Kitabı oku: «The Boy Scouts for Uncle Sam», sayfa 8

CHAPTER XXIV.
ROB MAKES A DISCOVERY

Rob, disconsolate and miserable, passed a bad night, and rose early. As his captors were still asleep and had, apparently, made no effort to guard him, he decided to make a tour of the island himself. For one thing, he was by no means sure that Berghoff had been speaking the truth when he said that the place was uninhabited; and again he thought that some form of escape might present itself if only he investigated the place thoroughly.

So the lad tiptoed out of the camp, first taking the precaution to fill his pockets with food. He headed straight into the woods, planning to come out again when he had traveled a safe distance from the camp. He followed out this idea, pushing his way through the brush for a time, and then emerging on a strip of white beach that seemed to extend around the island.

He trudged along, keeping a bright lookout, but saw nothing that would further his prospects of getting away. All at once, though, as he came around the other side of the little spot of land, he saw another island lying at no great distance off. And on the beach of this island was a boat.

A more welcome sight could not have presented itself to the boy's eyes just then. It meant that there was somebody on the island, – somebody who would surely be glad to help out a lad in his predicament.

"But how on earth am I to get over there?" mused the lad. "The tide is running like a mill race, and I don't know whether I'm a strong enough swimmer to buck it."

Then another idea occurred to him. Just above him was a small point of land. By going into the water from the end of this, he would be some distance above the island he wished to gain, and the current, would, therefore, carry him down.

"If I only could get a log or something," thought the boy; "it wouldn't take me long to get over there."

He started to hunt for a log that would suit his requirements; but logs didn't seem very plentiful in that vicinity. In his search, he reëntered the woods, and after looking about a bit succeeded in finding one that would just suit his purpose.

Stooping down, he lifted it, and then jumped back with a startled exclamation. A huge black snake had been coiled under the log, and now it struck at him, hissing and darting its red tongue in and out, and showing its vicious fangs!

Before Rob could avoid the creature's attack, it had wrapped itself around his arm, fastening its fangs into his sleeve.

Rob battled desperately with the reptile, which lashed its tail and hissed with vicious intonations. The feel of the creature's grip was loathsome to the boy, and although its fangs had not penetrated his tough khaki coat, they might do so at any moment.

In the battle Rob backed out of the woods, striving all the time to free himself, and unconsciously stepped nearer and nearer to the water's edge. Before he realized his position he toppled backward over the brink and plunged down into the swiftly flowing current beneath.

Down he went until it seemed he must strike the bottom! But his fall into the channel had had one good effect. The snake was not gripping his arm any more. When he shot to the surface he saw it swimming for its life, but being carried away from the shore.

In fact, the same thing was the case with Rob. The grip of the water drew him far from the island he had just vacated in such an unceremonious manner, and hurried him toward the spot of land where he had seen the boat. Striking out with all his might, the lad fought the current so as to reach the other island before the water hurried him past it. It was a hard fight even for a powerful swimmer like Rob. His clothes encumbered him cruelly, too; but at last, almost exhausted, he touched bottom and reeled ashore.

For a time he could do nothing but lie there gasping. Had his life depended on it, he could not have moved hand or foot. But at length his youthful vitality came to his aid and he rose to his feet to look about him.

The current had landed him on a part of the beach from which the boat he had spied was not visible. But he knew in which direction it lay, and started out for it. As he rounded a small promontory he came upon it, a heavily-built, rickety-looking old thing, but still a boat.

Rob in his present situation would have taken anything that would float.

"I'll examine it first and then go hunt up the owner and make a bargain with him for it," he thought.

With this intention he approached the craft, and the next instant received one of the cruellest shocks of his life.

The boat was a mere shell, falling to pieces from age and exposure to the hot sun. It must have been years since she had been used, and Rob's experienced eye saw that she would have sunk like a stone the instant she was put in the water. It was a bitter blow to the lad, and for a time he sank down on the sand, completely knocked out.

But after a time he rallied his spirits.

