CHAPTER XXII GOLD—GOLD—GOLD
“What are we going to do about these lads?” asked Mr. Coleson as thecolored man, Jim, went back to the boat for several spades and an axe.
“They will help—won’t you?” said Senor Ortiga with a pleasant look thatsurprised the chums. “Just because they fibbed to us we can’t tie themup again! It was perfectly natural for them to want all the treasure forthemselves. We felt the same way!”
“So we did,” replied Mr. Coleson. “After we roped them up for a wholeday I can’t say that I blame them. Very well. Here is Jim. Let us clearaway the roots and see what we have.”
Under the changed attitude of the white men, Nicky, Tom and Cliff fellto with a will. The axe helped, the spades were very useful; eager handsmade the work seem a delight. After all, there would be probably beplenty of gold—or whatever it might be—for each to have a good share.
When they had cleared away a good portion of the earth and the mattedundergrowth clinging to the crumbly soil, they saw, as soon as the mudthey had created was settled, a fairly wide, and not very deep fissurein the coral beneath.
Probably, they decided, the castaways, in the days they had been there,had taken advantage of a naturally formed depression in the limestoneformation, perhaps had widened it somewhat with picks.
At any rate, when the moiled water had cleared, they beheld a mass ofmetallic bars, thrown in, helter-skelter.
Mr. Coleson, being the tallest, lowered himself onto the top of the massand found that his chin was just above water. By taking a deep breath,holding it, and plunging, naked as he was, beneath the surface, he couldget down, for a brief time to the hoard of metal.
After his first plunge he came up, and sputtering till he rid hisnostrils of water, he held up above the water a bar, which Senor Ortigaalmost snatched from him in his excitement.
They all crowded around to look.
Ortiga scraped the dirt and slime, accumulated partly from their recentdigging, from the bar and gave an exultant cry.
One and all they echoed it.
“Gold—gold—gold!” shrilled Nicky.
Down again plunged Mr. Coleson, to emerge above the surface with asecond bar which was eagerly grasped by Tom. It weighed, he guessed,about ten pounds, and was, when examined, what appeared to be pure goldof very fine quality, not very large, for gold is heavy metal.
“The Spaniards used to melt down the Inca images and ornaments,” Cliffrecalled. “Then they would ship them to Spain in galleons. There must bea lot of this gold—isn’t there, Mr. Coleson?”
“Yes—a lot!” he answered.
All resentment vanished from the hearts of these strangely unitedenemies under the impulse of a common gold madness. Mr. Coleson divedunder, several times, bringing up bars similar to those already found.Then it was decided that they had better take what they had, go to the_Libertad_, and wait till daylight for full boatloads.
“People have been lost in these islands—among the twisting, blindchannels,” observed Mr. Coleson. “We laid down markers on the islands aswe came in, each time, and we had better row out before it gets too darkto see them.”
So they all returned to _El Libertad_ and spent an excited evening,hardly daring to sleep for fear they would wake up to discover thattheir treasure was only dream-gold. But it was solid, in the morninglight, gleaming with its yellow luster when they scraped the surface.They had found a treasure for which men might easily struggle andbattle, kill and be killed.
The next few days were full of hard work; nevertheless, it was work thatbrought no complaints.
The recovery of the golden bars was necessarily somewhat slow becauseonly one man could work in the pit at a time. Mr. Coleson, Jim and SenorOrtiga took turns, but most of the diving fell to Mr. Coleson, for asthey brought up more bars the level of the bottom fell lower by theirremoval, and the shorter people were totally under water when they triedto secure the bars, and had to dive, grab a bar, thrust themselvesupward and be caught by those who waited.
But, one late afternoon they had exhausted the contents of the hole asfar as gold was concerned. There were several large objects, presumablygolden placques or perhaps they were silver; but they were too heavy tobe dislodged, much less to be lifted to the surface.
All of the company agreed that it was hardly worth while to try for themany longer, and the white men, with Jim, began to pick their way over tothe two boats, both filled with their last load of wealth. But Nickymotioned to his chums to delay for a moment.
“Mr. Coleson had a despatch box of some kind almost at the surface, justa little while ago,” he told them. “Let’s make a try to get it again. Hedropped it because he said it probably contained only papers.”
“What do we want with papers?” argued Tom. “We can come back some timeand get it.”
