Lost Island Part 2

CHAPTER XIII
WHEREIN TEMPEST STAYS BEHIND

CAPTAIN PETERS went below to inspect the damage. His face looked troubled when he returned.

"She's piled up on top of high water," he said, "and I'm afraid she 'll stay there. It's a lucky thing the sea is dead calm."

About an hour too late a gentle breeze sprang up, brushing away the veil of mist and revealing their position to the Manihiki's crew.

The reef on which she had struck was submerged at all states of the tide, leaving nothing to disclose its existence but the dark color of the water, which the mist had hidden. Half a mile away on the starboard bow lay the island which the skipper had wanted to take his bearings from. Even at that distance it presented a beautiful ​sight, lying low like a vast, half-submerged emerald. At its highest point it did not seem to rise much more than fifty feet out of the water, and the slope down to the sea was covered with tropical growth.

As the tide went down, the slope on the steamer's deck became more apparent, and Captain Peters reluctantly ordered all hands ashore in the boats.

"Gather together anything you want particularly," he said. "You never know when a gale is coming along here, and she may slip off suddenly, but I guess we 'll have more time than we care about to take things ashore. "

Two boats were lowered, and the men got into them with a strange collection of bundles and things. Among the articles Dave took were his binoculars.

The boats grounded on a silvery beach of sand which nestled in a little bay that looked more fairylike than anything Dave had seen in his ​travels through the South Seas. There were no tall trees near, but foliage of wonderful colors covered most of the ground. As the men stepped ashore, a flock of birds with gorgeous plumage flew up from the bushes, uttering strident calls of indignation at the intrusion.

"It's quite clear there's nobody at home on this island," Tempest said. "I don't expect those birds have ever seen a human being before. Well, Dave, we 're all going to play a little game of Robinson Crusoe, so cheer up. How would you like to spend the next ten years here?" It was characteristic of Bruce Tempest that he was not in the least perturbed by being marooned. Already he seemed perfectly at home, although he had not been on the island five minutes.

"Ten years!" Dave said, looking at his friend to see whether he was serious. A picture of the small house near the water in far-away Brooklyn, flashed into his brain at that second. "How long do you think we might be stuck here?"

​"Goodness knows," replied Tempest; "but do let me persuade you not to worry. That won't get us off a minute sooner. The worst of it is that we are just about as far off the track of vessels as we could well be, and the wireless station on this benighted place does n't seem to be in working order."

"Then you really think we are likely to be here for a long time?"

Tempest glanced at the boy and saw no fear in his grey eyes, but very natural concern.

"Some of us, yes," he said. "I heard the mate saying something about taking a chance in the long-boat, and I guess that is what will happen. But, as you know, the long-boat won't hold us all. It's too early to think about that yet, though. You 'll find we shall have a pretty busy time at present getting all that's wanted off the poor old Manihiki."

There was, indeed, a strenuous time ahead. Although the weather was so perfect, Captain ​Peters was reluctant to let a minute be wasted in the task of fetching ashore everything that could possibly be useful to them. Bedding and food were his first consideration, and before nightfall both boats had made several trips, returning to shore laden down almost to the gunwale. The longest spar obtainable was rigged up on the highest point on the island, and a flag was sent up, fluttering in the breeze, while near by, a great pile of dry brushwood was gathered together, ready to send out a flaming signal in the very unlikely event of the lights of a passing ship being observed at night. When these operations had been concluded. Captain Peters realized that be had done all that could be done, for the time being, to attract attention. The shipwrecked crew established their quarters on a grassy stretch of ground a little distance from the shore, and slept, that first night, with the blue heaven for a roof, every man tired out.

Before dawn, however, they were up again, ​salving stores. The men needed no driving. It was only too obvious to them what would happen if they did not save enough provisions before the Manihiki broke up or sank. Barrels of biscuits, beef and flour, cases of canned goods, tobacco, clothes from the slop-chest, the carpenter's entire equipment, and the navigation instruments, being the most important articles, were first brought ashore, and then followed tackle of all sorts, canvas from the sail-locker, and, finally, quantities of coal. The chief engineer was desperately anxious to unship a donkey-engine and convey that to the island; but as nobody could think of the remotest possibility of using the thing, it was left behind, partly dismantled, to crumble into rust.

Just ten days were occupied in stripping the steamer of everything movable, including doors and glass which "Chips," the ship's carpenter, welcomed, as he was already busily engaged erecting shelters from the torrential downpours of rain which were to be expected in that latitude.

​By common consent the first hut finished was handed over to the cook. His apparatus had been transferred bodily from the ship, and he dished out meals as regularly and satisfactorily as before. He was the only man of the party who had any real knowledge of that department, and when he realized how much every one was dependent on him he developed a slight touch of swollen head. Nobody minded that, however, so long as he had something to cook and kept on cooking it.

Tempest's first impression that the island was uninhabited proved correct. Nor was there any sign of a ship or natives having visited the place. The island was about a mile long and half a mile wide in the centre. A dear spring bubbled near the camping-ground, so, fortunately, no dread of thirst faced the men. Snakes were conspicuous by their absence. The only animal they encountered was a small species of wild hog. These creatures scurried about in the undergrowth, peeping out in alarm when any one went near and ​then fleeing, squealing loudly. How they ever came to be on the island was one of the mysteries of the mysterious Pacific. Captain Peters and Bruce Tempest discussed the point at great length, but were unable to come to any conclusion except that the ancestors of the hogs must have landed there from some wreck.

"What does it matter, anyway?" said Tempest, smiling. "We 're all fond of roast pork whether we know its history or not."

The twentieth day after the Manihiki ran on the rocks saw the end of her. One of those savage storms that come down so suddenly near the equator burst over the island. Black clouds appeared as if by magic, and long streamers of lightning lit up the boiling ocean. The air was filled with spindrift which swept half-way over the land, and some of the half-finished huts were torn down by the wind. Night fell while the tempest was at its height, but before dawn it vanished as suddenly as it had come. Not even a wisp of mist rested on ​the sea, and, as soon as the sun rose, the sky was of the same brilliant blue as before.

Of the Manihiki, however, there was nothing to be seen. Lifted from her rocky bed by giant waves, she had slid off the reef and now lay many fathoms below the surface.

The men began to grow restless as time wore on. They did not face with calmness the prospect of being marooned indefinitely.

"If we 've got to die, we'd rather do it putting up a fight to get somewhere in the long-boat than lying around here, Cap'n," said one of the men while the subject was being threshed out.

"I quite agree with you," said the skipper, "though I would n't give much for the chances of the boat if another tornado like the last one comes along and hits her. Still, it's no use waiting here like rats in a trap when there is a run of only about four hundred miles to Suva in the Fijis."

​"How long do you reckon it should take us to make Suva, sir?"

"That's a problem," replied Captain Peters. "There is n't any wind to speak of most days, and, unless it happens to come from a favorable quarter, we might be beating about for a month or more. Still, if you 're all game, I'm ready to start as soon as you like."

The project met with general approval. The only thing that remained to be settled was who should stay behind. Even by taxing the boat to its fullest capacity, consistent with safety, at least three of them would have to remain on the island. It was decided to settle that question by casting lots, and Captain Peters placed a number of slips of paper in a hat. On all but three of the slips there was a cross; the others were blank.

There was an air of anxiety about the crew as they clustered round the skipper to pick their chance. Although the long trip in the boat would be attended with much hardship and considerable ​danger, everybody there preferred that to remaining marooned. Hopeless though it had seemed with the whole crew there, the prospect of being left with only two companions was regarded as considerably worse.

Captain Peters took the first slip out of the hat and grunted with satisfaction. Although the men would have preferred to have him with them on the trip, he had shared in the casting of lots. Dave watched the men's faces with curious interest as each dipped a hand into the hat. Some did so with a jest; others grabbed a folded paper eagerly, opening it in a feverish fashion. The first one to draw a blank was the carpenter.

"Well," he said, forcing a smile, "I 'll get you to take a message for my wife and kids, sir."

Dave's fingers trembled a shade when his turn came. There was no cross on his paper.

The third blank was drawn by a stolid Kanaka fireman, who shrugged his shoulders, but said nothing. He was an islander by birth, and the ​idea of being marooned did not seem so very terrible to him.

Dave looked at the colored fireman and the carpenter, and wondered how long they were to be his companions on that lonely isle.