"After all," he mused, "there may be somebody living on the island and that boat may be just an old one they have discarded. I'll dry my clothes and then start out to investigate."

With the drying of his clothes, Rob made an alarming discovery. The food he had taken was most of it reduced to pulp by its immersion, some canned goods alone remaining edible.

"That makes it all the more urgent for me to find some aid," he said to himself; "I don't think that bunch on the motor boat will trouble to look for me. I guess they'd be glad to leave me here if this is a deserted island. In that case, I might die here before aid came."

But thrusting all such thoughts as that aside, Rob determined to meet the situation like a brave Scout.

"I won't give up till I'm at the last ditch," he said to himself with determination, as he put on his clothes. "I'll fight it out to the end."

Somehow this resolution of his made the boy feel better. With renewed courage he set out to explore the island. But he made the circuit of it in vain. There was not a trace to be found of human habitation nor any indication, except the stranded, sun-dried boat, that anyone but himself had ever landed there.

So despondent did he feel over this discovery that had he possessed the strength to do so, he would have swum back to the other island and thrown himself on the mercy of his recent captors. But this was now out of the question.

Unless he could find some way out of his dilemma, it looked as if he would indeed be doomed to leave his bones on those sands. The thought was a dreadful one, and although it was a warm, almost tropical day, the boy shivered and cold sweat ran down his face.

If he were indeed to die there, nobody would ever know his fate, in all probability. He had failed in his mission to recover the papers, too. Altogether he felt in a very miserable frame of mind. It was in this mood that, in order to keep his mind off his predicament, more than anything else, he fell to examining the old boat again. There might be some way to patch her up, he thought desperately, hoping against hope.

Suddenly he made a discovery that set his heart to beating wildly. On the stern board of the boat was cut the name "Good Hope!"

CHAPTER XXV.
THE DEAD MAN'S HOARD

The "Good Hope!"

What a crowd of memories the name brought buzzing about the boy! The lone derelict, the figure in the mouldering cabin, the – the plan in his pocket!

With fingers that trembled Rob drew out the solution of the cryptogram and read it over.

Then he held his head in his hands a moment to keep it from whirling round.

Could it be possible that this was the island where the hoard of century-old ivory was buried? Had he stumbled by a complete accident upon the cache that had sent one man to his death?

Then he recalled that on his trip of exploration he had noticed a big dead cypress on the other side of the island. But if this was the veritable island where the whalers had buried their ivory, why was the boat lying there mouldering on the beach? Why had they not left again?

The more the boy thought of it, the more mysterious and inexplicable the whole thing became. He resolved to go back to the dead cypress and follow the directions of the cryptic message of the captain of the Good Hope.

As has been said, the island was not a large one, and he was not long in reaching the gaunt, dead tree. Somehow he felt a chill go through him as he stood beneath its leafless gray limbs. It reminded him oddly of that skeleton in the deck house of the derelict.

But he pulled himself together and struck off into the woods in a direction that, by using his watch as a compass, he knew to be the west. The undergrowth was thick, but after going a few paces, he reached an open space.

In the centre of this was a sight that made his heart jump and then beat wildly. Strewn in every direction were big tusks of yellow ivory, evidently lying just as they had been dug from the ground.

Rob was still contemplating them when his eye caught the flutter of a rag of cloth at the edge of the open space. Attracted by a curiosity he could not account for, he made his way toward it. If the sight of the ivory had made him jump, what he now saw sent a chill of horror down his spine. The rag that had fluttered had been part of the clothing of what had once been two men.

Both lay close together, their bones showing where the cloth had worn away under Time's finger. A pair of rusty pistols lying by each showed how they had come to their death. The whole tragedy was as clear to Rob as if he had seen it: – the quarrel between the two ivory stealers, the duel with the pistols, and the death of both combatants beside the treasure pile they had done so much wickedness to acquire.

"Truly that figure in the deck house is avenged," thought Rob, gazing with horror-stricken eyes at the things before him. "Death was indeed the wages of sin in their case."

