Suddenly Pant’s brow cleared. He climbed to a higher level. The engines stopped all at once. But this was because he had thrown back the lever. As they glided silently down, there came to them the old welcome sound of breakers. Johnny Thompson, leaning far out of the cabin, swept the sea with a pair of binoculars.
“Over to the right,” he exclaimed.
“Land?” asked the Professor.
“An island; ours, I think. A rocky promontory to the south, flat to the north, just as the sailors described it.”
“Thank God! We have made it!” The Professor brushed cold perspiration from his brow. “I was afraid—afraid of many things.”
The motors were again started, only to be shut off five minutes later. Then they began the delightful circling journey which was to bring them to a safe harbor and their goal. This time there was no trying uncertainty; there was still fuel in their tank and they knew something of the place to which they were coming.
“I hope we don’t have to.”
“We’ll go back and try for some sweet potatoes in the morning. I think perhaps I’ll find another use for the rice.”
“What?”
Pant did not answer. “Funny bunch, those brown boys,” he mused. “Don’t savvy English, but they know Uncle Sam’s money, all right. It’s that way all over the world.”
The island was very narrow. They soon found themselves on the beach facing the bay where the “Dust Eater,” as they called the seaplane, was anchored.
It was decided that they should take turns at the watch, three hours to the watch. This would give each of them six hours of sleep and fit them for whatever of fortune or misfortune lay in their immediate future.
The Professor took the first watch, Pant the second. Pant had hardly begun to pace the beach on his watch when there sounded across the waters the quick pop-pop-pop of a motor. His first thought was of the “Dust Eater,” but immediately he laughed at his fears; the popping was made by a much less powerful motor than those belonging to their seaplane.
The sound came from toward the south end of the island. Racing down the beach, tripping over sand-brush and bits of drift here and there, he managed to arrive in time to see the tail-light of a motorboat fast disappearing out on the sea.
“The Orientals and their men!” he exclaimed disgustedly. “It was stupid of us not to keep track of them. They might have given us a lift to the very island we’re bound for. We were too played out to think clearly, though, and now they’re gone.”
He walked slowly back toward their camp.
“Since that’s settled,” he thought to himself, “it’s time I was trying something else. I’ll get at it at once.”
Arrived at camp, he cut open one of the large sacks of rice and poured a quart of it in an aluminum kettle. Placing the kettle in the bottom of the canvas boat, he shoved off and was soon at the door of the cabin on the “Dust Eater.”
For a moment he paused to gaze about him. He had never seen anything quite like the night that lay spread out before him. The moon, a great, yellow ball, hung high in the heavens; the sea, now calm, lay sparkling in the moonlight, while the palms shot skyward, a blue-black fringe on the garment of night.
He had little time for such reveries, however. There was work to be done.
Once inside the cabin, he took up a trapdoor in its floor and, from the space beneath, drew out a strange circular arrangement. To this he attached wires running from a line of batteries hung securely against the walls. He next poured his quart of rice into a small hopper at the top of the circular mechanism. There came a snap-snap as he threw in a switch. A whirling grinding sound followed. Presently, from a small tube, there began to pour forth a white powder, finer than the finest flour. This he caught in the kettle.
“Ought to work,” he mumbled, as the white pile in the bottom of the kettle grew to a sizable cone.
When the machine gave forth a strange new sound, as of a feed-mill running empty, he snapped off the switch.
“Now we’ll see,” he murmured.
Taking up the kettleful of white dust, he walked back to the fuel tank of the plane, and, with the aid of a funnel, poured in the powder. After screwing on the top, he went back to his old place at the wheel.
He pressed a button here, threw a lever forward there, and at once there came the thunder of a motor. Quickly he threw back the lever. “Don’t want to wake them.” He stood up and peered shoreward.
Satisfied that his companions had not been disturbed, he returned to the cabin and put things to rights.
“Wreck’s to the southeast,” said Johnny. “I can see it plainly. Look’s queer, though; all white, as if there had been a recent snow.”
A moment later, as they circled lower, he laughed and exclaimed: “Sea-gulls!”
It was true. The ship, but recently a staunch sea-craft, had become a roost for sea-gulls. Literally thousands of them rose screaming into the air as the “Dust Eater” gracefully glided into the waters of the sheltered bay.
There is no mystery in all the world greater than a deserted wreck. An old house, an abandoned mill, a cabin in the forest, all these have their charm of mystery, but the wreck of a ship, laden with who knows what treasure, and abandoned by her master, a wreck so remote from inhabited lands that it has not been visited since the night of its disaster, here was mystery indeed.
