Produced by Al Haines.
Cover]
"LOOK AT THE HIGH CLIFF, CAPTAIN," URGED BOB.--Page 169.]
DAVE FEARLESS AND THE CAVE OF MYSTERY
OR _ADRIFT ON THE PACIFIC_
BY ROY ROCKWOOD
Author of "Dave Fearless After a Sunken Treasure," etc.
_ILLUSTRATED_
NEW YORK GEORGE SULLY & COMPANY
BOOKS FOR BOYS BY ROY ROCKWOOD
DAVE FEARLESS AFTER A SUNKEN TREASURE DAVE FEARLESS ON A FLOATING ISLAND DAVE FEARLESS AND THE CAVE OF MYSTERY
Copyright 1918 BY GEORGE SULLY & COMPANY
PRINTED IN U. S. A.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. Splendid Fortune II. Foul Play III. Mr. Schmitt-Schmitt IV. A Pair of Schemers V. Doctor Barrell's "Accident" VI. The Pilot's Plot VII. The Mysterious Jar VIII. Outwitting an Enemy IX. A Bold Project X. The Wooded Island XI. A Race for Life XII. Overboard XIII. Adrift on the Pacific XIV. Strange Companions XV. A Perilous Cruise XVI. Landed XVII. A Remarkable Scene XVIII. The Outcast's Secret XIX. A Day of Adventures XX. On Board the "Swallow" XXI. The Island Harbor XXII. The House of Tears XXIII. Ready for Action XXIV. In the Royal Palace XXV. The Captives XXVI. A Thrilling Adventure XXVII. The Poisoned Darts XXVIII. A Wild Ride XXIX. Found! XXX. Disaster XXXI. A Lucky Find XXXII. Conclusion
DAVE FEARLESS AND THE CAVE OF MYSTERY
CHAPTER I
SPLENDID FORTUNE
"It's gone! It's gone!"
"What is gone, Dave?"
"The treasure, Bob."
"But it was on board--in the boxes."
"No--those boxes are filled with old iron and lead. We have beentricked, robbed! After all our trouble, hardship, and peril, I fear thatthe golden reward we counted on so grandly has slipped from our grasp."
It was on the deck of the _Swallow_, moored in the harbor of a far-awayPacific Ocean tropical island, that Dave Fearless spoke. He had justrushed up from the cabin in a great state of excitement.
Below loud, anxious, and angry voices sounded. As one after another ofthe officers and sailors appeared on the deck, all of them looked paleand perturbed.
What might be called a terrific, an overwhelming discovery had just beenmade by Captain Paul Broadbeam and by Dave's father, Amos Fearless, theveteran ocean diver.
For two weeks, after a hard battle with the sea and its monsters, afterfighting savages and piratical enemies, the beautiful steamer, the_Swallow_, had plowed through sun-tipped waves, favored by gentlebreezes, homeward-bound.
Every heart on board had been light and happy. Labeled and sealed onthe sandy floor of the ballast room, lay four boxes believed to containover half a million dollars in gold coin.
Legally this vast treasure belonged to Amos and Dave Fearless, fatherand son. To those who had aided and protected them, however, fromDoctor Barrell, on board the _Swallow_ to make deep-sea soundings andsecure specimens of rare marine monsters for the United StatesGovernment, down to Bob Vilett, Dave's chosen chum and the ambitiousyoung assistant engineer of the vessel, every soul on board knew thatwhen they reached San Francisco, the generous ocean diver and his sonwould make a most liberal division of the splendid fortune they hadfished up in mid-ocean.
As said, the serenity of these fond hopes was now rudely blasted. Dave,rushing up on deck quite pale and agitated, had made the announcementthat brought Bob to his feet with a shock.
They were two sturdy boys. The flavor of the briny deep was manifest intheir bronzed faces, their attire, their clear bright eyes, and sinewymuscles. They had known hardship and peril such as make men resoluteand brave. Although Dave was deeply distressed, determination ratherthan despair was indicated in the way in which he took the bad, bad newsnow being conveyed with lightning speed, mostly with depressing effect,all through the ship.
Bob Vilett steadied himself against a capstan and stared in silence athis chum. Dave's hand grasped the bow rail with an iron grip, as ifthereby seeking to relieve his tense feelings. His eyes were directedaway from Bob, away from the ship, fixedly, almost sternly, scanning theocean stretch that spread almost inimitably towards the west. It seemedas if mentally he was going back over the long course they had justpursued, never dreaming that they were carrying a ballast of worthlessold junk instead of the royal fortune on which they had fondly counted.
"Well, all I've got to say," observed Bob at length, with a great sigh,"is that it's pretty tough."
"I fancy," responded Dave, in a set, thoughtful way, "it's a case ofthree times and out. We fished it up--one. We've lost it--two. We mustfind it again--three. That's all."
"You're dreaming!" vociferated Bob. "Say, Dave Fearless, you're agenius and a worker, but if you mean that there is the least hope in theworld in going back over a course of over a thousand miles hunting upmen with a two weeks' start of us--desperate men, too--scouring atrackless ocean for fellows who have to hide, and know how to do it,why, it's--bosh!"
"Bob Vilett," said Dave, with set lip and unflinching eye, "we are onlyboys, but we have tried to act like men, and Captain Broadbeam respectsus for it. We have his confidence. He is old, not much of a thinker,but brave as a lion and ready for any honest, logical suggestion.Here's a dilemma, a big one. You and I--young, quick, ardent--we mustthink for him. We have been robbed. We must catch the thieves. Wemust recover that treasure. Where's the best and surest, and thequickest way to do it? Put on your thinking-cap, Bob, and try and dosome of the hardest brain work of your life."