Turning from the grisly relics of that far-off duel on the lonely island, Rob fell to examining the ivory. There was a large quantity of it.

"It must be worth an immense sum," he thought.

But in the very moment of his triumph, Rob suddenly recollected what, in his excitement, he had entirely forgotten for the moment. He was a castaway on a strange, uninhabited island, with only a few tins of beef between him and starvation. Thirst he did not fear, for close to where he had struggled ashore was a spring of sweet, cool water.

Rob made his way back to the beach and the boat. Inside the boat he now noticed what had hitherto escaped his attention. There were several hundred feet of light rope which seemed to be still in fairly good condition. There was, too, a pair of oars. At the same moment the boy was seized by a sudden idea. He could get away from the island, and in a boat, too!

His Boy Scout training had made him fertile in ideas, and if the present one succeeded it would mean his escape from a terrible fate.

…

Ensign Hargreaves and Mr. Barr looked sternly at each other.

"There is only one man who could have taken that lever," said the ensign.

"And that is who?"

"The rascal Barton."

"But for what possible object?"

"I cannot think unless he has hidden it and will only give it up as the price of his liberty."

"But if he keeps us down here, he will die, too."

"He is playing his life against ours and he holds the cards."

"Not for long. Come below at once. We must act quickly. There is a chance he still has it on his person."

Down the stairs they ran, leaving Merritt at the wheel with a sinking feeling of fear clutching at his heart. If Barton, turned desperate, had hidden the key and would not reveal its hiding place, it meant that they must remain in the depths till death put an end to their sufferings.

In the meantime, the ensign and Mr. Barr, both excited, had rushed through the cabin and toward the engine room. As they approached the door, it was slammed and a pistol thrust through a small hole in it, which had been cut for ventilation.

Then Barton's voice came ringing out:

"Don't come a step closer unless you want to get a bullet in you."

"What's the matter, man, are you mad?" exclaimed Mr. Barr.

A shriek of demoniacal laughter was the sole response.

It sent a shudder through everyone who heard it. The man was mad, violently insane. The seeds of lunacy, which had been germinating in his brain for a long time, had burst forth into a terrible harvest.

"And on that man everyone of our lives depends," breathed the ensign.

Then in a louder tone, which rang with authority:

"Barton, did you take that ascending lever?"

"Yes; ha-ha-ha! It's a good joke on you! You thought you'd put me in prison, but now we'll all die together."

"Barton," pleaded Mr. Barr, "be rational. Return that lever and you shall have immunity."

"It's too late now!" screamed the demented wretch. "We'll all die together in the depths of the sea, where dead men's bones rot and the fish eat their eyes out."

A hasty consultation followed between the ensign and Mr. Barr. The man was undoubtedly violently insane, and there didn't seem a chance in the world of dislodging him from his position.

The situation was the more serious from the fact that the fresh air devices were not working properly and the air inside the submarine was already getting noticeably stale and foul.

"We must rush that door; it's our only chance," declared the officer in a whispered voice.

"But he is liable to shoot," objected Mr. Barr, eying the blued-steel muzzle of the revolver which was pointed threateningly at them.

"It cannot be helped. It means death in a fearful form if we do not dislodge him from that position, and a man in his condition cannot listen to reason."

"Well, what do you propose?"

"That you start talking to him to distract his attention, offer him money or anything to give up the lever. Then I'll watch my chance and rush in on him; thank goodness, that door has no lock on it."

"Barton!" said Mr. Barr, in a resonant voice.

"Well?" snarled the lunatic.

"Be calm now and listen to reason. Is it money you wish?"

"No, blood! Human lives!" shrieked the maniac.

At precisely that instant, like a projectile from a gun the ensign's powerful body shot forward. Crash came his solid one hundred and eighty-five pounds against the door.

At the same instant there was another crash, the sharp crack of a revolver! In that confined space it sounded terribly loud.