Once this ordeal was over, the men set to work enthusiastically, preparing the boat for its journey. She was not built for sailing, but a mast, jib-boom, and cleats were soon rigged. When ready she was taken for a short trial-trip, and Captain Peters reported that she was good for any distance in fair weather.

Provisions and water to last three weeks, with care, were placed on board, and the castaways clambered into the boat while a steady easterly breeze was blowing.

The Kanaka sat on a rock, digging his bare toes into the silvery sand and looking utterly unmoved by these proceedings.

"Good-by, lads," said the skipper. "Don't get ​

Dave, Tempest, and the Kanaka stood watching the boat glide away

​into mischief or spend all your money You won't be here very long if we make Fiji all right. I 'll pass the word along to the first trading-boat bound this way, and they 'll pick you up. Come on, Tempest, get in."

"I'm not going," said Tempest, lighting his pipe and squatting comfortably on the sand. "I 've taken rather a fancy to the scenery around here. You take the lad in my place."

"I'm very much obliged to you, Tempest," Dave said, looking his friend squarely in the eyes, "but I can't do that. We all picked our slips fairly, and I was unlucky, that's all."

"Then you'd better go, Chips," Tempest said casually to the carpenter, with a wink.

"You 're certainly a white man," said the carpenter, who realized Tempest was making the sacrifice to stand by his friend. The two gripped hands for an instant, and then the boat was quickly pushed off the beach.

​Dave, Tempest, and the Kanaka stood watching the boat glide away until it was only a speck in the distance.

"Well," said Tempest, at last, "we 're both Robinson Crusoes now, and we only have one Man Friday between us."

 

MAROONED!

ALTHOUGH those who had gone were naturally very much missed, the trio settled down to their lonely life a good deal more contentedly than they had anticipated. A more ideal camping-ground could not have been found, and, for the present, at least, they had all the necessities of life at their elbows. One of their chief recreations was fishing. The gear was primitive, Tempest fashioning hooks out of wire with the aid of a file, but the sport was excellent and provided a welcome change of diet. They were a little anxious at first about some of their catches, Tempest doubting whether several of the brilliantly hued fish were edible, but the Kanaka came to their rescue, picking out those which were poisonous, ​and also showing how fish were cooked in native fashion, by baking them in clay in the ground—a process which both Dave and Tempest were forced to admit put the old-fashioned frying pan to shame.

On one occasion a fishing expedition nearly led to disaster. While Tempest was busy ashore the boy went off in the dory with the Kanaka, and the sport was so good that they were tempted to remain at anchor some distance off the shore in spite of a brisk breeze that had sprang up. At last the weather-wise Kanaka, scenting danger, began to heave on the anchor. Instead of coming in puffs, the wind was now steady, dotting the surface of the water everywhere with "white horses."

The two pulled at the oars for ten minutes until Dave, glancing over his shoulder, realized that they were making no progress.

Only then did the gravity of the situation dawn upon him. The Kanaka knew, but he gave no sign. The muscles under his bare arms and back ​played like ripples of velvet. He seemed to be made of sinew and steel. Toughened though Dave was by months of hard work, the strain began to tell on him before long, but the Kanaka kept plugging away, even when it became apparent that they were losing ground. The little island, from which Tempest was doubtless watching the struggle anxiously, was slowly but surely dropping farther away, and to make matters worse darkness shut down on the dory, swiftly following the sinking of the sun as it always does in the tropics.

They were still more or less under the shelter of the land, but the size of the waves had increased alarmingly, and more than one white crest toppled into the little craft. Soon they were up to their ankles in water, about which the dead fish floated.

"Bail um water out," said the Kanaka, pulling a little harder to make up for the deficiency when Dave shipped his oars.

The boy seized the tin and bailed furiously, but each time he got the dory nearly empty another ​curling wave hit the prow and hissed its way along the gunwale, slopping over the edge ominously as it went.

The stolid demeanour and dogged perseverance of the Kanaka helped Dave to keep up his spirits, although there were times when he saw no earthly hope of their getting back to the shore, especially when one wave, angrier than the rest, spun the tiny craft half round and left it half full.

"Bail um," the Kanaka urged, heading the boat round again into the teeth of the wind.

"Bail um," indeed, Dave did, for his very life. Had another wave hit them at that moment the dory would have sunk, but the fates were kind, and he got most of the water out before more came in.

When the situation seemed as desperate as it very well could be, the moon began to show a faint gleam, in which Dave could dimly discern the outlines of the island, and a little while later, as though tired of toying with its victims, the ​wind dropped suddenly. Dave and the Kanaka had about three miles to row to the beach, and both were utterly exhausted by the time the dory grounded.

Tempest, who, naturally, had feared they were both blown out to sea, lectured the pair of them in a fatherly fashion.

"And as for you, Jim," he said, turning to the Kanaka, "I should have thought you had more sense than to take such chances with an off-shore wind like that blowing. If you had n't got back with the dory I'd have pulled your ears off."

Jim grinned.

"Sea she no tell me about her fool tricks," he replied in his curious polyglot English picked up partly from the cosmopolitan crowds in stokeholds and partly in the Philippines.

The Kanaka was by no means an unwelcome member of the party. He had intelligence of an unusual order for his kind and displayed great ingenuity on occasions. What his age was neither ​Dave nor Tempest could determine, and Jim certainly did not know. Probably he was in the neighborhood of forty. He was not particularly communicative, but piece by piece the other two extracted some of his history. His early boyhood had been spent in the Sandwich Islands; but being by nature a roamer, he left there and became stranded at Tahiti, far to the south of Honolulu. He did not remain there long, however, moving from one place to another, sometimes as a sailor, sometimes picking up a scant subsistence as a fisherman, and sometimes living a life which was more than half savage. His knowledge of the islands in the South Seas was extensive and peculiar; and like Tempest, he had the trick of making himself completely at home wherever fate happened to set him down.

"Have you ever been to Christmas Island?" Dave once asked him, wonderingly.

"Lived there two summers," Jim explained. "Nice place. Not many people."

​"I should judge not," Tempest commented. "Did you ever get to Fanning Island?"

"Know um; not lived there," the Kanaka said.

"Ha! Ha! The plot thickens," said Tempest. "You know some of the other islands round about there perhaps, eh?"

"Some," said Jim. "Lived in Philippines since then. Lot of years ago."

"It seems to me that Jim would be a mighty useful man to take along with us if ever we go hunting for your treasure-ship, Dave," said Tempest. "He is n't a bad old sort, and he might be able to pilot us around a bit."

"That's a good idea," the boy agreed. "I suppose we are n't so very far off the place now, are we?"

"No-o," replied Tempest, "if you don't reckon two or three thousand miles far, and add to that that we 're marooned on an island for an extremely indefinite period. Outside of that, you can fairly count on the treasure being ours and ​make a few inquiries as to to-day's market price of platinum to, see how much you 're worth."

"You 're laughing now," Dave said, "but you won't laugh once you see me sitting on the deck of the good ship Hatteras counting up a fortune."

"She has n't any deck left. It's all been washed away."

"How do you know? You have n't seen it. Jim, are you coming with us to Christmas Island?"

The Kanaka shrugged his shoulders. He thought it was some silly joke.

"I expect we 'll have to bribe him," Tempest said. "Jim, what would you like best of all in the world?"

The Kanaka was squatting with crossed legs on the sand, screwing his eyes into the sun to watch the graceful flight of a gull. He was wearing all that remained of just two garments—a shirt, the sleeves of which he had removed by main ​force, and a pair of cotton trousers rolled above his knees. Back on one of his beloved islands, where there was no coal to shovel into greedy furnaces and where time was a word that had almost ceased to have any meaning, he was fast reverting to nature. He looked like a person whose highest ambition would be to lie on his back and bask in the sunshine for ever and ever.

As the gull seemed to disappear in the burning sun Jim turned round slowly with a lazy smile.

"More than all the other things in the world, um?" he repeated, looking at Tempest, who nodded.

"One time," Jim said with quaint gravity, "I sailed on a big ship round Cape Horn to a place where all the ships come from, bigger 'n Manila, bigger 'n Iquique, called Hobroken."

"Hobroken?" Tempest queried, wrinkling his brows in perplexity. "Where in the name of fortune is that?"

​"Great big place," declared Jim, extending his arms wide as though to indicate the size. "Hobroken up a river."

"You don't happen to mean Hoboken, by any chance, do you, Jim?" Dave asked.

"Hobroken—dat's um, Hobroken," the Kanaka said, hugely pleased.

Dave rolled backward and roared with laughter.