So eager were they to board the craft that they could scarcely wait until the plane had been made fast and the canvas boat lowered.
One question troubled Johnny: The seamen, taken from the wreck, had reported no native inhabitants of the island, yet some might have been hiding out in the rocky portion of the place, for this island was some three times the size of the island they had just left.
As he climbed up the rope ladder which still dangled from her side, and sprang upon her deck, slippery with guano deposited by the gulls, he kept a sharp watch for any signs of depredation done to the ship since she was deserted. He found none, and no signs of life on the main deck, but as he went down the hatch, he fancied he discovered the faint mark of a bare foot on one step.
Their first thought was of the four chests.
“Was your brother’s berth on the main deck or below?” Johnny asked.
“That I cannot tell,” said the Professor.
“Probably main deck,” said Johnny, “but you can’t be sure. You take the larboard side of the main deck, and, Pant, you take the starboard. I’ll go below and see what I can find. Some of the staterooms will be locked. We can search the open ones first, and pry the others open later if necessary.”
As he sprang down the hatchway, he fancied he heard a sound from below. For a moment he was tempted to turn back. Then with “Probably only a sea-gull,” he dropped on down and began making his way along a dark companionway. He had not gone ten paces when he heard a soft pat-pat of footsteps. The next moment a sharp exclamation escaped his lips.
From the door of a stateroom had appeared a brown head, then another and another.
Suddenly some object whizzed past his head, to strike with a sickening spat in the wall behind him. He did not need to be told it was a knife.
The door of a stateroom stood open beside him. Instinctively he sprang inside and slammed it shut. He was not an instant too soon, for a second knife struck the door. Such force had been used in its throwing, so keen a blade it had, that the point of it struck through the wood the length of Johnny’s little finger.
“Well, now what?” he murmured.
And then he thought of his companions. How was he to warn them before it was too late?
For a single minute Johnny Thompson remained behind the closed door; then his fear for his companions drove him forth. Throwing the door wide open, he made a dash for it. Down the companionway and up the hatch he raced at full speed.
The Professor was the first person he came across.
“Where’s Pant?” he gasped. “Natives on board—murderous fellows!”
“Where?”
“There!” A black form appeared on deck. “Dodge!” exclaimed Johnny, setting the example. “They throw knives!”
It seemed, however, that this precaution was unnecessary, for the black man sprang to the gunwale, then leaped overboard. He was followed rapidly by two others.
Pant had heard something of the commotion, and now came hurrying around the corner of a cabin.
“Natives,” explained Johnny. “Bad ones!”
“Better get to the rifles,” breathed Pant. “Can’t tell how many of them.”
He leaped for the rope ladder. In another minute they were rowing rapidly for the “Dust Eater.” As Johnny climbed to the cabin on the plane he looked back. “There they go!” he exclaimed.
It was true. A long, slender canoe, manned by four husky native paddlers, was shooting over the water at an incredible speed. They were striking boldly out to sea.
“Guess they’re as afraid of us as we are of them,” smiled Johnny.
“Think that’s all of them?” asked Pant.
“Yes, that’s one more than I saw,” answered Johnny.
“We came at a fortunate time,” remarked the Professor. “They doubtless belong to another island and have discovered the wreck in passing. The whole tribe will be along presently to loot it.”
“In that case,” said Johnny, “we’d better work fast.”
“And get away before they come,” said Pant. “Good idea. Plenty of coal to grind up for fuel. Perhaps we can get away before dark.”
After securing the rifles they hastened back to complete their search, confident that the treasure chests would be in their hands in short order.
In a cabin formerly occupied by the chief steward, Johnny found a master key, which expedited their work. With his two companions standing guard, Johnny was able to unlock one stateroom after another in rapid succession. One glance in each was enough to satisfy him that the chests were not to be found there.
When they had made the entire rounds of the main deck, and had discovered no chests of any sort, their hopes fell a trifle. There remained, however, the lower deck. To this they hastened. When this search proved fruitless, they stood for a minute silently looking at one another.
“The hurricane deck!” exclaimed the Professor. “The officer’s cabin!”
Thither they rushed. Here again they were unrewarded.
“What could have happened?” asked the Professor in consternation.
“You don’t suppose he changed his mind and shipped them as cargo, do you?” asked Johnny.
