Dave Fearless and the Cave of Mystery Part 37

"Dave seems to be gone a long time," observed Amos Fearless, after an hour had pa.s.sed by, during which they all busied themselves in securing such pieces of the wrecked raft as came ash.o.r.e.

Suddenly Dave appeared. He was out of breath, he had been running fast.

Something of suppressed excitement in his manner showed itself plainly.

"What are you saving all that wreckage for?" he asked Bob Vilett.

"Why, to make a new raft, of course."

"Don't waste your time," advised Dave, with a quick, glad laugh.

"Captain, father, men, follow me! I've found the _Swallow_."

"What!" shouted Captain Broadbeam, transfixed.

"She is anch.o.r.ed not a mile to the north. Six men left in charge of her are all stupid with drink on her deck. I crept aboard, bound them all, and the _Swallow_ is ours once more."

CHAPTER x.x.xII

CONCLUSION

"What are the sticks for, Mr. Stoodles?" asked Dave Fearless.

"Shure, they're reed torches."

"Oh, we have to have a light, have we?" asked Bob Vilett.

"Shure, ye have. It's simmering darkness we're going into."

"This is the famous cave island, is it?" said Dave. "Well, it deserves the name. Why, it's a regular honeycomb."

"No sign of Nesik and the others yet," said Captain Broadbeam. "I wonder what has become of them?"

"That's aisy to surmise, captain," declared Pat Stoodles. "They left the fellows aboard the _Swallow_ to guzzle and get sthupid while they took a yawl and came here to remove the threasure."

"Yes, you must remember," said Dave, "that their whole plan all along has been to delude their crew into the belief that the treasure went down in the _Swallow_.'"

"Wan, two, three, four, five," spoke Stoodles, patrolling a patch of beach, and looking up and counting along the immense row of fissures and openings in the solid rock. "The lasht one I indicate is the place we must go into."

"You mean to say," observed Dave, "that the treasure is hidden in that cave."

"Thanks to you I mane to say it, and sthick to it, too, my brave lad,"

cried Pat exuberantly.

"Thanks to me?" repeated Dave blankly.

"Begorra, yes."

"You puzzle me, Mr. Stoodles."

"Arrah, then, out with it: The outcast was dead when I saw him, but I happened to notice that his back was tattooed. It took me eight hours to make out the marks. I can spake the native dialect well enough, but the script was hard to figure out. But I did it."

"And what did it tell?" asked Dave interestedly.

"Well, two outcasts had found the gold. So as not to forget exactly where it was, one tattooed a diagram or chart, or whatever you may call it, on the back of the other. One of them died a little later. That's all, come on."

The wonders of the next two hours, those who followed the guidance of Pat Stoodles never forgot. It was like a visit to fairy-land. They penetrated underground chambers of dazzling magnificence, the torches illuminating walls and roofs of glittering splendor.

At last, in a depression of a great rock-crystal stone, they came across a heap of straw.

Pulling it aside, a golden gleam dazzled the eager eyes of the onlookers.

"It's there! Oh, it's there!" cried the enraptured Dave Fearless.

The ocean treasure, again recovered, lay before them.

It had come so easily, so naturally, that there was something unreal about the whole thing.

The moment could not help but be filled with the intensest joy and excitement. Yet in a plain, practical, business way they went to work to encase the great mountain of loose golden coins in sacks which they had brought with them.

It was nightfall when they had got the golden h.o.a.rd all on board of the _Swallow_, and safely stored in the hold of the stanch little steamer that had carried them through so many adventures and perils in safety up to this supreme moment of their lives.

What of Nesik and his cohorts? Fifty times during the evening this theme was earnestly discussed.

Dave Fearless sat thinking over this and many other things late that night, enjoying the cool, refreshing breeze as he lay comfortably in a hammock.

Suddenly he jumped upright with a shock. A form dripping with water clambered into view. He landed on the deck, staring wildly about him.

"Someone, quick!" he gasped. "I'm done out. Quick, Fearless! Start the steamer, quick! Danger--explosion!"

"Daley!" shouted Dave. And then, as the man fell like a clod at his feet, he ran right down into the engine room.

Something told Dave that this man was giving an important friendly warning.

He fairly pulled Bob Adams from his bunk. He ordered him to start the engines at once. He ran to the cabin and roused Captain Broadbeam.

"What's this--the steamer going?" cried Broadbeam.

"Yes, something is wrong," gasped Dave. "Come on deck--the mischief!"

A frightful roar rent the air. The whole ship shivered. Just behind him as he came up on deck Dave saw a mighty flare, a great lifting of the waters. Then all was still.

It was not until the following morning, when Daley recovered consciousness, that they knew the terrible peril they had escaped through his friendly intervention.

It seemed that he had managed to get to the second west island. He was nearly starved when he ran across Nesik and the others.

He decided it was politic to make friends with them. The night previous he was the only trusted one of the crew that Nesik and the Hankers took in the yawl that went for the treasure.