"That's almost a part of a place called New York City, Jim," he said at last. "Did n't you ever hear of New York?"

The Kanaka nodded, but looked puzzled. He saw no cause for mirth.

"New York somewhere near there," he said.

"Well, what about Hoboken, Jim?" Tempest asked.

"One time I'd lika go to Hobroken again," was the reply, uttered impressively, "with two three dollars."

"Funny thing," said Tempest, blowing rings of smoke; "you 're not the first person I 've heard ​express the desire to go to New York with dollars, but 'two three' would n't carry you very far there, Jim."

The Kanaka, who had worked wonders on that sum in Manila, was coldly incredulous.

"What would you do when you got there?" Dave asked.

Again Jim smiled happily. The prospect was evidently one which he had treasured in his moments of leisure while basking on various islands in the South Seas.

"Wear clothes like um other peoples," he said, "and ride in um trolley-cars."

"And stop there always?" Tempest suggested.

The Kanaka shook his head slowly, now watching another gull skim the water.

"Just for a bit while," he said, "then p'raps come back here or some other place."

"He's got the New York fever," Tempest laughed, "but it is the most comical case I ever heard of. I expect New York would soon cure ​him, especially when his two three dollars were gone, and then he'd begin to pine for something really exciting again, like the fight he had with that twelve-pound fish yesterday."

"Never mind him, Jim," Dave said. "You come to Christmas Island with us, and after that I 'll take you to Hoboken, where you can ride about in trolley-cars in a tall silk hat with feathers in it if you like. Will you come?"

Jim shrugged his shoulders and extended his hands—a gesture with which he always expressed agreement.

As the days drifted on, and Dave and Tempest grew to know their island home better, they came to the conclusion that there were worse things than being shipwrecked under such conditions. As a rule the cooking was done by Dave, he being the accepted expert, but in the hunting and fishing they all three joined, and they obtained much excellent sport. Jim, with a native's cunning in the chase, devised various methods of ​catching birds as a change for their food, but their best sport was the hunting of pigs. The little wild animals were by no means easy to catch, and this was only done occasionally, neither Dave nor Tempest liking the idea of killing them. Excepting the creatures with gorgeous plumage which still made strident noises when any one approached them, the birds were remarkably tame, no doubt because the hand of man had never been raised against them. There were boatswain birds, wideawake tern, puffins by the thousand, and white-cap noddys, besides others which Tempest could not name, though the Kanaka had an unpronounceable name for every kind. Some of the birds were so unused to fear that they merely strutted out of the way when any one passed.

On one occasion Jim, with great pride, prepared a special dish which was evidently a sort of islanders' omelette. It consisted largely of sea-birds' eggs and tasted rather like cod-liver oil. Rather than hurt Jim's feelings, Tempest ​and the boy gulped down their share and congratulated him on his skill, but after that they were careful not to encourage him in a repetition of the experiment.

Dave's greatest joy was a pig-hunt The little wild animals were by no means easy to catch, but they formed a delicious dish which rewarded the hunters for their trouble. The chief difficulty in capturing them was the natural shelter they sought in the thick, tangled undergrowth. Fully half the island's surface was covered with impenetrable bush, intertwined with a fearsome form of cactus whose leaves were like saws. It was utterly impossible to force an entry into this natural fortress, through which the small hogs had beaten innumerable run-ways but little wider than their own bodies. Once a pig got into the maze of run-ways it was as safe as though in the heart of a jungle, but occasionally the hunters were able to surprise their quarry in some of the isolated clumps of bushes. In this the Kanaka's ​assistance proved of the utmost value. Like most other men who have lived in a semi-wild state, his hearing was extraordinarily acute.

"I'll get um li'le pig," he said once when they had tried several times to make a capture and failed utterly.

"What are you going to do?" asked Tempest. "Make a noise like a sweet potato and bang 'em on the head while they 're standing still trying to scent it?"

Jim did not deign to make any reply, but occupied himself during the greater part of the next few days in making a number of strong nets from twine, each about five feet square, with small lengths of twine attached to the corners. While this operation was in progress the other two, considerably mystified, submitted the Kanaka to good natured joking.

"I know," said Dave, "he's going to fish for them."

"Great," commented Tempest. "I hear that ​pig fishing is one of the chief sports in the Sandwich Islands. What do you use for bait, Jim?"

Jim, however, worked on stolidly, finally surveying the crude nets he had constructed, with much satisfaction.

"Now I show you how to catch um li'le pig," he observed with a grim smile.

With an ax he cut three formidable looking clubs from a tree, and then leading the way to a clump of bushes some distance from their camp he tied the nets loosely across the entrances to the various runways.

"Lie still," he ordered. "Bimeby we hear him say 'grump-grump' maybe p'raps."

Each holding one of the murderous clubs, they squatted on the ground. There seemed to be perfect stillness, such as one can find on an isle in the Pacific on a calm day. Not even the soft soothing sound of a ripple on the sea shore reached them. Once or twice the melancholy call ​of a distant gull reached their ears, otherwise they were in a soundless world.

Suddenly the Kanaka raised a warning finger. The porker had betrayed its presence to him, though neither of the other two had detected it. He motioned Tempest and Dave to the place where the animal was most likely to break away. Once he saw they were ready at their stations he went round to the other side of the bushes and set up an unearthly din that was calculated to drive any self-respecting hog out of its senses.

Yelling himself hoarse, and beating on the tangled branches like a mad thing with his club, he kept up a running fire of warning to the others, sometimes lapsing into a heathenish tongue in his excitement.

At last, without the slightest warning, an alarmed pig, squealing as though a pack of hounds were at its trotters, bolted at full gallop.

Full tilt, it went at a net near which the boy and his companion were waiting in breathless ​suspense. The net came away from its moorings, as Jim had intended it to, with one or more of the porker's legs hopelessly entangled in the meshes; and there ascended heavenwards a squealing the like of which had probably never been heard on the island. Over and over the pig rolled, struggling frantically to free itself. Both Dave and Tempest were rushing towards it, with clubs upraised, when confusion was added to the situation by another pig bolting into a second net.

Dave spun round, leaving Tempest to deal with the first animal, and knocked his captive out with a lucky blow just as the Kanaka came rushing round the edge of the bushes.

"Hoo-la! hoo-la!" Jim yelled in ecstasy; and rather than take any chances he despatched the little hog quickly.

Tempest, meanwhile, was in difficulties. Before he could reach his pig it had extricated all but one foot from the net, and was careering madly away, dragging the net with it. Tempest tore ​after the quarry which was making instinctively for a run-way in the main jungle, but after he had run a dozen yards he caught his foot in the root of a tree. By the time he had picked himself up again the porker had bolted like a rabbit up the tunnel, shedding the net at the entrance as it went.

He went back to the others and offered his congratulations to the boy.

"That's one to you, Dave," he said. "He looks a nice young one, too. If I'm any judge he'd make a supper for the gods. I don't believe I could stop a tortoise in a passage."

"Never mind," Dave said. "It will be your turn next time, and anyway we could n't eat two pigs at once, even if we are starving shipwrecked mariners with only the stores off one ship to keep us alive."

The prize was conveyed back to the camp, where a heated discussion took place as to how it should be cooked. Tempest, who confessed he knew ​nothing about such matters, argued that it should be done one way, Dave, whose experience in the galley gave his word a certain degree of authority, protested that it should be cooked another way. Jim, on the other hand, declared it should be baked whole, in the ground, native fashion; and finally the other two gave in to him. They watched the process with great interest, and when it was ready to eat they unanimously decided that whatever Jim's omelettes were like, no Fifth Avenue chef had anything on the Kanaka when it came to roast pork.

On the morning following the pig hunt Tempest announced that, while the others were out fishing, he was off on a little exploration tour. Although the island was so small, there were many parts of it which they had not yet reached. In places it was difficult to get down to the beach, and at the northern end there were rugged peaks in a trackless district, where one had to climb laboriously.

​Dave and the Kanaka returned to the shore soon after noon, and were surprised when Tempest did not arrive for the midday meal. Not until the swift setting of the sun, however, did Dave grow anxious, and then he began to realize that something untoward must have happened, for Tempest had taken no food with him and the boy could think of no reason why his friend should remain away until after dark.

He and Jim ascended the nearest hill and shouted continually, but no reply came from the silent jungle nor beyond.

"Come on, let's get some lanterns," said the boy at length. "I'm going to make a search."