“I hardly think so,” said the Professor, “yet all things are possible.”
“It’s my opinion that those natives carried them off,” said Pant.
“Didn’t in that canoe,” objected Johnny. “Saw right into it. Wasn’t a thing. Might have hid them on shore, though. I suggest that we go ashore and do a little searching, and prepare some sort of meal. There’s food down in the galleys—canned stuff and the like.”
Leaving the Professor to keep watch, the two boys hurried down below, to reappear a few minutes later each with a dishpan full of cans, jars and cartons of food of every description.
“Won’t starve, anyway,” panted Johnny.
“Yes, but whatever we do we’ve got to hurry,” said Pant. “Those natives will be coming back. Then there’ll be no staying on the island for us. Natives are all right when there are plenty of white men about to make them be good, but give them three white men and a shipload of loot and them about a hundred strong, then see how quickly the white men disappear.”
Hurriedly they dumped their supplies into the canvas boat, then paddled rapidly for the shore. They were soon partaking of a hearty meal as they sat upon the fallen trunk of a giant palm in the shade of a delightfully cool grove.
Johnny could scarcely finish his meal in his eagerness to explore that region of the island close to the shore. Before the others had finished eating, he hastened around the end of the grove and came out upon the shore close to an out-jutting rocky cliff. At the base of this cliff he paused in astonishment. Back a little from the beach and against the end of the cliff was a rude cabin built of drift-wreckage from the ship.
With much hesitation he approached the door of the cabin, which was a real door taken from the ship. “Some white man; no native built that,” he murmured as he knocked on the door.
Getting no answer, he knocked again; this time louder. Still no response. Having turned the knob he was surprised to find that the door was not locked. Pushing it back, he looked within. Then, quickly closing it, he raced back to camp.
“Come see what I have found!” he exclaimed. “There must be at least one survivor of the wreck who did not escape with the ship’s crew. There is a cabin built of driftwood at the end of the cliff!”
“A cabin! A cabin!” exclaimed the others, as they sprang up and prepared to follow him.
An inspection of the cabin convinced them that it had been occupied for some time and had been but recently abandoned, if, indeed, the builder might not be expected back at any moment. Some garments of an oriental design hung upon the wall.
“Wonder if he’s a Chinaman?” said Johnny.
There was a well-built bunk on one side of the room, and on the opposite a wood-burning stove improvised out of empty gasoline cans. There was a small table, a ship’s chair and a box of dishes, also a handmade set of shelves well stocked with ship supplies.
As the Professor rummaged about one corner of the room his hand fell upon an object which immediately absorbed his attention. For a few minutes he stood staring at it. Then he whispered to himself:
“Could it be possible? If it only were!”
To the boys he said nothing, but Johnny saw an unaccountable new light of hope in his eyes. “I wonder,” he said, “if this man could have discovered the chests and brought them ashore for safe keeping?”
“I have been wondering that myself,” said the Professor. “It’s worth looking into.”
“In the meanwhile, where is he?” asked Pant.
“The natives may have done for him,” suggested Johnny.
A cloud passed over the Professor’s face. “Let us hope not,” he said quickly. After a moment’s thought, he added: “We must search the island thoroughly. We must find the chests and that man.”
“Do you know,” he said suddenly, drawing an object from his pocket, “that is the razor I learned to shave with when a boy? It was my father’s—an old-styled one, called a ‘pipe razor.’ There was never a better made. I found it in that shack just now.”
The two boys stared but asked no questions.
A few minutes later, while the Professor was gone for a bucket of water, the boys held a brief consultation. “It’s all right to search the island,” said Johnny; “I don’t like the idea of owning up we’re beaten myself, but how about those natives?”
“It’ll be pretty bad if they once land,” said Pant, “but perhaps we can prevent them from landing.”
“I don’t see how. We couldn’t attack them before they had done us any harm.”
“No, we couldn’t, but there may be a way to stop them. Time enough to think about that once they come in sight.”
“And then there’re those chaps who claim the wreck belongs to them.” Johnny’s gaze wandered far out to sea, as if he expected to catch sight of a coil of smoke drifting there. “If they weathered the storm, they’ll soon be down upon us.”
“Can’t do anything about that, either, until it happens,” said Pant.
“All right then, we’ll take up the search. I fancy the Professor will want to be one of the searching party. Will you stay with the camp, or shall I?”
“I’ll stay.”
“Say,” said Pant, a moment later, “it’s funny about that razor he found!”
