Kitabı oku: «The Radio Boys Under the Sea: or, The Hunt for Sunken Treasure», sayfa 2
CHAPTER IV
STRANGE HAPPENINGS
The Radio Boys solemnly gave the required promise, and listened with breathless attention to the story that Benton unfolded.
“As I told you yesterday,” he began, “my last term of service was in San Domingo. As you know, that borders on the Caribbean Sea, the old Spanish main that the buccaneers roved on for centuries. It’s a tropical country, and to my mind a God-forsaken place, whose chief products are tarantulas, spiders, centipedes and scorpions. Most of the people are blacks or half-breeds, and of course revolutions are happening there every little while. Their armies are only mobs that a squad of American policemen could put to flight, and the chief difference between generals and privates is that the former have shoes while the latter are barefooted.
“They had been having one of these little revolutions when for some reason Uncle Sam took a hand. You know he acts as a sort of policeman to keep those little West Indian countries in order when they get a little too gay and frisky. At any rate, we’ve had a little force of marines there for some years past, and it happened that I was sent down there with the last batch of leathernecks.
“It wasn’t much of a task to keep the bigger towns in order, but it was different when we were sent out to clean up some of the outlaw bands in the interior of the island. There were plenty of these, and we had to watch our step, for they were bloodthirsty rascals and if any of our boys happened to fall into their hands it was all up with him. It wasn’t merely death – that’s part of the game in the marine service – but torture. And those bandits certainly were experts when it came to making a man die slow and hard.”
Phil thought of Espato and his skill in the same gentle art.
“A couple of pals and myself,” went on Benton, “were pushing along one day in a desolate patch of the jungle way off from the beaten road when we heard shrieks coming from a cabin. We made a break for it, and found a bunch of bandits torturing an old Spaniard. He lived alone there, and somehow the idea had got out that he had money concealed about the place. The outlaws had felt so confident that they had everything their own way that they hadn’t set any watch and we took them by surprise. They had the old man bound on his bed, and were burning him with hot irons to make him tell them where his money was hidden. We burst in on them while they were in the very midst of their infernal work, killed two of them and put the rest to flight.
“The old man was pretty well done for. It didn’t seem practicable to get him in his condition to the nearest military post which was some distance away. So I sent the other fellows to report, and I stayed to nurse the old fellow. I didn’t think he’d last out the next twenty-four hours, but he had surprising vitality for a man of his years and it was nearly a week before he passed away. He needed constant attention, and I was kept pretty well on the jump day and night.
“During that time I learned, of course, a good deal of his history. Part of it he told me, and part of it I picked up from what he kept babbling from time to time when he was delirious. It seemed that he had never married and that he had no relative that he knew of in the world. He had lived there for years, doing a little farming on his garden patch and getting barely enough to keep body and soul together. As for money, he didn’t have any. That was where the bandits would have had their troubles for their pains.
“One morning I could see that death was pretty near, and the old man knew it too. He called me to him, thanked me over and over for what I had been able to do for him and then told me that he was going to give me something that would make me rich. I thought his mind was wandering again, but he pointed out a place under the flooring of the cabin and asked me to dig down a couple of feet. I did it to humor him, and fished out an old tin box. I brought it to him and he took out the papers that I have just laid on the table.”
The boys looked with the keenest interest at the package of papers that were mildewed and yellowed by time.
“He put those in my hands,” continued Benton, “and told me they were mine. Said they had been handed down in his family for generations. It seems that the old man himself had had dreams of following up the clues that were contained in them. But it would take capital and he never had one dollar that he could lay on another. And he had been afraid to trust his secret to anyone else for fear that he would be either cheated or perhaps killed by those he might choose as partners. And so the years had dragged on and he had come at last to his deathbed without ever having derived any benefit from them. Now he gave them to me, and the only condition he attached was that if I got any benefit from them I would have a candle burned in some church for the repose of his soul.”
Benton paused for a moment. No one spoke. They were envisaging the scene of that forlorn old life coming to so pitiable an end in the depths of the San Domingo forest.
“Of course, I promised,” Benton went on, “and as a matter of fact I saw to that matter of the candle as soon as I got back to the city. I didn’t attach any importance to the old man’s revelations. I’d have thought the whole thing was simply a sick man’s ravings if it hadn’t been for the papers. They at least were real, something that could be seen and handled. Probably they wouldn’t amount to anything, but they promised at least to be a bit of interesting reading when I got back to the barracks.
“I buried the old man near his cabin and then hiked back to the nearest post. I was kept pretty busy for some time, and the papers remained stowed away in my kit bag.