Leaving a light burning at the camp, for there was no moon and the stars were almost obscured by clouds, they set out in the darkness, Dave feeling distinctly uneasy. He racked his brain to think of some plausible explanation of Tempest's failure to return. Until after midnight the two searched and called in vain. Then, with a heavy ​heart, the boy returned to the camp, to toss about uneasily, fully dressed, until dawn.

Tempest had disappeared, and Dave was alone now, but for the half-savage Kanaka. The boy, however, did not think of his own position. It was the thought of his friend which kept him awake.

CHAPTER XV
LAUNCHING THE MUD TURTLE

THERE was still no sign of the missing man at the camp when the sun rose, and a fear that had haunted Dave began to become very real. He was now firmly convinced that his friend had gone for a swim and been drowned. In a very dismal mood he walked down to the bay where they usually took their dip, and searched, fearing to find what he was searching for.

"Jim," he said at last, "we 'll put up some lunch and spend the rest of the day going over every foot of this island. There's always a chance."

Systematically they explored the southern and western extremities of the place, and the sun was already slanting. westward when they came to the rugged territory in the north. Dave had very ​little hope left, when suddenly Jim gave a cry of delight which brought the boy to his side at a run.

On one of the few patches of ground which did not consist of hard rock two or three footmarks were distinctly visible.

"We get him yet," declared the Kanaka, now moving quickly from place to place like a hound eagerly picking up scent. A score of yards farther on he stooped over a broken twig and silently pointed to it. Under it was the faint imprint of a shoe heel.

Gradually they progressed almost to the northern shore, guided by one indistinct mark after another and shouting as loudly as possible every few minutes.

At length the Kanaka put his hand on Dave's shoulder suddenly, his head bent in a listening attitude.

A faint cry reached the boy's ears.

"Thank goodness!" he said solemnly.

​Five minutes later he was by Tempest's side,

"Hello, old top," said the latter, in a weak voice. "You don't happen to have a plate of ham and eggs about you, and a quart or so of coffee, do you? I'm ravenous. I could n't find a restaurant open anywhere round here."

"Stop fooling!" said Dave. "Where are you hurt?"

"I guess I ought to be nearly all right by now," Tempest said with a grin. "I 've been doing nothing particular but nurse it for about thirty hours. I twisted my ankle a bit yesterday, and I must have bumped my head in falling, because I don't remember much about it."

"Well, cheer up," said Dave. "We 'll soon get you home now."

"Oh, I 've been cheered up for the best part of an hour," said Tempest. "I heard you and Jim yelling the top of your heads off, but the wind was in the wrong direction for you to hear me shouting back. I knew you'd roll up sooner or ​later. Sorry to give you so much trouble. Jim, you 're as strong as a rhinoceros, if not so good-looking. If there is n't any sign of a taxicab, would you mind giving me a pickaback as far as our little dump, and I 'll promise never to call you an ugly old sinner again?"

Without a word the Kanaka stooped, and Tempest scrambled onto his back. He winced once or twice as they traveled over uneven ground, for, in spite of his cheerfulness, his ankle was very painful. Tireless as a horse, Jim carried him all the way, and deposited him gently at the camp, where Dave assumed the rôle of doctor. It was now his turn to apply a cold compress, but the sprain had been a severe one, and the swelling did not go down appreciably for three days.

While the patient was lying resting his injury he and Dave had a long talk on the possibility of their being picked up. Five weeks had elapsed since the crew of the ill-fated Manihiki set sail. It was only possible to speculate, of course, as to ​what had happened to the small craft. There had been no very rough weather on the island, but that was not much to go by, as a terrific storm might sweep by within fifty miles and never be noticed where they were.

"It is a little early to get impatient, yet," Tempest commented. "If they have all been sunk, we may be left here till we have beards down to our knees, and not a soul would be the wiser; but we can safely wait three months before making up our minds for that sort of thing."

"I suppose we could n't possibly try to make the trip in our dory!" Dave suggested,

"There's no law against it," Tempest said, "but you don't catch this child trying the experiment. You remember what happened not long ago when you and Jim were out fishing and the wind got up a bit. And you were practically under the shelter of this island all the time. You can imagine what it would be like if a regular gale hit that cockleshell."

​"Well, could n't we build a boat?"

"I 've thought of that. But it's a big undertaking, you know, and I never made anything out of wood but a dog-kennel. I'm game to try, though, if you like. It 'll amuse us if it does nothing else. Let us start by giving her a name. What are you going to call this wonderful craft! How will the Mud Turtle do!"

"That 'll do finely," said the boy. "We will start on her as soon as you can walk."

Though neither Tempest nor Dave knew it, the day they laid the keel of the Mud Turtle the crew of the Manihiki were being landed at Melbourne, their plans having gone somewhat astray. They had covered half the distance to Fiji laboriously by tacking against adverse winds most of the time, and had reduced their ration of water by half, as their supply of that precious liquid was getting perilously low, when a steamer nearly ran them down in the middle of the night, the only lamp on the long-boat having been broken. The ​helmsman on the steamer heard their cries just in time to swing aside, and the men from the Manihiki were only too thankful to accept the offer of a passage to the first port the vessel was bound for. There was no wireless on board, so until he reached Melbourne Captain Peters was unable to notify his owners of the loss of their vessel and the plight of those he had left on the island. A month was to elapse, moreover, before the next vessel was to leave Sydney for the scene of the shipwreck.

The task of building the Mud Turtle was a more formidable one than even Tempest had anticipated. To begin with they had very few planks that were of any service for the purpose. One of the spars off the Manihiki made a rough keel, but almost all the rest of the material had to be hewn out of green trees. They had plenty of tools, however, and though the skeleton of the craft would probably have convulsed a professional boat builder with laughter, it had at least ​more resemblance to a boat than a dog kennel, as Tempest pointed out.

The Mud Turtle was sixteen feet in length, and somewhat narrow in order to overcome some of the difficulty of getting curves. As a matter of fact she consisted chiefly of angles. From the first she had no pretentions to elegance, and in spite of her builders' ingenuity there were awkward gaps where the rough planks positively refused to meet, this necessitating a great deal more caulking and patching than was consistent with beauty.

"How fast do you think she will sail?" Dave asked when they had her about half finished.

"About a knot an hour, if we get out and push," Tempest replied lugubriously. "Pity we did n't let that engineer bring the donkey engine ashore. We could have rigged it up and converted our wonderful boat into a steamer, maybe p'raps, as Jim says."

The Kanaka, who had distinct ideas on the ​subject of boat building, but whose ideas had been overruled because Tempest thought a catamaran such as they could construct would be as dangerous as a bundle of dynamite, viewed the Mud Turtle with something akin to suspicion, if not actual distrust; but he worked on her just as cheerfully as the others, putting in long hours with the saw on green timber and using other carpenter's tools with remarkable skill considering they were all strange to him.

It was decided to have the boat half decked in, lest they should encounter bad weather, but before tackling that part of the job Tempest and Dave made up their minds to set their vessel afloat for a trial trip, just to see how she took to the water. Before sliding her down the beach they went over every seam and applied pitch liberally. She looked more like a disjointed miniature coal hulk than anything by the time they had her ready, and when Dave ran a critical eye over her he had certain misgivings.

​"She's no racer, certainly," he said, "but considering she is the first boat we ever made the result is n't so bad, is it?"

Tempest glanced over her awkward lines.

"I 'll tell you better when I see her dancing over the silvery waves," he replied cautiously.

"We 're ready now, are n't we? All together. Push."

The Mud Turtle slid down the greased boards with the grace of a lumbering elephant, Dave, Tempest and Jim hanging on to her tenaciously. Just as she plunged into the water they all three leaped up the side. The boat had come down a considerable slope, and threw up a large wave as she dived. The water was dead calm, and the Mud Turtle shot out twenty feet from the shore, but even as she was doing so her builders realized that something was radically wrong. She was canting over at a perilous angle, and the strain of being launched had strained her timbers alarmingly. In half a dozen places jets of water were ​squirting into her, and in one place where a patch had been sprung the sea was coming in faster than it could have been bailed out.

Jim looked at the wreck of their hopes with a perfectly blank expression. Perhaps he had anticipated something of the sort all the time. Dave, standing ankle deep in the bottom of the boat, frowned gloomily. Tempest, leaning against the side of the craft that was highest out of the water, in an attempt to keep her balanced, laughed long and loudly.

"I don't call it a bit funny," the boy said, watching the Mud Turtle slowly settle down.