“Yes, it is. Probably his brother had it on board, and this sailor, or whoever he is, this survivor, took it off and has been using it.”
“Maybe so,” said Pant in a skeptical tone of voice. “Seamen are very superstitious about razors belonging to dead men, though.” If he thought any further along that line, he at least said no more about it at that time.
Several hours later, just as the two searchers were returning from a long and fruitless tramp over the island, and were being cheered by the odor of coffee boiling over an open fire, Pant suddenly pointed to the open sea.
“There they come!” he cried.
Low on the horizon there appeared three long, low sailing vessels.
“Natives!” said Johnny in dismay.
“That’s what,” agreed Pant; “and what’s more, we’ve got to do something about it quickly or they’ll be swarming ashore with murder in their eyes. We’ve got to get to the plane.”
“Will you go along?” asked Pant, pausing to address the Professor.
“I thank you,” said the Professor. “I don’t blame you for seeking safety. As for myself, I shall stay here until I have succeeded in proving certain conclusions I have come to, or else have disproved them.”
The boys rushed on down to the beach, then pushing the canvas boat off, rowed rapidly toward the “Dust Eater.”
“I am afraid,” said Pant, “that our professor friend doesn’t understand us very well.”
“And I fear I don’t understand this move very well, myself.”
“You will shortly.” They had arrived at the seaplane. “You take the wheel; I’ll stay in the cabin.”
Though surprised that he should be requested to fly the plane, Johnny asked no questions, but, taking his place before the wheel, set the engines in motion and soon found himself gliding out over the sea.
“Sail straight out over them,” ordered Pant through the tube, “then hover there as best you can. Not too high though.”
Johnny followed instructions and was soon directly above the three large canoes. He could see the natives plainly. There were twenty or more of them in a canoe. Great, swarthy fellows they were, dressed in all manner of apparel, from a full suit of white duck to a mere breech cloth. They were heavily armed. Johnny was a little startled to note that many of them carried rifles. The plane was not out of range of a good rifle. The natives, apparently stupefied at the appearance of this gigantic bird, were staring upward, making no movement. Even their paddles were idle.
Presently a wisp of smoke rose from one of their canoes.
“That’s strange,” Johnny thought to himself.
The native nearest the spot leaped to one side, and there were frantic efforts to quench the little fire that had started in the side of the boat. While this was being accomplished, however, with all the natives bunched at that end of the boat, a second fire broke out in the other end of this canoe. This fire gained some headway before it was discovered. The boat began to leak. The natives flew into a panic. Some of them leaped overboard and swam toward the other canoes.
When a third blaze appeared in the boat a panic followed. Every native in the canoe forsook her. Plunging into the sea, they made haste to reach the remaining boats.
Pant looked down with interest while the burning boat, now in full blaze, sent flashes of light across the water.
When the last survivor of this strange wreck at sea was aboard the remaining boats, these crafts turned rightabout. Every oar and paddle was set doing double time to carry them out of these mysterious and terrible waters.
“Good thing it happened,” said Pant. “Don’t think we could have trusted them.”
“Not if the sample of knife-throwing they gave me was any sign,” Johnny replied. He was greatly relieved.
“Might as well go back now and join the Professor again in his search,” said Pant. “Hope we can make it snappy, though. That steamer’ll be along any minute now.”
“I’d like to know where those chests are, and what’s in them,” said Johnny.
“So would I.”
Slowly the “Dust Eater” settled down upon the waters of the bay. A few minutes later they were sitting about the fire, making plans for the night’s watch and the morning’s renewal of the search.
“Clouding up. Looks like storm,” said Pant suddenly.
“Hope it doesn’t bring those black boys back to us,” said Johnny, wrinkling his brow.
Before Johnny went to sleep he thought in some wonder of one experience of that day, of the burning of the native canoe. He could not help but connect that up with other incidents: the white fire in the factory and the burning of the automobile in the desert. Had Pant been at the bottom of all these things? If he had been, what strange new power did he possess?
After that he thought for a time of their own problems. Would they ever return to the factory to report the complete success of the new steel and of the dust-burning engines? And would he ever analyze the contents of that vial in the factory laboratory? Of one thing he was certain, and he smiled grimly as he thought of it: they were not likely to be bothered by their ancient enemy, the contortionist, on this desert island.