“After a while, our squad was relieved from the interior work and sent back to the capital for a breathing spell and the mere routine duty called for. One day when I was off duty and time was hanging a little heavy on my hands, I though of the papers and fished them out. They had to be handled with care, as some of them were nearly falling to pieces.
“I soon found however that they didn’t do me much good, for they were written in Spanish. Of course, in knocking about those countries I had picked up a good deal of the lingo, enough to get by with in ordinary conversation. But that didn’t help me so much when it came to reading about unfamiliar things, especially in the Spanish of two hundred years ago.
“And just here is where I made a mistake. There was a half breed that did odd jobs about the post, a fellow named Ramirez. He happened to be passing through the barracks just then on an errand for one of the officers, and I called him and asked him to translate one of the papers for me.
“He agreed, after bargaining that I should give him an American quarter for the job, which I did. He commenced to read. I listened for a while, and then I began to sit up and take notice. Believe me that by this time he was taking notice too. His hands were trembling, his voice was shaky and his eyes – he had about the wickedest pair of eyes I ever saw in a human head – were fairly shining with greediness.
“I snatched the paper back from him. He begged like a cripple to let him go on with it. Offered to give me back my quarter and do it for nothing. But by that time I was wise to the mistake I had made and told him to go along and roll his hoop. His eyes were like those of a rattlesnake when he realized I was in earnest.
“After I had finally got rid of him, I did some tall thinking. I got a dictionary and a grammar and settled down to learn the language. I took some lessons also from the old padre of the church in which I had burned the candle. He was delighted at my sudden interest in what he called his ‘beautiful mother tongue,’ and did all he could to help me along. So in the course of time I was able to get the sense of these papers. Some of the words are blurred and some have been wiped out by time, but what I couldn’t read I could at least make a very fair guess at.
“Before I had received the papers I had fully made up my mind to re-enlist, for as I told you before I was in love with the service. But after I had read them I began to count the days before my present term should expire. I had made up my mind that I was going to take a chance. I might fail, but if I did there was the good old service waiting for me at any time. And if I succeeded, there wouldn’t be need of worrying about anything for the rest of my life.
“And now,” he continued, as he knocked the ash from his cigar and glanced at the faces of his spellbound auditors, “that about brings me up to the present time. Oh yes, there’s one thing more – about that Ramirez.
“That fellow dogged me like my shadow for the rest of the time I was in San Domingo. He kept turning up at the most unexpected places. I got tired of it at last and told him to keep out of my way or he’d be sorry for it. One night when we were camping out, I woke up to find someone rifling my kit in my tent. I jumped up and tackled him, but he got away after knifing me in the arm.”
He rolled up his sleeve and showed a deep scar just above the elbow.
“That’s the memento he left me,” he remarked grimly. “In the darkness I couldn’t be sure, but I thought I recognized Ramirez. The first thing I did after getting a light and binding up my arm was to look for the papers. Luckily they were at the bottom of my kit and the thief hadn’t got to them when I woke up. Another thing that makes me think it was Ramirez is that the rascal disappeared from his usual haunts after that and I’ve never seen anything of him since. But it goes to show,” he added with that whimsical smile of his, “that I’m not the only one who attaches some importance to these papers.
“Now let’s see how they strike you,” he continued, drawing his chair closer to the table, while the Radio Boys crowded eagerly about him.
CHAPTER V
MAROONED
There were many separate papers in the package that Benton spread out before the fascinated eyes of the boys. Only one or two larger sheets seemed like a consecutive narrative. Others were mere scraps of paper that looked as though they had been picked up in lieu of something better for the writer to put his thoughts upon.
Bitter thoughts most of them were, thoughts of vengeance, imprecations upon the authors of alleged wrongs from which the writer had suffered, chants of hate that seemed as though they might have blistered the paper on which they were written. As the boys handled carefully those yellowed sheets of paper, so brittle from time that they were almost falling apart, so yellowed that in many cases the writing was almost illegible, the years rolled away and before them rose up the picture of that solitary figure on an island in the Caribbean eating his heart out with rage and hate and finding his only solace in setting down from day to day his prayers for vengeance on the souls of those who had brought him to that pass.
Benton had arranged them as nearly as might be in chronological order and kept up a running series of comments and explanations as he went along.