"Hold on--where are you going?" demanded Bob, as his chum went away overinto a remote corner of the bow and sat down on an isolated waterbarrel.
But Dave only waved his hand peremptorily, almost irritably, at Bob.His chum knew that it would be useless to renew the conversation justnow. He had seen Dave in just such a mood on other occasions--it waswhen affairs were going wrong and needed straightening out.
"All right," murmured Bob resignedly, moving over to where someglum-faced sailors were discussing the disappointment of the hour in agroup. "It won't hurt any of us to have Dave Fearless do some of thattall thinking of his. Oh, dear! All that money gone. And after all wewent through to get it!"
Meanwhile Dave Fearless sat posed like a statue. His gaze was fixedbeyond the little inlet where the _Swallow_ was moored, straight acrossthe unbroken ocean stretch. His thoughts just then, however, were notfixed on the west, but rather on the east. A vivid panorama of hisstirring adventures of the past few months seemed spread out to hismental eye. They went back to the start of what the present momentseemed to be the finish.
Dave's home was at Quanatack, along the coast of Long Island Sound.There for many years his father had been an expert master diver, andDave himself, reared beside the sea and loving it, had done service as alighthouse assistant.
In the first volume of the present series, entitled "The Rival OceanDivers," it was told how they one day learned that they were directheirs of the Washington family, who twenty years pre
vious had acquired afortune of nearly a million dollars in China. This, all in gold coin,had been shipped in the _Happy Hour_ for San Francisco. A stormovertook the vessel, which sunk in two miles of water in mid-ocean withthe treasure aboard.
Amos Fearless secured a chart showing the exact location of the wreck.Unfortunately two distant relatives, a miserly trickster named LemHankers and his worthless son, Bart, learned of the sunken treasure,too. They proceeded to San Francisco and were joined by a rascallypartner named Pete Rackley. The trio chartered from a wrecking companythe _Raven_, Captain Nesik in command, and engaged a professional divernamed Cal Vixen.
The Fearlesses, learning of this, hastened their plans. An old friendof the diver, Captain Broadbeam, was just then starting out with the_Swallow_, to convey a well-known scientist from Washington tomid-ocean. The _Swallow_ was equipped with the finest diving bells andapparatus for capturing and preserving rare monsters of the deep.Broadbeam agreed to incidentally assist Amos Fearless in the search forthe sunken treasure.
The rival divers located this at about the same time. Thrillingexperiences followed, terrific battles with submarine monsters,hair-breadth perils on the ocean bed. The Hankers and their diver afterseveral efforts gave up the quest. Dave and his father stuck at ituntil one day they located the hull of the _Happy Hour_. Bag after bagof gold they stored in their Costell diving bell, until all the treasurewas conveyed safely to the hold of the _Swallow_. Then they set sailfor home.
Pete Rackley had managed to secrete himself aboard. He disabled themachinery of the _Swallow_. This was the starting-point of a new seriesof adventures as related in our second volume, "The Cruise of theTreasure Ship."
It now became plot and warfare on the part of the disgruntled Hankersand their friends. The result was that one dark and foggy night theschemers succeeded in stealing aboard of the _Swallow_. CaptainBroadbeam, Bob Vilett, Doctor Barrell, and the Fearlesses were putashore on a lonely island, and the _Raven_ steamed away with thecaptured convoy.
A sixth person was also marooned. This was one Pat Stoodles, awhimsical Irishman, who had been previously rescued by the _Swallow_from this same island, where for several years he had been the king ofits savage inhabitants.
"The Cruise of the Treasure Ship" has told graphically of the manyadventures of the marooned. Stoodles reassumed his kingship temporarilyand helped his friends out of many a sore dilemma. A cyclone and anearthquake drove all hands to a neighboring island. Finally Dave and Bobdiscovered the _Swallow_, somewhat dismantled, lying off the coast ofthe island. They boarded her to find Mr. Drake, the boatswain, MikeConners, the cook, and Ben Adams, the engineer, handcuffed in the cabin.These men had refused to navigate the _Swallow_ for Captain Nesik. Theytold how the cyclone had parted the two vessels and the _Swallow_ hadbeen driven to her present isolated moorings. They told also of thefour boxes into which they had seen the Hankers place the sunkentreasure.
For a second time, believing their enemies and the _Raven_ lost in thestorm, the Fearless party started homeward. Incidentally they hadenabled a worthy young fellow named Henry Dale to earn a large sum bytowing with them a lost derelict ship. This they had turned over to anocean liner they met. Then, the _Swallow_ needing some repairs, theyhad headed for Minotaur Island, their present port of moorage.
This island had originally belonged to the government of Chili. Justnow, however, it was claimed by Peru, and was also in a certain state ofrebellion. The governor was a miserly and tricky individual, and haddemanded a large sum from Captain Broadbeam before he would let him moorthe _Swallow_.
He sent out as pilot a wretched, drunken fellow, who ran the _Swallow_into an obscure creek where she struck some obstacle, tearing a hole inher hull.
Thus disabled, Captain Broadbeam found it necessary to shift the variousarticles in the hold. The four sealed boxes were removed, and AmosFearless naturally suggested that they take a look at their goldenfortune.
Ten minutes later the startling discovery was made which has beenrecorded in the opening lines of the present chapter--
The great Washington fortune was not, as had all along been supposed,aboard of the _Swallow_.