It was night, a night of storm. The wind had come sweeping in from the sea, bringing rain and rolling waves. It was not a typhoon, but a straight-on nor’wester of great violence. By the aid of an improvised capstan, the two boys had dragged the “Dust Eater” high up on the beach, and, with ropes and wooden stakes had guyed her there.
The storm was now at its height. The wind set the dark clumps of palms swishing and moaning in a dismal fashion. Great sheets of rain beat against Johnny’s face as, wrapped to the chin in a slicker, he went from the cabin close to the cliff where they had taken refuge, down to the beach, to make sure that the guys to the plane were holding firm.
When he had assured himself that all was well, he paused for a moment to gaze out to sea. He was half afraid that the two native boats had not reached their harbor before the storm broke.
“Keeping them off this island is one thing, driving them into the teeth of a storm another; wouldn’t want to be responsible for their deaths,” he mumbled. Then he started.
“What’s that? A light?”
There had come a lull in the storm. The rain had ceased. It seemed to him that, as he strained his eyes to gaze seaward, he made out a light. Now appearing, now disappearing, it seemed to be upon some craft bobbing up and down with the waves that were rolling high.
“Can’t be the natives. No canoe could ride this storm. It might be—” This second thought sent him hurrying across the beach toward the cabin. His companions were asleep, but this was important; he would waken them.
“They’re taking an awful risk,” he explained to Pant and the Professor, a few moments later, as they stood upon the brow of the cliff watching the now unmistakable light of a ship out to sea. “They’re too close in now for safety. Shoals out there, and it seems to me they’re coming closer.”
“Lost their bearings,” suggested Pant.
“Think a beacon fire would help?” asked the Professor.
“Probably would only mislead them,” said Johnny. “Besides, I think it’s rather too late. Unless I mistake their position, they’re due to go aground any minute.”
With strained and expectant faces the three stood watching the bobbing light. Now it appeared, now it was lost to sight, but at each new appearance it seemed to gleam more brightly, as if coming nearer.
They were troubled by this new turn of affairs. There could be little doubt but this was the ship they had seen struggling in the grip of the typhoon, the ship which had come to dismantle the wreck. If she went aground, it would be their duty to assist the unfortunate sailors in every way possible, yet, in doing so, they would doubtless be bringing disaster down upon their own heads. These were rough, unscrupulous men. They would at once suspect the two boys and the Professor of treachery. After that, what would happen? Who could tell? Yet, they were men and, in time of disaster, they must be given every assistance.
The three of them had scarcely thought this through, each in his own way, when Johnny exclaimed suddenly:
“There she goes!”
They caught their breath and waited. The light had disappeared. For a moment they looked in vain for it; then it reappeared, rose higher than ever before, then hung gleaming there like a fixed star.
“Hard aground!” exclaimed Johnny.
“And likely to break up at any minute,” answered Pant.
A moment later there burst out above the ship a ball of fire, then another and another.
“Sending up rockets,” said Pant. “I wonder how they expect to get aid from these desolate shores? No ship could come near them without going aground. No lifeboat could ride such a sea.”
“And yet,” said Johnny, “we must try to give them assistance. If we don’t there’ll not be a man of them alive by morning. Their ship is out where the breakers are rolling strongest, not sheltered by the point, as the Chinese ship was.”
“It’s true,” said the Professor, “we must render them some assistance, but how?”
“The ‘Dust Eater,’” said Johnny.
“Couldn’t ride that sea, even if she could the storm,” said Pant. “What’s your idea?”
“Might not work,” said Johnny, “but in times like these, anything’s worth trying. C’m’on.”
They hastened down to the beach where the “Dust Eater” was straining at her moorings.
“You and the Professor prop up the boat and set the wheels under her, while I work at something else,” said Johnny.
He rushed into the cabin of the “Dust Eater” to return at once with two great balls of stout hempen twine. This was a reserve supply to be used for lashing the wings of the plane in case of accident.
There were quantities of drift timber from the wreck of the Chinese craft scattered about on the beach. After gathering up several of these, Johnny began splitting them into pieces a foot in length and about the size of a broom handle. These, as fast as he had split them, he tied into one end of a ball of cord, leaving a space of six or more feet between each two. When he had worked at this for some time, he at last turned to his companions.
The “Dust Eater” was supplied with a set of starting wheels which might be attached to the beam of her boatlike body. These were for use only when an emergency made it necessary to take a start-off from land. Such an emergency was now at hand. Whether, with the gale blowing, they would be able to make a successful flight, remained to be seen. They were now in a position to make the attempt, for Pant and the Professor had completed their task.