"He's shot him!" cried Mr. Barr.

But Barton had done nothing of the kind. The attack had been utterly unexpected by him, and as the door banged against him with terrific force, he had been knocked down. As he fell the revolver exploded; before he could pull the trigger a second time the powerful young officer of Uncle Sam's Navy was upon the man. Barton fought like a wildcat, and with the superhuman strength of those afflicted with insanity.

At last, however, he was overpowered and, raving incoherently, was tied hand and foot and carried out to the cabin where he was placed on a lounge. Mr. Barr, who knew something of medicine, gave him a calming dose from the submarine's medicine chest, and he became less violent.

"Barton, where did you put that lever?" demanded the ensign.

The man whimpered like a child.

"I – I don't remember," he gasped out.

Consternation showed on every face. Already the air was getting worse and worse.

The ensign bent over the bound man, who was now crying weakly.

"You must remember, man. You must, I say!" he snapped, in tones that cut like the crack of a whip. "Think! think! our lives depend upon it!"

"If I knew, I would tell you," murmured the man; "but I don't. I don't remember."

A stillness like death itself settled on the occupants of the cabin. Barton had accomplished his insane purpose only too well, it seemed.

CHAPTER XXVI.
WHICH WILL WIN?

Rob's idea was a simple enough one. With his knife he would cut bundles of branches and then bind them to the sides of the boat with the rope. This would at least keep the crazy craft afloat and offer him a means of reaching the shore.

He set to work at once with great enthusiasm, and by dusk his strange-looking boat was ready to be launched. By placing round branches under it for rollers and using another branch as a lever, he soon succeeded in getting it into the water. But it was hard work, and he paused to eat some of his canned beef before going any further.

To his huge delight the boat, though lopsided and half full of water, was buoyed up by the branches, and he had no doubt that he could navigate her with the oars. As soon as he had finished his unappetizing meal, Rob clambered on board his "ark," as he mentally called her, and thrust the oars into the rowlocks. The boat was very heavy, and owing to her waterlogged condition pulled very hard. Worse still, Rob encountered a current that carried him toward the other island, the one he had left that morning; and even worse, a fact he presently perceived, his craft was being carried around a point, on the opposite side of which he could see the glow of a fire against the night sky; for by this time it was dark. Rob was heartily glad that this was the case, for he knew that the fire must be that of the rascals who had abducted him, and in the darkness he might slip by them unnoticed.

Luckily the current set a bit from the shore at this point, and although the boy could hear the three rascals carousing around their fire over a keg of spirits, and singing and shouting at the top of their voices, they could not see him, partly because of their condition, and partly because of the firelight.

Past the camp, with its carousing inmates, the boy was carried, and suddenly his boat was bumped against something. Rob looked around. At first he thought he had struck a rock. Instead he saw before him the green motor boat.

Like a flash an inspiration came to him. He clambered on board, and not till he was fairly on deck did he recollect that he had neglected to tie his ark to the side.

He looked over the stern rail. In the dim light he could see his clumsy craft drifting off, bobbing up and down on the tide.

"Well, I've burned my bridges behind me now," he exclaimed to himself. "If I can't carry this thing through, I'll be cold meat by morning."

Just at that moment came a shout from the outlaws carousing on the beach.

Keener-eyed than his companions, Berghoff had spied a dark form on the motor boat, silhouetted against the thickly sprinkled stars.

"There's someone stealing our boat. After him, boys!" Rob heard the fellow roar.

Then he ducked as a volley of bullets came whizzing over his head. His next move was to clamber forward, keeping as low as possible till he reached the anchor chain.

There was no time to haul in, for the men had already run down the beach and launched their small boat.

Rob merely knocked out a shackle pin and let the whole thing go. This done, he scrambled back and descended to the engine room.

"If I can't make this old tea-kettle go, I'm a gone coon," he admitted to himself with grim humor, as he switched on gasoline and spark, and turned the fly wheel over. Outside the shouts were coming closer every instant, and the motor showed no signs of intending to start.