"I refuse to burst into tears about it," Tempest said. "It is a whole lot funnier to see her going down now right here than it would have been if we had got about fifty miles away from shore in her and then she had started to play tricks on us."

"I suppose it is, really," agreed Dave, who was beginning to absorb from Bruce Tempest some of his unquenchable good spirits whatever ​happened. "But can you suggest what we 're going to do with her now?"

"She would fetch a lot of money anywhere—as a curiosity," said Tempest "But I'm afraid the buyers of this interesting maritime monster will have to be quick, because in a few more minutes the sad sea waves will have closed over her for ever."

"Can't we do anything with her?" the boy asked, smiling now in spite of his disappointment.

"She is getting too wet to burn. That's all I can think of."

"What about putting ballast in to keep her upright?"

"You'd have to put enough rocks in to force the bottom out of her. No, I'm sorry to say it, Dave, but the Mud Turtle is a hopeless failure. Come on, we have either to swim ashore or go down with the brute."

And so, in six feet of water, they pushed off from the boat a few minutes before it quietly ​sank. Its gunwale was disappearing as they reached shore.

During all the time the trio were marooned they kept a fixed rule that every three hours during the day one of them was to ascend the hill where the flagpole stood and scan the horizon through the binoculars. As the weeks sped into months they became more hopeful, for the time was now nearing when the steamer sent by the crew of the Manihiki might put in an appearance. Whatever doubts Tempest may have had on that score, he said nothing about them. He knew well enough the grim possibilities that might overtake a small, crowded boat on a trip of four hundred miles, and there were times when he thanked his stars that neither Dave nor he had undertaken the trip. At the same time, it occurred to him there was a distinct chance that they might have to remain where they were for a year or more, and, rather than miss the opportunity of attracting some boat that might pass in the night, he kept ​the bonfire of brushwood near the flagpole ready to light. Sometimes he and the boy would stroll up to the look-out post during the evening and yarn, while keeping a watch on the dark waters.

One night—it was the night of their seventy-second day on the island—Dave, having dozed most of the afternoon, felt little inclination to sleep. His two companions were in the land of dreams. Stepping softly, to avoid waking them, he passed out of the hut, and strolled out into the night air. A thin crescent of the moon shed a pale light, and the stars glistened like a myriad of diamonds set in the sky. First he strolled slowly down the silvery beach and stood near the edge of the water, whose waves were lapping the sand gently. He stood there a few minutes, drinking in the tropic beauty of the scene, and then, to get a wider view, walked up the hill to the flagpole.

Scanning the horizon as a matter of habit, his ​eye rested for a second on something far away where the starlit sky seemed to dip down into the ocean. He stood still as a statue and tried to find it again. Surely it was imagination—or was it? He could have been positive that just for a fraction of a second a greenish light twinkled in the distance. Perhaps it was a star. At any rate he could not pick it out again with the naked eye, so he walked down for his binoculars. Five minutes later he was back on the hill, peering through the glasses.

Suddenly his heart gave a thump. That was no star. The greenish hue was unmistakable. Like a hare, he leaped down to the camp, shouting to awaken Tempest.

"Matches, quick!" he yelled excitedly, fumbling in Tempest's pocket. "There's a ship away off, fifteen or twenty miles to the south'ard."

"And I was just getting off to sleep so beautifully!" expostulated Tempest, who, however, did not allow any grass to grow under his feet. He ​and Dave made a dead heat of it up to the flagpole, Jim lumbering up in the rear.

"Where away?" asked Tempest, while Dave put a light to the dry twigs.

"Right over there, in a line with my finger. Use the glasses, or else you can't see it." The boy's finger shook a trifle as he pointed.

"Thunder! You 're right, laddie!" Tempest said after a moment. "More brushwood, quick. Jim, you scalawag, I 'll skin you alive if you don't get busy. The fourth of July is n't in it with this for a bonfire. Get an ax, you Kanaka. Bushes—trees—whole forests if you can find 'em!"

Already the flames were licking their way above the pile of brushwood, and Dave and Tempest were wildly tearing at the branches near by. Soon the Kanaka, with gleaming eyes and mighty strokes, was tearing off more fuel, which was quickly flung to the top of the bonfire.

"That's the style!" Tempest shouted as the fire threw their figures up in its glare. "If she's ​going straight by there, we may only have a little while to attract her attention. Jiminy! We ought to have a fire they could see in Australia!"

Regardless of scratches and cuts, they toiled on, while the flames rose higher and higher. Tempest pausing only now and again to take a squint through the binoculars. At that distance it was very difficult to see whether the vessel was putting about.

After about half an hour of this strenuous labor he leaned, breathless, against the pole to steady the glasses.

"I can't see a blessed thing of her now," he said. "Here, Dave, you have a try."

The boy looked long and carefully.

"I don't see the green," he said, "but if I'm not mistaken there's a white light in about the same place."

"More trees—more forests, Jim, or I 'll tear your ears off. That's the mast head light. She's put about. Say good-bye to the little pigs ​on this island, Dave, because I'm a Dutchman if you 'll get the chance to do it soon. We 'll be bound for furrin parts before you know where you are."

Another half -hour showed unmistakably that the ship was heading direct for the beacon. The trio still kept the flames leaping until the vessel was about a mile off, and then they went down to the beach, where the steady thump of her propeller was distinctly audible. Soon the rattle of an anchor-chain came over the water, and the dark form of a dory came creeping over the lagoon.

Dave was wildly elated. Tempest, now that the suspense was over, almost seemed to be losing interest. It was beginning to dawn on him that he had been as happy on the island as he ever was anywhere. The Kanaka squatted on the sand with expressionless face, not even giving a grunt of satisfaction when the dory ran on the sand.

"Hello, there!" said a voice. "Anybody at home?"

CHAPTER XVI
ADVENTURES AHEAD

"THREE of us," replied Dave. "And all mighty glad to see you."

"What is it? A picnic party? Well, I'm hanged!" said the voice, the owner of which jumped out of the boat. He was a big, broad-shouldered man, with a pleasant ring in his voice.

"Much obliged to you for calling," said Tempest. "Hope we have n't inconvenienced you."

"It's a wonder we 're here at all," said the big man. "I saw your beacon as I was going below. Marooned?"

"Our ship had a bit of an argument with a rock out there," said Tempest, "and the rock won. We'd be glad of a passage out of this. You in a hurry? There's lots of stores worth taking."

​"Stores, eh?" said the big man, who proved to be the mate. "Guess I'd better see the skipper about that. It 'll be daylight in a few hours. You come off and see him."

A dozen faces peered curiously over the side of the steamer as they approached it.

"Bless my soul!" said the skipper, when Dave and his companions stepped aboard. "What have we got here?"

Tempest explained briefly, thanked the captain for stopping, and mentioned the stores.

"Why, yes, I 'll be glad to have them," said the skipper. "We 're not over provisioned. Those natives at Fiji wanted too much for their things for my liking, so I only took enough to last till we hit 'Frisco."

As soon as it was light the captain himself went off and inspected the mass of stuff that had been landed from the Manihiki.

"Jer-usalem!" he said, "but this lot is worth a young fortune. Who's the real owner of it?"

​"You 'll have to fight that out with the owners of the Manihiki," said Tempest. "May I ask if you 're calling anywhere on the way to San Francisco?"

"A few places in Samoa, then Washington Island and Honolulu," replied the skipper.

Tempest smiled.

"That's funny, *' he said. "I was going to ask you to oblige us with a passage at the expense of the Manihiki's owners, but since you 're bound for Washington Island I think it would be much better if you could sign us on as members of your crew till we get there."

"Why, certainly. I can do that," said the skipper. "What's the idea?"

"Nothing much," Tempest observed, "except that we might have a little—er—business not so far from Washington Island; and though we 're not stuck for funds, a bit of extra cash might come in very handy when we get there."

The captain displayed no further curiosity in ​the matter. He had knocked about the South Seas too long to be surprised by the mysterious movements of men there. He turned his attention to hustling out to the ship all the miscellaneous articles which had to be got aboard and checked; and long before midday his vessel was again heading for the northeast.

"Do you know where we are going to get off this packet, Dave?" Tempest asked as soon as they got the opportunity for a quiet chat.

"Not exactly," the boy replied. "I heard you saying something about Washington Island, but I never heard of it. What is the scheme?"

"I'm afraid they never taught you your geography very well," said Tempest, stuffing tobacco into his now well-worn pipe with an air of great contentment. "Some people never can see a piece of luck when it comes their way, even if it is sticking out half a yard."