“Now each of you go to a guy behind her and loosen it, but do not let go,” said Johnny. He stepped forward and loosened the two in front.
“Take a snub ’round a stake,” he cautioned, as an afterthought. “Are you ready? There’s two balls of twine on the beach there. I’ve tied some sticks to one end of one of them. The other end of that one is tied to an end of the second one. I’m taking the end with the sticks on in with me. When we get away, Professor, you must attempt to play the line out to us as we fly. Don’t let it break if you can help it. We’re going to try to take them a line. They must have rope enough to reach shore, and pulleys to make a flying car. We can get them ashore if it works. Do you get that?”
“Yes,” came the answer.
Johnny nodded approval.
“All right. Pant, give your guy rope to the Professor. Keep it snubbed, though.”
Pant, understanding his part, climbed into the pilot’s seat.
“Now, Professor, ease away. Give her the dust,” he breathed to Pant.
The engine thundered. They were away with the storm. A wild circle brought them perilously near the cliff, but they missed it.
Johnny felt the slowly growing strain on the cord and knew that the Professor was succeeding with his task.
“Right over her, if you can,” said Johnny.
The wind caught them, nearly dashing them into the sea. The line tangled with the braces, but Johnny managed to drag it free.
“Now, now—right over!” shouted Johnny. The next moment he sent the wood-weighted end of the cord whirling toward the ship. The line burned his fingers, but he clung to it as it played out.
It was a fortunate cast; almost a miracle, was Johnny’s mental comment, for at once he felt a tug on the cord such as mere water could not give, and that instant he let go.
“Can’t help but find it,” he told Pant through the tube. “Back to the island now. It’ll take all of us to draw their line in.”
It was a difficult landing. The beach was narrow and none too long; the waves washing it from end to end. Three times they soared low, but did not dare attempt it. The fourth time, driving straight against the wind, they sank lower and lower, at last to feel the welcome bump-bump on the sand. The next moment they were out of the plane and guying her fast.
“Made it!” was Johnny’s brief comment, as they finished. “Now for that line.”
Pant did not follow at once; he was looking intently out to sea, where a light was blinking, brightening, then dimming, then lighting up again.
“Get that?” he shouted to Johnny.
“What?”
“It’s a signal. The message they sent says, ‘Haul away!’”
“That’s good. That means they have our line. We can’t haul a heavy wet rope across the water and up the cliff by hand; have to have a capstan for that. Guess the one we used this evening will do.”
Finding the capstan, they dragged it up the side of the cliff. Here they anchored it firmly. Then began the task of pulling in the line. It came in quite freely at first; Johnny was beginning to think the cord had broken, when the back-pull began to stiffen.
“Got ’em all right,” he panted, as they redoubled their efforts.
Fathom after fathom the line was reeled in. So tight grew the strain that they felt sure it must break. But it did not. Presently they came to a knot and the end of a heavier line.
Attaching this to the capstan, they reeled in rapidly until they came to the place where the line was double, the added strand much larger than the other.
“Big one’s for the pulley to ride on; the little one’s to pull them in by,” explained Pant. “Now, all together, let’s draw her tight!”
Round and round went the capstan. Up—up—up rose the dripping rope until, at last, it swung entirely free from the sea.
Seizing a lantern, Pant alternately dimmed and brightened it. This he repeated several times.
“Giving them the signal for O. K.,” he explained.
He then watched their light as it dimmed and brightened.
“They say,” he smiled, “‘Haul away.’”
This time by hand they reeled in the smaller cord. Length after length of it was drawn in and coiled on the rocks. When, for a moment, there was a heavy back-pull, they knew that the men on the swaying rope-hung pulley had been dipped beneath a giant wave. They redoubled their efforts, and presently had the pleasure of seeing five half-drowned men drop down by a line from the pulley to the sandy beach.
This time it was Pant’s turn to signal “Heave away.”
The signal was obeyed. The swinging car was hauled back and loaded once more with human freight.
This was repeated over and over again until the last man was ashore. When this last man cupped his hands and shouted up to them, “All safe,” the two boys dropped down upon the rocks exhausted.
“Well,” said Johnny, after a time, “we’ve got them. Question is, what are we going to do with them?”
“More than likely it is, ‘What are they going to do with us?’” grumbled Pant. “There are twenty or more of them to our three. Their ship is a hopeless wreck. It will, half of it, be on the beach in pieces by morning. We have the only means of transportation. The only way to leave the island is by plane. Question is, what will they do about that?”
