J. W. Duffield

“ Then as he became quiet and the strength came back to him, the faint gray of dawn coloring the horizon in the east warned him that he must get back to the cave.
What had he been thinking of, wasting all this precious time when he should be back there warning his comrades, putting them on their guard!
As he scrambled to his feet, brushing the sand from him, he was conscious of a queer glow of exultation. The blood was pounding once more warmly through his veins. In spite of the tremendous odds against him he had come safely through that death-haunted lagoon. ”

“ Miraculous as it seemed, the craft had been so deeply buried they had even resisted the tremendous tug of the outrushing waters.
“That’s a stroke of luck,” muttered Phil thankfully, then looked for his companions.
They were there, looking kind of white and shaken and staring as though fascinated out to sea. One wave had followed another, each smaller than the last, finally settling into a froth of white capped combers, a seething whirlpool of writhing waters.
“Say,” remarked Steve with a shadow of his famous grin, “if you ask this old boy I’ll say we sure stirred things up some. ”

“ Then, the island once clean of Ramirez and his men, they could let shipwreck account for their presence on the island, meanwhile thinking up some plan for getting the treasure aboard without rousing the suspicion of their rescuers.
But that mountain! Blacker and blacker became the smoke cloud. As night fell, little tongues of flame could be seen shooting from the crater’s mouth, vivid streaks of light against the darkening sky. Through the earth shot sickening tremors, rocking the ground beneath their feet. ”

“ Great was the jubilation among their comrades when they returned with their news. It was like the passing of a nightmare. Now they had the island to themselves, and could pursue their work without the danger of being robbed and murdered.
One anxiety yet remained. Behind them the volcano reared its head, smoke still issuing from its cone, while every once in a while the earth shook with that dizzying, sickening motion. At any moment, giant subterranean forces might be unleashed that would mean their utter destruction.
“It’s up to us to get a move on pronto,” observed Phil. ”

“ A liquid stream of fire shooting from the crater’s mouth straight into the heavens, a terrific jar that shook the island from end to end, great, new-made fissures, yawning horribly, a mass of molten lava raining down the mountain slope.
A second quake more awful than the first, a grinding, breaking noise as though the island sank into the sea. Thrown from his feet, Phil struck his head upon a stone. ”

“ 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 recognized the now familiar formation of the coral rock that lay near the wreck and with ever-increasing excitement he made for the ship.
His progress was a rather gruesome affair, hampered as it was by the bodies of dead fish, floating bellies up in a grotesquely helpless attitude.
The sharks and larger fish had suffered also and Phil was conscious of a creepy sensation at the roots of his hair as a dead shark bumped against his legs.
“I don’t like ’em alive,” he muttered, evidently referring to the sharks. “But I don’t like ’em even when they’re dead.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ At its landward edge were low sand hills covered with coarse grass, and beyond this rose the tall trees and tangled creepers of a dense jungle. Beyond this again the land rose steeply into a series of ridges, and as the little party gazed the same idea seemed to strike them all at the same time, and they looked at each other in startled wonder. Was it possible that an adverse Fate was relenting toward them?
Without a word Benton drew the old Spaniard’s map from the waterproof belt in which he always carried it, and they eagerly compared it with the jagged outlines before them. ”

“ Jack Benton agreed. “They played no favorites. But say, just listen to that storm, fellows,” he interrupted himself as the wind wailed wildly about the cave. “It’s worse than the gale that greeted us and drove us on the rocks.”
“Sure is a beauty,” said Steve. “Lucky we have a cave to live in. Can’t be blown down, at any rate.”
Phil moved across to the door of the cave and stood looking out into the hurricane.
“It must have been just such a storm,” he remarked softly, as though he were more than half speaking to himself, “in which the pirate ship foundered centuries ago. ”

“ Phil was the first to break the silence.
“How could it have happened?” he asked in bewilderment.
“I think I understand,” said Benton. “It’s all bound up with the volcano and the earthquake. The same forces have caused an upheaval in the bed of the sea. The old ship has been close to the center of disturbance, the timbers already shattered by the dynamite have been further wrenched apart and the entire mass thrown up to the surface of the sea.”
“Then that puts an end to our treasure hunting,” said Phil, voicing the thought that came in the minds of all.
“It sure does,” replied Benton. ”

“ A blind man could navigate a ship nowadays. No one can figure how many vessels and how many lives have been saved by this blessed old radio.”
“Right you are,” agreed Phil. “I know that one time it saved mine. It’s the youngest of all the sciences and yet it’s made greater strides than any other in the history of the world. Every day something new develops, and it fairly makes you dizzy trying to keep up with it. It’s revolutionized peace and it will revolutionize war.”
“As a matter of fact,” replied Benton, “it’s going to make war practically impossible, because it would make it too terrible. ”

“ Phil smiled grimly.
“Almost his very words,” he said.
“Well,” Steve fingered his trusty revolver, resolutely, “I have an idea he won’t find it quite as easy as he thinks for. We’ll give him a good fight for his money anyway.”
“For our money, you mean,” corrected Tom with a grin.
“I was a fool to think we had seen the last of that scoundrel, Ramirez,” said Jack Benton, moodily. “The smell of gold to that kind of scum is like raw meat to a pack of wolves. Of course it was he that shadowed us in San Domingo. ”

“ At that moment the hulk of the sunken ship loomed before him, but in spite of his eagerness for the treasure Phil’s feet lagged. If only he could find the gold first—then, calling himself all sorts of names he started forward again, making the best speed he could toward the wreck.
“Don’t be a fool,” he said, briskly. “The fellows on the Sea Rover have been dead long enough not to mind my company. Their stolen money isn’t doing anyone any good here at the bottom of the sea.” ”