An idea flashed into the boy's mind. Christmas Island was away to the northeast. They were ​going northeast as fast as their engines could take them.

"Are you thinking about the Hatteras?" Dave said in a low voice. He was conscious of a little thrill even as he put the question. Hitherto, their discussions about the treasure-ship had been more or less vague. True, there had been wagging of wise heads and solemn discussions over charts in smoky cabins, but they had always taken place many thousands of miles from that mysterious island where the semblance of a camel's back loomed up over a lagoon. The subject had been interesting, but intangible. Now, in a flash, it seemed different.

"Tell me what Washington Island has got to do with it?" Dave asked, with a serious light in his grey eyes.

"Only this—that if we get off there, we shall be within something like three hundred miles of the spot where your old mariner says the bones of the Hatteras are sticking up out of the sand," ​Tempest replied. "Even three hundred miles is a mighty long distance, in a way, but it's better than three thousand, and it looks to me as though Old Man Opportunity was going out of his way to knock at your door a second time. Do you remember that I once told you there comes a time in everybody's life when it's worth while to go full steam ahead whatever effort it costs! Fussy people, who get excited over every blessed thing from sunrise to sunset, have n't got any steam left in 'em when the big chance bobs up. They fuss along just the same as they always have done, but they haven't got any punch to it. Now, it looks to me as though this is where you and I should wake up."

"Well, you know, Tempest, whatever you say, I'm with you." A queer sense of excitement was beginning to creep over the boy. It was only at rare moments that Bruce Tempest dropped the mask of light-hearted carelessness, and he was ​unquestionably serious now. "What do you suggest?"

"I can't say," Tempest replied with a light laugh, seeing how intent the boy had suddenly become. "Don't let this make an old man of you. We may be on a wild-goose chase all the time—but then again we might not. And what we 've got to do is to assume that it is n't a wild-goose chase. We 've got to try this thing out, somehow or other."

"Well, there's one thing," Dave commented. "One might go to sea for a hundred years and never get as near as three hundred miles to Lost Island again."

"That's just my point," said Tempest. "To tell you the truth, I can't see very far ahead at the moment. If we had a private yacht and plenty of money, the thing would be simplified; but we have n't too much money between us, and our yacht is now rotting at the bottom of the Pacific. ​That is as far as the Mud Turtle ever got. Anyway, we 've got arms and legs, and Jim is going to stick with us."

"By the way, Tempest," Dave said, "has it ever occurred to you to wonder whether that treasure really would be ours if we did happen to find it?"

"It has, and it would," the other replied. "I know what you mean—the man who mined it turning up and claiming it and all that sort of thing. Yes, I have thought of that, and I should think it's about a million to one that nothing of the sort could possibly happen after all these years. I talked that over with old Lightning Grummitt, and he took the same view that I do. No, laddie, put that right out of your mind. Never cross your bridges before you get to them. The man who dug that platinum up is as dead as mutton; and though I'm sure I should be only too pleased to let him have his share if he did bob up, it just won't happen. If he were alive, don't you think he would have moved heaven and earth to get back ​to the wreck of the Hatteras and rescue his blessed stuff?"

"I suppose he would," Dave agreed. "But if it comes to that, how do we know that he never did go back to the Hatteras and get it, the same way that we propose to do now?"

"How do you know that pigs can't fly when you are n't watching 'em?" Tempest expostulated. "How do you know the earth is n't flat? How do you know the moon is n't made of green cheese? You 've never been up to see. The only thing we shall know definitely, if ever we do handle the treasure, is that that platinum miner was too dead to go for it himself."

"There's no getting away from that," Dave agreed, now satisfied on the subject.

During his watch below, Dave spent some time during the run to the Samoan Islands writing to his father, knowing that Captain Hallard must be growing anxious. He told how they had been cast away, and wrote cheerfully about all the ​adventures he had had since leaving Australia, Of the immediate future, however, he said very little, not being sure himself of what was likely to happen.

"I am leaving this ship," he added, "at Washington Island, with my friend Bruce Tempest, and we may stop a week or two in that neighborhood."

Dave nibbled the end of his pen thoughtfully for a while. He was wondering whether his father would look Washington Island up on the map and connect his making a stop there with the old Hatteras.

"After that," he went on, "I am surely coming home, as I want to see you both again very much. I started out for just one trip away and back, but it seems to have got mixed up somehow, does n't it? Ask Aunt Martha to be ready to make me some flapjacks, as I have n't had any since I left Brooklyn."

Knowing nothing of what was in store, Dave thought the time was not far distant when he ​would be eating those flapjacks and proudly relating his own stories of the sea to his father.

Tempest, however, did not seem to share that view. For him, he was growing curiously serious. He rarely lost his old, bantering way, but there were moments when he was unusually thoughtful. He was wrestling with the problem of how one man, one boy, and one Kanaka were to perform the prodigious feat they had set themselves on an extremely limited capital with the best possible chance of success. It was not an easy problem. It would be galling to get so far and not be able to get any farther. And yet Tempest had the conviction that they would find a solution to some of their difficulties. As to the treasure, his mind was perfectly open on that point. To him the matter was merely an interesting possibility. There were a dozen reasons why, even if they ever did reach the end of this curious journey they were planning, they would never find what ​they were seeking at the end of it; but the bare possibility of success made it worth trying. And when Tempest did find anything in life that he considered worth going after, he went after it very hard.

The steamer made one or two calls on her way, and Dave was surprised to find such signs of civilization in remote places like Apia, where a trim little mail boat was just arriving, crowded with tourists. Even here, Tempest was not unfamiliar with the sights. Once before he had landed at Apia for a few hours, and now was able to show Dave around.

But the boy's interest was not in the beautiful home of the Samoans for the moment. The adventures that lay ahead filled him with suppressed excitement. That they might be pretty desperate he knew: exactly how desperate he could only conjecture. He was all agog to sight Washington, from which point they would have to start ​shaping their course in real earnest, and when the steamer cleared Apia at last for that island he stared ahead at the blue, tumbled ocean as though trying to read the riddle of the future.

CHAPTER XVII
INTRODUCING MR. JOE FLAGG

THE weather was sizzling hot as the steamer neared Washington Island, which is only about two hundred and fifty miles north of the equator. Dave and Tempest received the pay they had earned on board, according to arrangement, and added it to their joint capital with a feeling of thankfulness, for it seemed likely that every penny they could accumulate would come in handy when the pinch arrived.

The first thing Tempest did when he got ashore was to inquire whether there was likely to be a vessel of any kind going to Christmas Island soon, but he was disappointed. Traders calling at Washington were few and far between.

The population consisted chiefly of colored folk, ​who appeared to have nothing much to do except bask in the sweltering heat. Dave was feeling distinctly glum, when a short, rotund man, remotely resembling a barrel in shape, rode past on an extremely lean pony. Recognizing strangers, the man nodded and drew rein.

"Can I offer you any assistance?" he asked. Perspiration was oozing in streams from his brow, which he constantly wiped with a very large handkerchief.

"Thanks,'* Dave said; "we wanted to get to Christmas Island."

"Why, that's worse than Washington," said the fat man, "and heaven knows this is bad enough. Nothing ever happens here except the rising of the sun, and then all we can do is to wait till it goes down again. Christmas Island is so near the equator that you could almost jump onto it from there."

"Well, we 're going the first chance we get. Can you say when that might be?"

​"Maybe a month," said the stranger. "You can't tell. What 're you going to do in the meantime?" In the intervals between mopping his brow he was studying the boy and Tempest closely, and apparently the inspection pleased him.

"I guess we shall have to find somewhere to stop," Dave said. "It does n't look like a place where we are likely to get work."

"Work!" the man laughed. "No. I 've been here as a planter for some years now, and I confess I never did see any one work yet. To tell you the truth, it's always a mystery to me how anything ever gets done. You have to explode a stick of dynamite behind these colored people to get a move on them. When I was running a store in Dogtooth City, Dakota, I would n't have stood for this sort of thing, no siree! I was strictly business every time and all the time there. I made my pile in Dogtooth City, and I won't say I did n't come pretty near to making Dogtooth City, too. I was mayor of that little burg three ​times, and sometimes I wonder which particular kind of a fool I am to be here now, when I could go back to Dogtooth and be mayor a fourth time if I liked. They know there that Joe Flagg won't stand any nonsense."

Clearly, Mr. Flagg was naturally garrulous, and he was letting off steam, not having had the opportunity to speak to a stranger for some time. But also he was thinking while he talked, and evidently made up his mind at length.

