapons in their hands, scattered, several leaping into the water and making for the islet close at hand.
Jim had already leaped into the forward cabin of theLibertad, and with his pistol aimed toward the deck of the vessel just above, was warning off those who wanted to leap down. They stopped, not daring to leap.
Nicky got his arms free, threw the rope impatiently off and bent over Cliff. His chum lay inert, stunned by the shock as his head had struck the wood in his fall.
Nicky turned, to look for the knife, to free Tom.
On the cabin top the man on watch gave over firing and shouted a hoarse warning!
“The cutter!” he roared, “she’s coming!”
Full speed up the channel came Lieutenant Sommerlee’s craft, with Brownie, the lieutenant and the two sailors forward, Mr. Neale at the tiller, aft.
The men on theSenoritaleaped to the water, Jack and Sam coming from concealment, standing erect, ordering them to surrender and firing at their heads as they scrambled for the islet and cover on the farther shore.
In the cabin of theLibertadthe two men, Mr. Coleson and Don Ortiga, called to Senor Ortiga, who was on the deck of theSenorita, and at the same time a rifle ball, from the man on the cabin, aimed quickly at Jim, cut into the flesh of the colored man’s arm and he dropped his weapon.
Without an instant’s hesitation, Senor Ortiga leaped upon him, landed in the cabin, bent double, knocking Jim aside, and began to reach for the wheel, as Tew, leaping for the spark lever, advanced the spark, and at the same time threw the gear lever out of mesh with the bilge pump and into the gear with the engine propeller shaft.
As the engine took the spark and began to roar, Mr. Coleson, his face white, leaped past Tew to get to the cabin windows and thus to jump out into the channel and take his chance on swimming clear.
Nicky made a lunge past Tew, to stop Mr. Coleson, but his foot caught on the hose, still connected loosely to the bilge pump, and tore it free. There came the gurgle of the gas still in it, as it flowed over the floor in a trickling, spreading pool.
Nicky missed his catch, and saw Mr. Coleson leap free and plunge overside into the channel.
From the cutter came hails and shots.
On theSenoritaSam and Jack had captured one man, and were firing at the islet.
Nicky felt himself caught by the nape of the neck as he tried to recover his balance. With his face white with rage, Don Ortiga brought Nicky upright and sent him, with the full force of his strong arms, toward the forward cabin. Then, as Nicky sprawled in a heap, Don Ortiga turned on his brother, just arising to face him.
“This is your fault!” he grated. “If you hadn’t come in and left your boat to be discovered——”
“Be still!” cried his brother. “Where is the gold—we must get it away—some of it!”
“It is safe!” growled Don Ortiga.
“Then let’s go away from this spot!”
“I shall go. You shall stay. Here and now we settle an old score,” cried Don Ortiga. Nicky saw him unsheathe a knife, and at the same instant Senor Ortiga, seeing his danger, leaped to grip the arm holding the knife.
Nicky, rushing past Tew, who was steering the craft, its momentum increasing with every turn of the propeller, tried to trip Don Ortiga, but the other man leaped aside, thrust at him with a foot, and at that instant Senor Ortiga caught the wrist of his hand holding the knife and a battle ensued that made Nicky gasp.
Amid the shouts and the shots from the cutter, amid the cries of men being caught or being fired at in the water, with the craft making steady way under Tew’s guidance, those two brothers strove and strained, fighting wordlessly for the possession of that knife.
Nicky was held spellbound for an instant.
Then, with a cruel trick, Don Ortiga lifted a knee and caught the brother he hated in a vital spot and Senor Ortiga, with a groan, relaxed his hold on the knife.
Don Ortiga stepped back, his face a mask of hate and fury.
His brother began to recover, for the blow had not been delivered with enough force to be permanently damaging.
“And now, as I said, we settle old scores!” hissed Don Ortiga.
With a hand that shook he extracted a cigarette from a case in his pocket, staring in meditation on his evil plan while his brother, groaning and white, gained his balance.
Don Ortiga scraped a match roughly against its box, lit his cigarette and then, flicking his match carelessly, loosed it.
Nicky cried out shrilly.
“The gas!” yelled Nicky. “Get away! The gas!”
Senor Ortiga sensed the danger, and so did his brother. Both acted; the Don leaped back to the cockpit and began to scramble to its side, his brother trying to crawl out of the window.
It all happened in a fraction of a second—the match was in the air, the men were escaping, Nicky was leaping back toward Tew for he saw what was coming.
Tew, as the match landed, yelled in terror and began to climb from the cabin to the forward deck and there leaped into the water.
As he did so there was a flash, a roar and a seething, boiling pool of flaming gasoline covered the cabin floor around the engine!