“It may have the log of the old ship in it, or papers about the cruise,”Nicky argued. “Cliff’s father would like them more, I think, than thegold. He could write a whole history about the Spanish times in Americafrom them, maybe.”
Cliff, being the oldest and strongest, decided to do the diving.Divesting himself of clothing which he hung on the remaining bushes onthe rim of the islet they had not disturbed, he plunged.
On his first rise he clutched an ancient ornament, something like partof a figure of a god, but it was of some stone, not of gold; he wasabout to throw it aside but Nicky took it. “It might be a relic, likethose we found in the Carib diggings,” he suggested.
Cliff made several tries, and finally brought up an old, and very muchrusted bronze box, of very curious workmanship, with a handle at eachend. It was badly eaten away by oxide and Cliff urged Tom, who took it,to handle it with care. Then Cliff was helped up onto the water-coveredbedrock and reached for his clothes.
“Why—” Nicky, turning toward the boats, gasped. “What are they doing?”
“They’re putting gold from our boat into theirs!”
As Tom made the exclamation he started toward the distant boats; the twowhite men and the colored Jim were loading up their boat.
“What are you doing that for?” cried Tom.
He, as well as his slightly injured foot would allow, hastened over thecoral. Cliff, his clothes carried in a rough, quickly snatched bundle,ran too. Nicky scrambled ahead of him.
But before they could get to the boats they saw Jim take the oars out oftheir boat, climb into his own, and thrust it rapidly backward—there wasno depth to turn it around—down the channel.
“We’ll leave these oars on the island at the bend,” called Senor Ortiga.“We don’t want to leave you here to starve. Swim down or push your boatahead of you and swim till you get the oars; then follow the markers;we’ll leave them, too. We don’t want to desert you, but we must. By thetime you get out we can be safely away!”
Nicky and Cliff fought their way over the coral as fast as they could,stumbling into crevasses, almost falling as their incautious feet struckrises; but they saw that it was wasted effort.
They returned, to assist Tom.
Once the three were in their boat, far down the channel they saw theother boat turn and disappear around a bend.
“It will be dark, before we get there,” cried Tom, and he began toshudder and to forecast dire difficulties, but Cliff bade him, rathersharply, to stop.
“Remember what the teacher said, last term, about being afraid?” Nickyreminded Tom. “He said that when we became afraid we deadened our commonsense and made pictures of dangers that wouldn’t exist at all unless wethought they did. He said it wasn’t what was dangerous that hurts us,but what we thought might happen. So—Tom—snap out of it!” He spokerather curtly and slangily, to impress Tom the more quickly. Tom saw thesense in the rebuke and reminder and grinned sheepishly.
Meanwhile, a hand on the stern thwart, Cliff was thrusting with hisfeet, swimming, and pushing the boat ahead at a slow rate.
They finally reached the distant isla
nd and found the oars.
“Had we better stay here till daylight?” questioned Cliff.
“No,” Nicky declared. “They have our gold, and they mustn’t get away.They have a heavy load and they may get stuck in the channel for theirgreediness. We can see the papers they stuck on sticks to mark thechannel. Let’s get on as far as we can.”
Tom agreed with him, not especially caring to stay amid the spooky,silent islets all night.
They had hard work in the swiftly closing darkness, hut by using theireyes sharply and by going ahead slowly, as their escaping enemies mustalso do, they finally saw clear water ahead.
“Hooray!” cried Nicky. “I think I see them still in the rowboat! Pullhard, Cliff and Tom, we can get there before they get away!”
But as he said it there came a hail, sharp and eager from the shore ofthe island at the mouth of the channel.
“Help! Help!”
Tom and Cliff held their oars, surprised, listening.
“Boat ahoy! Help!”
“Somebody’s on that island!” Nicky declared. Mechanically responding toa call for aid, Tom and Cliff swung the tender’s nose toward the island.Their way took them very close.
“Boys—Master Cliff—Master Tom—Master Nicky! It’s Sam!”
The figure they could discern against the trees waved its arms.
“Quick, pull in close,” cried the tall figure, wading into the water tomeet them. “My boat’s gone. Take me in. We can git to the other boatbefore they get away! Hurry, please, sars!”
It was only an instant before he had caught the approaching gunwale andwas tumbling in. “Now,” he cried, “give way, sars!”
“Sam!” cried Nicky, at the bow, pumping the black hand. “I never was soglad to see anybody in my life. Grab those oars! We’ll get them yet!”
But they were fated to act otherwise.