"It's mighty lonely up at my bungalow," he went on after a scarcely perceptible pause, during which he gave a final and comprehensive glance at the pair, "but I'd sure be tickled to death if you'd come up and stop with me for a while. It seems as though I had n't had any one to talk to in years. Now when I was in Dogtooth City—"

"That's very kind of you," said Tempest, leaping at the chance. "To tell you the truth, we were just beginning to wonder what was going to ​happen to us. If we can give you any help about the place—"

"Tush, tush!" said Mr. Flagg. "You are doing me a favor. I like to let my tongue wag sometimes, and I 've got nobody to talk to up there but Kanakas."

"By the way, we 've got a Kanaka that we 're taking along with us," Tempest said, nodding his head in Jim's direction. "If you would n't mind giving him a shake-down too—"

"Sure! Bring him right along. This reminds me of old times Why, my house was Liberty Hall when I lived in Dogtooth City. I remember once—"

Mr. Flagg talked on as his skinny pony walked in leisurely fashion over the brow of a hill, along a lane between the waving trees of the plantation, and finally to a rambling house with a wide veranda running all round it.

"Here we are," said Mr. Flagg. "And when I tell you you 're the first people I have had ​staying under my roof for nearly eighteen months, perhaps you 'll understand how glad I am to have you. It's no hotel, mind you. We have to put up with a lot of things besides heat on Washington Island, but I 've drilled my boy into cooking till he is one splendid artist with the pots and pans, though he did n't even know how to open a can of beans when I first took him in hand. Yessir, Joe Flagg knows how to cook, though I do say it. When I was in Dogtooth City—"

"He's a decent sort of chap, isn't he?" said Tempest to Dave a little later, when they were alone for a few minutes.

"He's great, so far as his hospitality goes," the boy replied. "This suits us down to the ground, but I fancy we shall get a bit tired of Dogtooth City before we say good-by, sha'n't we?"

"That's easy," said Tempest. "All you have to do when you see it coming is to butt in with some other subject, and he switches off all right."

Mr. Flagg certainly went out of his way to be ​agreeable to his guests, and both Dave and his companion found it a particularly pleasant change to live in a comparatively comfortable house and be waited on. Joe Flagg was as amusing as he was fat, and he often sat by the hour puffing at his pipe, telling remarkable stories of his early life in the West, when men really carried six-shooters just as they do to-day in the movies. In spite of his rotundity Joe Flagg was a very active man. He was always wiping perspiration from his brow with the great handkerchief, but the way he got round on foot put his scraggy pony to shame. Also he was an amateur sailor of no mean ability, and often went for a long cruise, accompanied by a couple of Kanakas, in a three-ton sailing craft in which he seemed to take more interest than he did in his plantation or anything else. He appeared to be devoid of fear. His boat certainly rode well in a heavy sea, but the rougher the weather the more Flagg liked it.

​"I'd run the three of you over to Christmas Island myself," he said one day, "only I don't want to lose you."

"You 've never been as far as there, have you?" Tempest asked.

"Not quite, but pretty nearly."

"You must know these waters well, then."

"I ought to," said Flagg. "I 've been pottering around in 'em for years."

Tempest was thoughtful for a few moments. He caught Dave's eye. The same idea had occurred to both of them at that instant.

"There was a bark called the Hatteras went ashore somewhere around here years ago," Tempest said at last. "Did you ever hear anything of it?"

Joe Flagg rubbed his chin with a pudgy forefinger.

"The name is kind of familiar," he said, "but I don't place it for the minute. There's a good ​many ships have hit trouble in this locality at one time or another."

"Did you ever land on Fanning Island?" Dave asked.

"Why, yes, more than once," replied Flagg. "We sheltered under there three days last fall when it was blowing hard."

"Do you know any of the islands to the south of there—in the direction of Christmas Island, I mean?" asked Tempest.

"Yes, in a way," Flagg said. "There are n't many of 'em till you get nearer the equator. Pretty lonely spots too, let me tell you."

"Did you ever notice a wreck on one of them?" Dave said.

"More than one," replied their host, "but I don't remember anything particular about any of 'em. The sea does n't leave much of them except a few ribs after a year or so."

Again Dave and Tempest exchanged glances.

"I wonder whether you happen to know of an ​island round about there that has a biggish hill on it that looks like a camel's back," Tempest said.

"There is one with a hill on it," replied Flagg, reaching for a chart, "and that may be the one you 're talking of. You see, they 're all very low in the water. That island with the hill must have been bumped up by an earthquake or something. I never noticed a camel's back on it, but you'd probably only see the resemblance from one side. I'm not quite sure, but I think this is it," he went on, indicating the point on the chart with the stem of his pipe. "You thinking of setting up a real estate business there?" he asked, with an amused smile. "I give you my word that it's one dreary place."

How many times had Dave and Tempest pored over their chart and speculated idly on which of the little dots indicated the island that was their goal!

"It certainly does just about fit in, does n't it?" ​Tempest said to Dave with a touch of enthusiasm. "We 'll make for there first, anyway."

"Well, it's none of my business," said Mr. Flaggy "but if there's any way I can help you, put a name to it."

"That's very kind of you," said Tempest, apparently absorbed for the moment in getting an obstinate pipe to burn. Here was Old Man Opportunity hammering hard. Mr. Flagg had a boat that was perfectly suitable for the trip. Mr. Flagg and his two Kanaka sailors knew the waters as well as any one else. Mr. Flagg, also, probably knew the very place Dave and Tempest were so anxious to reach. Tempest did some hard and quick thinking in a very few seconds. It would only be fair, if they took Mr. Flagg into partnership, to give him a full share of the possible proceeds. After burning his second match Tempest had decided that he and Dave would carry out their original program and do the whole thing off their own bat if possible. At least they ​could make their one big effort. If that failed,—if they could not get a boat, or if they got a boat and could not find the place they were looking for,—it would always be possible to come back to Joe Flagg and put the proposition up to him on a proper business basis.

"No, I don't see exactly that you can do anything for us," Tempest added at length. "There's a wreck there that Dave and I have a particular fancy to look over, and we 're going to make a trip in that direction from Christmas Island, when we get there. It may be waste of time, but we 've set our minds on it. There was some stuff worth a pile of money on the Hatteras when she was lost, but that's a good many years since."

"Go to it," said Flagg encouragingly. "Never let a chance slip by. That has always been my motto, because if you don't grab your chances in this world, you won't get anywhere. But if I may express an opinion without discouraging you, ​it seems like a mighty slender chance to me. Perhaps you 've never seen a real storm in this part of the world, eh? I mean the sort of storm that smashes everything. Well, I tell you that anything but rocks on the beach gets beaten up into splinters in very little time. I'm afraid you won't find any wreck there. If I'm not too inquisitive, what is the stuff in the vessel! You 've got a nice job on if it is at all bulky."

"Platinum," Tempest replied. "It is worth a good deal more than gold nowadays. It would be easy enough to handle if ever we got the chance to handle it."

Joe Flagg shook his head slowly many, many times.

"1 hate to sound like a wet blanket," he said, "but you 're up against some proposition. Do you know what part of the ship this treasure stuff was stored in?"

"Well, it would n't be in the hold," Tempest said. "We figure on it being in one of the ​cabins, or perhaps the owner had given it into the captain's care. He might have had it locked up in his quarters."

"Yes, but my dear man," Flagg said, "you don't tell me seriously that you expect to find the captain's cabin there now, with the remains of his breakfast on the table just as he left it?"

"Well, we 're going, anyway, are n't we, Dave?" replied Tempest. "You see, Mr. Flagg, there is just this point. The bark is n't lying in an exposed place. She is—or was—squatting snugly, weighted down with sand, in the shelter of a lagoon where the sea practically could n't smash her up. At any rate, she would have a far better chance in there than she would if she were just lying stranded on the rocks in the open."

"That makes a difference," said Flagg, more encouragingly, "though you 'll have to go there to find out how much difference. Listen to me, Tempest. I'm a man of business, as any one in Dogtooth City will tell you, and all my life I 've ​beeen willing to take a chance when there was a good thing going. You know well enough that there are big difficulties ahead of you. Now, why not let me come in on the deal? My boat is lying here in Shavay Bay doing nothing in particular. I could provision her for the trip and land you right back here on this beach with the stuff—if we found it. What do you say? Of course, I would n't want to do it for nothing. The whole thing is a matter of speculation. I suppose there's only you and the boy in on the proposition. Suppose we say split the proceeds into three?"