“ The mountain was on the verge of eruption!
“Looks as if they’d got us comin’ or goin’” said Steve, trying to speak lightly, without in the least disguising his true state of mind. “If the earth doesn’t open and swallow us up, the volcano will erupt and bury us. Fine prospect, I should call it!”
It took them a long time to get back to the cave, retarded as they were by the piled-up trunks of uprooted trees and the yawning fissures in the earth. ”

“ Benton admitted. “And yet treasure has been brought up from the ships of the Spanish Armada that sank over three hundred years ago. What has happened once may happen again. As for the danger, of course there is some. But nothing venture nothing have, and if we are successful the rewards will be great enough to compensate for the risk.”
“Just what we argued,” replied Phil. “And then who can tell where danger lies? A man may sail the seas for forty years without a scratch, and then come home to be drowned in a cistern. After all, life itself is just taking a chance.” ”

“ Inside the covering of seaweed which was so slight a protection against the danger that menaced him on every side, Phil made his tedious, nightmare journey toward the farther side of the lagoon.
The bodies of the sharks edged in closer. They were becoming bolder as their suspicions grew. They could smell the unmistakable odor of human flesh and they could not much longer be denied. ”

“ Most of them fell to conversing again in low, excited mutterings.
Only one among them seemed to have the courage—or the avarice—to defy his chief. This seemed, like most of them, to be a mixture of two nationalities, half-English, half-Spanish. He talked in broken English.
“I say to you,” he cried with a menacing gesture toward Ramirez who looked at him stolidly, “that we will not wait longer. Always you say ‘wait, wait.’ The treasure, the gold, is there, you tell us that. We go get it to-night, now. Is it not so?” ”

“ Once more they put off from shore, Phil remaining on the raft eagerly impatient to descend once more to the ocean bed, to probe at last into the mysteries of the treasure ship. What would the dynamite-torn hulk reveal to him? He had hard work to keep his teeth from chattering with excitement.
“Steady now, Phil, old man,” he heard Steve yell to him as he slipped over the side of the raft and felt the water gurgle up about him.
“Be sure you don’t come up without a fistful of gold,” added Tom, and by way of response Phil shook a claw at them. ”

“ He had braved one of the worst dangers that can confront a man and now he was safe, free to warn his comrades of danger, free to ward off the attacks of Ramirez and his men, free to guard the treasure from all comers. ”

“ If the volcano will only be good for a couple of weeks longer, we’ll have nothing more to ask.”
“If it doesn’t stay good we find ourselves in a worse fix than the other fellows,” said Dick. “They at least had a ship to get away in, but if we were driven from the island we’d have nothing but that little dory. And if a storm came up that wouldn’t last for ten minutes. We’d lose not only the treasure but our lives.” ”

“ Choking for breath the panic stricken animal reared and threw himself to one side, at the same time overturning the buggy. The driver was thrown out, striking on his head, while the horse was brought to his knees.
All this had happened in a few seconds. Paralyzed for a moment by the lightning quickness of Phil’s action, Dick and Tom had quickly grasped the situation and rushed to his aid. Scarcely had the horse gone down than both were at the side of their comrade, helping him to hold down the frightened animal, who was making desperate efforts to get his feet. ”

“ Jack Benton and Bimbo had declined to accompany the boys, the former because he felt it necessary that some one should stay at the cave, and Bimbo because he disliked wet weather in general.
“I wonder what that old boy has on his mind,” said Dick, speaking of Bimbo. “He sure thinks this island is all to the bad. I wonder if he knows anything that we don’t know.”
“What a crazy idea,” snorted Tom. “What could he know?”
Again it was on the point of Phil’s tongue to speak of the shadowy figure he thought he had seen, but again he restrained himself. ”

“ There wasn’t a soul on board, and I tell you it seemed something uncanny to see how that big ship sailed along, turned, wheeled, zigzagged just as perfectly as if it had had its whole crew aboard. All the controls, rudder, propeller and steering devices were regulated by radio.”
“It surely seems like a miracle,” agreed Phil. “It’s quite within the range of possibility that merchant ships after a while will be able to sail from America to Europe without a soul on board. The ship could send out signals every hour by which its path could be plotted by the shore operator over the entire route.” ”

“ All day long they kept guard, ready at the first sign of attack to make for the barricaded cave, thus more or less evening the odds against them.
They were confident of being able to rout the enemy. It was only the delay that worried.
“Why don’t they get busy?” cried Dick, pacing up and down, his hands shoved savagely in his pockets. “I can stand anything but this waiting game. If they don’t start something pretty soon, I’m going to take my gun and do a little war dance over to their part of the island all by myself if nobody else will come with me.”
“Like fun you are,” said Phil quietly. ”

“ We’ll have seen a new part of the world, will have had lots of fun and adventure and the game will have been worth the candle.”
“And just think what it means if we put it over,” added Tom. “Just think of pulling up those ducats and doubloons and louis d’or and all the rest of them from the bottom of the sea. It seems a shame to have all that money doing no one any good, when it might be put into circulation.”
“Old ocean sure is greedy,” replied Benton. “Think of the hundreds of millions, probably billions, that have been engulfed at some time or other. ”

“ Dick remarked, anxiously.
Phil nodded.
“Getting worse and worse all the time,” he said, adding with a grin as he drew his gaze down from the mountain, “Looks as if we were hedged in between two fires. We’ll have to be pretty spry on our feet if we don’t get burned by one or the other of them.”
“I’ll tell the world,” said Tom ruefully. He had come out of the cave just in time to hear Phil’s last sentence. “If old Ramirez doesn’t get us, the mountain will. Bimbo says that old boy is getting ready to spill a lot of lava on us.” ”