…

It was Donald, the Wolf Scout, who saved the day for the prisoners of the submarine.

As Barton rolled about whimpering and cursing by turns, he spied a bright object protruding from the man's pocket.

"Is – is that the lever?" he asked, in tones that trembled with excitement.

Mr. Barr darted on the object and pulled it out with a shout of triumph.

"Once more the Boy Scouts have saved the day!" he cried. "It is the lever, sure enough!"

Close as the atmosphere of the cabin had by this time become, they all found breath enough to give three ringing cheers. In the conning tower Merritt, at the wheel, heard them, and guessed what they meant.

Fifteen minutes later the submarine was shooting upward to the surface toward the blessed air. With what speed the hatch was opened when they reached the surface and could inhale the pure ozone once more, may be imagined. As soon as they had somewhat recovered a red light was shown from the stern, and presently the Viper came chugging up.

"Well, where in the world have you been?" asked Tubby.

"Where under the world, you mean," laughed Merritt; "but for a time it was no laughing matter, I assure you."

He then gave his fellow Scout a description of all they had undergone. When the excitement was over, word was given to get under way once more, and with the submarine leading, and the Viper following the red light, they held their courses toward the south.

It was dawn when they found themselves off a maze of small islands and islets. Donald had the wheel, and was gazing ahead as the submarine, at reduced speed, threaded her way among the shoals and sand bars.

All at once he saw something coming toward them that made his pulses beat far above normal.

It was a green motor boat, with a single military mast and a high cabin.

He lost no time in notifying everybody, and the submarine decks were soon crowded.

"Better get below, boys," warned the ensign; "that is undoubtedly the rascals' boat. In fact, Merritt says he recognizes it. They are desperate fellows, and when they see we have them cornered, they will put up a fight. If they run, I mean to pursue them to the bitter end."

Reluctantly the boys went below, while the ensign and Mr. Barr stood on the foredeck, revolvers in hand.

But although whoever was on the green boat must have seen them, the craft came right on.

"Why, they actually mean to fight," gasped Mr. Barr.

"They're nervy fellows, all right," commented the ensign; "we may have a tougher time of it than we think, Barr."

He turned and warned Tubby to take his boat back out of range. On and on came the green boat without making a sign of any kind, hostile or otherwise.

"What can they be up to?" wondered the ensign in tones of blank amazement.

Scarcely twenty feet intervened between the two boats now, when suddenly a boyish figure, bareheaded and clad in a Boy Scout uniform, leaped to the rail of the green craft.

"Kre-ee-ee-ee!" he shrilled out.

"The call of the Eagle Patrol!" gasped Mr. Barr.

"Yes, and by all that's wonderful, that lad is Rob Blake!" fairly shouted the ensign, waving his cap.

By this time Tubby, too, had recognized his leader. The air rang with cheers, shouts, questions and answers in a perfect babble of sound.

"Well, who on earth but a Boy Scout could get himself kidnapped and then kidnap his abductors' boat!" exclaimed the ensign that evening as they lay at anchor off Rob's "Ivory Island."

The climax of a wonderful day had been reached. Only one thing marred it. The rascals who had pursued Rob, for he only got the engine going in the nick of time, had got clear away in the rowboat. Possibly they hailed a passing steamer and were picked up.

But, after all, their escape, while annoying, was not of so much importance, for in their haste they had left behind the most important papers and models, and the ones they had taken were valueless, Mr. Barr declared, without the missing ones.

The next day, after a long evening of jollity, the Viper set out for Jamesport, S. C., with the unfortunate Barton bound with ropes to keep him from further violent manifestations. The poor man never recovered his reason, but died shortly after being admitted to an asylum. It appeared that in his youth he had been an inmate of an institution for the feeble-minded, but had been discharged as cured.

On the Viper's return, work was begun on transferring the ivory, which was ultimately sold for an amount that netted all of them a handsome sum; for Rob insisted on sharing his good fortune with all his comrades.