It was, indeed, a serious situation. Johnny’s brow wrinkled as he took in the full significance of it.
“Might as well go down and mingle with them,” he said, presently. “There’s no better way to judge of a man’s character than by listening to what he says in the dark.”
They found the men rough and boisterous. Some of them were smashing up all available timber and building fires under the brow of the cliff. Others had crowded the little cabin to an unbearable degree.
Pant and Johnny crept into a dark corner beneath the cliff and facing a blazing fire.
“Pretty rough,” was Johnny’s only comment.
Soon he became conscious of the presence of a little man who appeared to stand aloof from the others. He was a clean, decent appearing fellow.
“Pretty close one,” Johnny said, by way of starting conversation.
The little man turned and gave him a sharp look.
“You from that airplane?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll say it was close.” The man lowered his voice. “Wouldn’t ’ave ’appened but they was quarrelin’ over ’ow they’d divide the plunder, them officers was.”
“The plunder?” said Johnny.
“Yes, didn’t you know?” the sailor whispered. “That wreck don’t belong to them. It belonged to a company in China. The captain of ’er fergot to set a line to ’er and attach it to the shore, as is the law of the sea, so she’s fair salvage to those ’as gets to ’er first—just plunder, I’d call it.”
“But they claimed her.”
“Sure, so’s no other ship wouldn’t come fer ’er. They was sharp ones, them officers!”
“And worse than I thought,” said Johnny.
“Worse, did you say? They’re a ’ard lot. Know what they done to me? Shanghaied me, they did. ’Ere I is in the ’arbor with no money and no place to sleep, and they says to me, ‘Sleep in the ship. We can’t sail fer four days,’ an’ that night, up they ’eaves anchor and out to sea they blows, an’ me a-sleepin’ sound. That’s ’ow they ships me. An’ no agreement to pay ’er nothin’. Say,” he whispered, “if they’s a show-down, or anything, between you and them, you count me in on your side. But don’t you fight them if you can ’elp it, fer, as I say, they’s a ’ard lot.”
Johnny thanked him, then lay for a time listening to the low murmur of voices. At last he fell into a half-sleep from which he awakened to find that day was breaking.
He scrambled down from the rocks to the beach. There he met a short, broad-shouldered man with beady rat-like eyes.
“I’m Captain Hicks,” said the stranger. “That your seaplane?”
“Yes,” Johnny answered, trying to smile.
“Fine plane. Luck, I call it. Our purser is a licensed pilot. Soon’s weather clears, I’ll have him take me over to another island in that plane.”
Johnny gasped. He was about to protest. Then the hopelessness of the situation came to him.
“I suppose,” he said slowly, “that he is accustomed to handling all kinds of motors?”
“Knows ’em like a book,” the captain chuckled as he passed on.
“All the same,” said Pant, some time later, when he had been told of the conversation, “I’ll wager he’ll have some difficulty in getting old ‘Dust Eater’ to perform for him. These dust-eatin’ birds are particular who rides on their backs!”
The storm passed over with the rising sun; the clouds scurried away, the wind went down, and the sun set the ocean, the shore and the tree-tops all aglitter with a million diamonds. It seemed fortunate that there was to be no prolonged uncertainty about the future, yet the boys dreaded to face the conflict which manifestly lay before them.
The beach was strewn with drift from the lately wrecked vessel. Hardly a vestige of the ship was left to mark the spot where it had gone aground. The wreck of the Chinese ship, however, was still standing, the point having sheltered it from the force of the waves.
Seamen were at once busy salvaging eatables from the wreckage. Various barrels, boxes and casks, containing beef, pilot-bread, tea, coffee, cheese and like commodities, which would prove invaluable if there was to be a prolonged stay on the island, were piled on the shore.
“Here, you. Lend a hand,” the captain shouted to a knot of men.
The bay was quiet now. His purser, the former air pilot, had had the landing-wheels removed from the “Dust Eater.” They were prepared to launch her.
“That captain is a rotter,” said Pant. “He and his purser would go off and leave us all here to starve if they could.”
Very confident of his ability, the usurping pilot took his place before the wheel as the seamen prepared to shove the plane into the water.
Johnny Thompson had been looking on with interest when, all at once, his eye was caught by a stranger who had silently joined the group that stood about. He wore an oriental costume, yet he was a white man.