Nicky, whose first instinctive impulse had been self-preservation, instantly thought of his chums in the cockpit—of Tom, bound—of Cliff, perhaps still insensible.
The men were being rounded up, by shouting navy men and those who helped. But of this, of the effort of Mr. Coleson to escape, of his capture, of the capture of the Don and of his brother, Nicky knew nothing.
His whole mind was fixed on one purpose.
He must get through a lake of seething flame to his chums!
The cockpit was a bare few inches above the floor level of the engine compartment, and so the gasoline had not spread; but the flame was licking the sides of the cabin, flaring through the windows, and, fanned by the speed of the vessel’s movement, bellied out aft over the boys.
Nicky was almost thrown off his feet as theLibertadthrust her nose, unguided by human hand, against the side of the coral, and with a jolt stopped.
Nicky gained his equilibrium and leaped for the foredeck; there he climbed swiftly atop the low cabin and began to run along its length.
As he ran he shouted wildly to Lieutenant Sommerlee and Mr. Neale.
They heard him and the cutter swung her nose toward the beached vessel with its cabin blazing.
Nicky saw flames leap up through the windows and lick at the roof and blow over it in the light breeze. It was hot to his feet, still he went on, a handkerchief over his face, crouching low as he ran.
He stopped, at the after end, for a sheet of flame was bellying out. But it subsided, and taking what might be his last chance, he leaped onto all-fours beside Tom.
Cliff was moaning, stirring. Nicky shouted again to those in the cutter and Mr. Neale leaned far over the bow, to reach the white stern at the very first instant.
With seething flame behind him, threatening to belch out over him at any instant, with the cockpit edge beginning to burst into flame, Nicky found Cliff’s knife and sawed Tom’s bonds. Then, cutting down the ropes between his legs so he could stand and work, Nicky let Tom help his own final escape while he tugged and worked to get Cliff in his arms.
“Be still,” urged Nicky. “It’s all right!”
Sam and Jack had seen the fire occur; with a common impulse they had leaped into theSenorita’scabin to get the patent fire extinguishers always kept in an engine room. With these they leaped back to the deck and alongside the flaming cabin as Nicky crossed it.
Turning the extinguishers upside down to break their containers and allow the chemicals to fuse and mix and create pressure and a spouting flow of watery gas, they turned the short nozzles onto the cockpit and cabin. There was the roar and hiss of chemicals meeting their flaring enemy.
There came a great puff of smoke and flame, but Nicky, just in time, on the edge of the cockpit, with Cliff in his arms, leaped!
He struck the water, and began to swim, holding Cliff’s head up!
Tom, freeing himself at the same time, sprang into the water and paddled to his chums.
The cutter came alongside and they were drawn from the water.
And then, with a violent roar as the fire found the gas line and fresh fuel, the fire blazed up again.
“The tank—the aft tank!” cried Jim, leaping from the cabin floor where he had, with his hurt arm, been trying to get theLibertad’sextinguisher into play. “The tank! Get away!”
He leaped into the water and swam off, and at the same time, with a glorious feeling that some High Power had held back the end until all were safely away, Nicky, in the cutter, sawEl Libertad’sstern burst into a mass of fire, sparks and rending wooden splinters.
Her stern, literally blown to bits, sank, blazing and hissing, into the channel, leaving her still blazing with her nose on the coral.
There was nothing to do about it.
“But the treasure—” gasped Cliff, who had come to himself somewhat, with a good sized bruise on his temple. “It will all be melted.”
“Let it melt!” cried Nicky. “As long as you and Tom are safe!”
And, with no further word than a tight grip of Cliff’s hand, Nicky watched wordlessly the blazing pyre of all their seeking.
“The gold won’t burn,” Lieutenant Sommerlee consoled the boys.
“And there is more in the coral ‘safe,’” said Mr. Neale.
They laid off all that day, watched the embers sink down to the water’s edge, saw the last spark die, and then plumbed the wreckage for the treasure, hoping that in a state of molten yellow blocks it would be brought up. But no golden bars were there, nor could a single glint of melted metal be discovered, though Sam, Jim and Brownie dived with a will and almost tore the charred insides out of theLibertad.
“Where can it be?” mused Mr. Neale.
They questioned their captives, but all were silent. With a fierce grimace of hate Don Ortiga told them they would never find it.
But Nicky held on firmly to hope!
Jamaica’s Blue Mountains, looking with their lordly heads over the wide expanse of a sunlit sea, discerned a white sail. That was no unusual sight to them; but this particular sail seemed, in some way, to be more important than the rest.
It was. Under its wide, unreefed expanse, three youths, a colored and a white man watched eagerly for the closer signs of the island’s harbor at Kingston.