“You can see,” he said, “that the writing isn’t merely a scrawl. It was the work of a man with considerable education. I’ve gathered from the story as I went through it that he was the son of a well to do family in one of the colonies that bordered on the Caribbean Sea about two centuries ago. Those were wild and reckless days in that quarter of the world, with the buccaneers roaming up and down the Spanish Main, sinking ships and once in a while attacking the towns on the coast and robbing them of their treasures. This fellow was probably the black sheep of some respectable family who went to the bad and ran away and joined the pirates. Probably he was just as bad as any of the rest of them, though to read his story you’d think that he was a poor persecuted man and that all the wrong was on the side of his shipmates.
“You know that in those days the pirates had a code of laws of their own. They were some of the vilest wretches that ever went unhung and flouted all the laws of the civilized nations of the world. They were Ishmaels, their hands against every man’s and every man’s hands against them. But even they had to have some laws of their own, or the Brotherhood, as they called their choice collection of scoundrels, would have gone to pieces.
“Now one of the laws that they laid most store by was that whenever a ship or a town was looted, none of the pirates should hold out any particular bit of treasure that he might come across. Everything was to be brought and placed in a great pile at the foot of the mast on the pirate ship and then a division was made, so much to the captain, so much to the mates, so much to each member of the crew.
“The punishment for any member of the crew who was caught violating this law was that he should be marooned. That meant that he was to be taken to some one of the many little desolate islands that stud the Caribbean, put ashore with about enough provisions to last him a month and then left to shift for himself.
“In most cases that amounted to a sentence of death. Either the man would starve after his provisions were exhausted, or even if he succeeded for a time in dragging out a miserable existence he would go mad from loneliness and hopelessness. It was one of the punishments most dreaded by the pirates of the Brotherhood.
“Well, marooning was what happened to Santos, the pirate whose writing is on these papers. Likely enough he deserved it, though he says he didn’t. You can see what he says here.”
Benton picked up one of the sheets and read:
“I swear by the Holy Virgin that at the taking of the galleon Ciudad de Rodrigo I rendered to the common mass every doubloon and jewel that I had taken from the passengers before they were made to walk the plank. But Cerillos the captain – may his soul be accursed – hated me because he feared that I might some day supplant him, and brought it about that a crucifix with gems upon it was found in my sea chest. But I swear that I knew it not.”
“You see,” resumed Benton, as he laid down the paper, “he claims that he was the victim of what in these days we would call a ‘frame-up.’ Maybe he was and maybe he wasn’t. You know that most criminals when they go to the electric chair proclaim that they are innocent.
“However that may be, they seemed to have the goods on the old boy, and he was taken to this island, where he was put ashore and left to live or die as fate might decree.
“Where that island was is a most important matter, and on that we haven’t any too much information. There are scores, probably hundreds of them in the Caribbean. Some of them are mere rocks a few acres in extent. Others cover a good many square miles. This one where Santos was marooned was one of the larger ones, and there was enough in the way of fruits and cocoanuts together with what fish he could catch to keep him alive.
“Now the only clue we have,” Benton continued, picking up a frayed piece of paper, “to the location of the island is this rough sketch that Santos drew. You can see for yourself that it’s like a rough quadrangle in shape.”
The boys bent over and scanned with eyes shining with excitement the rude outline. There were wavy lines to indicate the water, and a blacker mass which was evidently intended for the island itself. On this were peaks rising to a considerable height, and the effect of the skyline was something like the teeth of a saw. There were figures on the map almost illegible, but by the aid of a magnifying glass which Phil took from a drawer they could make out what seemed to be the figures “14” and “81.”
“That’s probably the latitude and longitude,” exclaimed Dick, while Phil made a dive for an atlas.
“So I figured it,” replied Benton. “Probably the old boy made more or less of a guess at it, but in a rough way it’s likely to be correct. It isn’t probable that he had any instruments with him, but if what he says of the captain’s jealousy is correct it indicates that he was an important figure in the crew and probably had some knowledge of navigation. If he had had any ambition to supplant the captain, he’d have to know something about latitude and longitude.”
By this time Phil had found the page in the atlas referring to the West Indies, and was running his finger down it.
“Latitude 14, longitude 81,” he repeated. “Here it is in the Caribbean somewhere on a line between Jamaica and Honduras.”
“That’s correct,” assented Benton. “And there’s one very important point connected with that special location. You know that the Caribbean varies greatly in depth. In places it’s thousands of feet deep. In others there are hundreds of miles where the water is very shallow, where what seem to be great plateaus rise from the bed of the sea to within a hundred or two hundred feet of the surface. Now one of these shallow basins is that which lies between Jamaica and Honduras. Then too, the old pirate mentions in one part of this diary of his that when the vessel from which he was marooned was approaching the island, soundings were taken by the captain. That was because he knew he was in shallow waters and feared he might run aground.