In time they landed, and, after a while, they had secured a conveyance and were whirling out through the lazy streets, noticing with delight the familiar sights, the indolent colored people on the streets and in the shops, the family “flitting” or moving, its colored woman heading the procession with the dining room table balanced on her head, its legs sticking aloft, the family stuff piled within its upturned top; while the children bore their respective loads and the man of the family, as usual, stalked along behind—carrying nothing!
“It’s great to see the cactus again!” grinned Nicky, noting the great plants by the wayside when they left the city and rose into higher ground, seeing cactus plants many feet high, sometimes making a veritable forest with their close-set ranks.
In time Mr. Gray, Cliff’s father, greeted them on the old plantation. They had cabled from Florida before sailing back in Sam’sTreasure Belle.
Many were the greetings exchanged, and long were the tales that had to be told. Nelse and the hi-jackers were in prison.
“Mr. Coleson was let go free,” Nicky explained. “I guess the naval patrol did not want to get into any trouble with the British—or the authorities in Jamaica.”
“It would have brought about complications,” said Mr. Neale. “I understand that Mr. Coleson won’t return to Jamaica.”
“He cabled me,” said Mr. Gray. “He asked me if I wanted to buy this plantation.”
“Will you?” Cliff asked his father, the scholar who wrote many books about ancient civilizations.
“No, sar,” broke in Sam, smiling his bright smile. “But Sam will.”
“So that’s how you will spend your share of the treasure?” asked Nicky.
“Part of it,” agreed Sam.
“But you haven’t yet told me how you discovered it,” Mr. Gray said. “You stopped at the point where you failed to bring it up from the burned vessel.”
“Well,” said Nicky, “we ‘worked’ a little voodoo, sort of, didn’t we, fellows?” Tom and Cliff nodded.
“You see, if the treasure wasn’t in the burned boat somebody must have hidden it,” Cliff took up the explanation. “Nicky suggested that we make an experiment. He thought that as long as Don Ortiga declared, up and down, he knew nothing about it, and Senor Ortiga and Mr. Coleson said the same, it might be that somebody else had hidden it during the night. Mr. Coleson, who was sorry for what he had done, tried to help us, and we believed his statement.”
“Yes,” said Tom. “So Nicky got Sam and Jim, the colored boys, and made them tell all they knew, or guessed, about voodoo.”
“He certainly was clever, sar,” broke in Sam. “He found out that we had heard of people ‘divining’ from tricks, and that night we had a voodoo affair on the after deck of theSenorita.”
“Yes,” Cliff took up the tale, “Nicky got Lieutenant Sommerlee to get the sailors and Tew together on the deck, then he and Sam and Jim put on a regular show, making believe they were going to find out who knew about it. They had a smoky fire, and took bits of hair off the heads of the sailors and burned them. Tew acted as though he was afraid of it all—he was superstitious. So he refused to give us his hair and then Sam, here, pretended to slip up behind him and snip some off with a knife. And that made Tew nervous, but what we really burned was some of the other sailors’ hair—only Tew didn’t know that. Then Sam leaped up and pointed to Tew, and said: ‘You know, sar,’ and Tew broke down and showed by his face that he did.
“And do you know where it was?” demanded Nicky, unable to repress himself any longer. “He had waited till they were all asleep, the night before they were caught, and he had dropped the bars, one at a time, into a pool beside the boat. We found them there.
“And Lieutenant Sommerlee took us around to Miami, and we stayed there several days, unloaded the gold bars, had the bank assay and value them, and deposited—oh, a heap for everybody!”
“And of course the hi-jackers were sent to prison,” Tom added.
“Has anyone been found belonging to the old Governor’s family who should rightfully share in our find?” asked Mr. Neale.
“Yes,” said Mr. Gray. “An old, widowed lady, and she will be very glad of the money for she is poor.”
The boys were glad for her, and unselfishly voted to add a little from their plenty to help the lady. Later she refused to take more than a fair part, for that, she said, would keep her in easy circumstances for the rest of her life.
While the boys were adding details of their adventure and discussing what they might do with some of the gold, and Mr. Neale and Mr. Gray were comparing notes on the gold figures and silver placques of a looted Inca city which had been secured later from the treasure key, a knock came at the door and Ma’am Sib, the old voodoo woman, came in with a goggle-eyed boy of dark skin and about ten years old.
“Who sen for Ma’am Sib?” she demanded in her high, querulous tones. “Did you, white sirs?”
“We did,” Nicky stated. “We, the three members of a secret order as powerful as any in the world.”
She looked at him sharply to see if he was joking or trying to make her feel ridiculous. Oddly enough, Nicky was really serious.