“Now bear this fact in mind,” Benton adjured them impressively, “for on it hangs the whole story.”
CHAPTER VI
THE SUNKEN TREASURE
Phil put away the atlas and the boys redoubled their attention.
“It’s a thing to be noticed all through these papers,” Benton went on, “that the old pirate’s prayers for vengeance were on the souls of his enemies. That was because their bodies had passed beyond the reach of vengeance. For within a couple of hours after his comrades had marooned him, Santos had the satisfaction of seeing the pirate ship, the Sea Rover, as it was named, go down in a hurricane with all hands on board.
“Just listen to this:
“God be praised,” he read, “for what mine eyes this day have seen. For scarce had Cerillos sailed, after he had landed me on this accursed island and jeered at me as I sat in my misery on the beach, than a hurricane sprang up, one of the fiercest and most sudden that I have ever known in all my voyaging on the Main. It caught him unaware, and before ever he could furl sail the ship careened and went down less than a mile from shore. Never a man escaped, though for days after bodies floated to the beach. Among them was that of Cerillos, which I spat and stamped upon. How I danced! How I shouted! How I cheered! The devil had got his own. May their souls roast in flames for all eternity!”
“The old boy was certainly a good hater,” remarked Phil.
“He sure was,” laughed Benton, “and he never got over it. Ravings like that are scattered all through the papers. But only second to that is the old fellow’s regret that so much treasure should have been swallowed up by the sea. He rejoiced in the fate of the crew but would have liked to save the ship, for from what he says it seems to have been a floating mint. And he isn’t speaking from guesswork either, for he had been on it all through its last voyage and knew what it contained. See what he says here:
“It irketh me sore,” the writing ran, “to think that all that noble treasure lieth at the bottom of the sea. For never had we taken such goodly prizes as on that last scouring of the Main. There was the plate on the galleon Santa Maria that we cut out of the squadron off the Isle of Oruba, and the gold louis from the Cité de Marseilles that cost us so dear in blood and the treasure that came from the sacking of Port au Prince – doubloons and pieces of eight that it might take a man a day to reckon. Yet now it is nought or as good as nought, though had I a lugger and a dozen lusty fellows at my back I might e’en yet run my fingers through it. For it lieth not far from shore, and the waters be so shallow that had the mast not snapped they might yet be seen.”
Then followed wild imprecations on the fate that had doomed him to be marooned on that desolate island, while just beyond his reach were riches almost beyond the dreams of avarice.
Other parts of the writings were in calmer mood and abounded in plans that he purposed carrying out for the recovery of the treasure, if he were ever rescued. But as time passed on, he seemed to have abandoned hope, and it was evident that his mind was giving way, for certain scraps of paper were full of incoherent exclamations and vague maunderings.
When Benton came to the last of them and gathered them up the room was so silent that the boys could almost hear the beating of their hearts. Their thoughts were in a tumult.
Benton was the first to break the silence.
“There’s just one thing to be added,” he said. “The old Spaniard who gave me these papers told me that the family tradition, as it had come down to him, was that his ancestor had finally been rescued, but only when his mind was almost gone. But he still had sense enough to guard jealously these papers, which he bequeathed to his son with injunctions to go and find the treasure. Nothing however had ever come of it, I suppose from time to time some of the family had vague notions of doing something about it, but they never materialized.
“Now to sum the thing up. It seems to me perfectly clear that these things actually happened. The papers on their face bear evidence of their truth. This old pirate lived and sinned and cursed and suffered and died on an island somewhere about latitude 14, longitude 81 in the Caribbean Sea. He saw the sinking of the Sea Rover a little way off from the island. The ship was laden with a large amount of treasure. The waters where it sank were comparatively shallow.
“There’s the story, and the only living people that know anything about it are gathered at this moment in this room.”
“Except perhaps Ramirez,” put in Phil reflectively.
“Oh yes, Ramirez,” corrected Benton with a slight start. “But he just got a hint of it. He hasn’t the papers and he’s probably forgotten most of what he did read. He’s just a worthless, ignorant half breed anyway. I think we can dismiss him from our calculations.”
“I’ve told you now all I know. What about it?”
“Let’s go!” cried Phil.
“I’m with you,” exclaimed Dick.
“Count me in,” added Tom.
Benton jumped to his feet.
“Hurrah!” he cried, as he shook hands with each in turn. “I knew I wasn’t making a mistake. You’re all wool and a yard wide-fellows after my own heart – a red-blooded bunch of young Americans who are not afraid to take a chance!”