Dave looked at his friend inquiringly. He had great respect for Tempest's judgment, and would have fallen in with any suggestion Tempest thought fit to agree to. The idea sounded fair enough. Anyway, Dave was not actuated by any mercenary motive; so far, the love of adventure had carried him toward the Hatteras as much as had any hope of monetary reward. Tempest ​knew that, and he avoided the boy's eyes for the moment. Of course, it would have been by far the easiest course to do as Flagg said, but from a purely business point of view the notion struck Tempest as being stupid. If Mr. Flagg had suddenly descended with his boat on them while they were marooned after the wreck of the Manihiki, it was very possible that Tempest would have leaped at the chance of making the little fat man a partner in the matter. But as things were, it was different. Fortune had favored them greatly by bringing them so close to the spot they were struggling to reach. Perhaps fortune would do more for them. The weather remained perfect. It would be so easy to offer a third of a possible fortune in return for this proffered assistance.

"I'm very much obliged to you," he said, after careful deliberation, "and I don't mind saying it's a big temptation, because it sounds fair; but you see, Mr. Flagg, we 've made up our minds to worry through alone. I'm not very obstinate in the ​ordinary way, but when I do set my teeth into a thing it takes a whole lot to get 'em out again. I 'll tell you what I would be very glad to do, though. We want a boat. You know that. Let us have yours for the trip, and in return we will pay you whatever you think is reasonable for the hire of it. And on the top of that, we 'll undertake to hand over a thousand dollars more in case we are successful. Are you agreeable?"

The discussion of high finance evidently made Joe Flagg perspire more than ever. He mopped his brow industriously, but shook his head.

"No, sir," he said. "Nobody goes off in the Firefly except when I'm in her. I 've allus made that a rule, and I allus shall. I come in as a partner for a third of the spoil, or the Firefly stops where she is."

"Then there is nothing more to be said on the subject, Mr. Flagg, and I'm sorry we can't do business with you," said Tempest, with an air of finality.

​"All right," said their rotund host, indifferently, "I don't blame you. Probably I'd feel the same way myself if I were in your shoes. A difference of opinion in a little matter of business need n't alter friendship, need it? Now, I remember when I was mayor of Dogtooth City—"

CHAPTER XVIII
IN WHICH THE FIREFLY DISAPPEARS

IN spite of his obvious disappointment, Joe Flagg remained as suave and courteous to his two guests as ever. Both Tempest and Dave, however, began to grow restless as time slipped along. There was still no sign of a vessel calling to take them to Christmas Island, and they felt they could not impose on Mr. Flagg's generous hospitality much longer.

When Mr. Flagg was engaged with affairs connected with his plantation, the other two often went for a long hike together. It was seven miles from one end of the island to the other. There were few houses except those near Invisible Bay, where the chief settlement was situated. The idea of hiring another boat had already occurred ​to Tempest, but unfortunately there was not one that appeared to be suitable for the purpose. A good many of the island's residents owned small craft, but Tempest was not inclined to trust his own life and that of Dave to such cockle-shells.

During one of their rambles they heard that there was an Englishman named Cresswell living near the north shore who had a fairly useful sailing-boat called the Nautilus, and the pair promptly started off on a tour of inspection. Cresswell, they found, was a taciturn soul, who spent most of his life nursing a grouch and a bad leg. He could only hobble about with the aid of a stick, and his boat was lying far up on the beach, exposed to the merciless glare of the tropic sun. The paint on its side was blistered, and the heat was fast reducing it to the condition of a sieve.

Tempest examined it carefully before bearding Cresswell, and though far from pleased with the craft, he decided it might be made seaworthy.

The task of putting the matter before Cresswell, ​however, was a somewhat delicate one, for their funds were not in a flourishing condition, and all the money they possessed would be needed for provisions, unless they were to run the risk of starving to death out of sight of land.

"We want to make a little trip on the water, sir," said Tempest, "and we thought perhaps you might loan your boat to us, for a consideration."

Cresswell glared from one to the other.

"And who told you I'd lend it?" he asked acidly.

"Nobody," replied Tempest. "But we need it rather badly, and as you were n't using it just now we thought you perhaps might—"

"What are you doing on the island, anyway?" interrupted Cresswell. "You don't live here. We get too many strangers prowling about these days."

"We 're waiting for a steamer to take us off, sir," said Tempest in his most affable tones. "Now, about the boat. She's just getting ruined ​

"Who told you I'd lend it?" he asked, acidly

​by lying there in the sun. If you would be so kind as to allow us to use her for a while, I 'll make her seaworthy for you."

"Don't know as I want her made seaworthy," the man replied. "She's comfortable enough lying where she is."

"I'm sorry we can't offer to pay for it in advance, Mr. Cresswell," Dave said, "but I 'll give you my word that the money shall be sent to you sooner or later."

Cresswell laughed. Something about the notion seemed to amuse him. He scrutinized the boy carefully for a few moments.

"Hang me if I don't put you to the test, youngster," he said. "Ten dollars a day is what I 'll charge you, and you 're to make good anything that gets broken. And if you find she's sinking and you 're going to drown, don't annoy me by throwing farewell messages overboard in bottles."

Before Dave or Tempest had time to thank him ​properly Mr. Cresswell hobbled back into his house.

"He's a queer sort," Dave said.

"Never mind, we have a boat now," commented Tempest, with a new flash of enthusiasm. "She is n't exactly the sort of craft I should have chosen for monkeying about with in the Pacific, but she's better than nothing. Now, my lad, off with that coat of yours. We have a nice little job ahead of us to fix the tub."

Near the boat was a shed in which the sails were stored. They were in passable condition. Some of the lanyards were rotten, but there was other rope that could be utilized for the purpose. The first thing they did was to haul the boat down to the water's edge and half sink her to swell her timbers. They put in the rest of that day repairing the gear.

Next morning they found their boat considerably improved. They hauled her high and dry, and set to work caulking the leaky cracks. Before ​nightfall Tempest nodded approvingly as he surveyed the result of their labors.

"I'm satisfied," he said. "If only we have fairly decent weather, there is n't the least cause for us to feel anxious. Come on, Dave. Let's take her for a spin."

When afloat, the Nautilus exceeded Tempest's expectations. They tried her both before the wind and tacking, and their spirits rose joyously when they found how handy she was.

Up to the present they had said nothing to Joe Flagg about their acquisition of the Nautilus, out of consideration for that individual's feelings, but now it was necessary to mention the matter, as all that remained to be done before they could start was to lay in the necessary stock of food and water.

"I hope he won't feel sore about it," said Dave, as they walked back. "I believe he thought we should change our minds eventually and take him into partnership."

​"He certainly has been mighty good to us," Tempest replied, "and I would n't do anything to make him feel peeved if I could help it, bless his heart. But business is business, Dave, and we should be foolish to let sentiment interfere with an affair of this kind."

Joe Flagg was awaiting them on the veranda, beaming as usual and working diligently with the handkerchief upon his moist brow.

"I thought you'd deserted me," he said. "What have you two rascals been up to all day?"

"Getting ready to desert you, Mr. Flagg," said Tempest. "We have changed our program a little instead of going to Christmas Island. I'm afraid we have almost overstayed our welcome as it is."

"What's this—what's this?" puffed their host. "What d' you mean about overstaying your welcome? Wait till I say anything like that. I know of no vessel coming here for a week or more yet."

​"That is so," said Tempest. "Fortunately we have been able to hire a small sailing-boat that will do for our purpose."

Mr. Flagg did not speak for a moment.

"All right, my lads," he said at last. "You know your own affairs best. But don't get any crazy notion into your heads that I'm wanting to turn you out. Under my roof you can stop as long as you have a mind to, see?"

Mr. Flagg was so amiable about the matter, and treated his guests with such marked affability during the rest of the evening that Tempest almost found it in his heart to relent. Only the fact that the trim little Nautilus was lying snugly at anchor caused him to refrain. After an early breakfast next morning Dave and his companion started out for the north shore to take possession of their boat and bid its owner a more or less fond farewell.

"Don't bother me!" Cresswell snapped. "I want nothing from you but ten dollars a day. ​And mind you, no messages in bottles as you 're sinking. Ouch!" he added, putting a hand to his lame leg and turning his back on them.

Five minutes later the Nautilus was heading round the bend toward Shavay Bay, both her occupants feeling more than a little pleased with themselves.

"Hello, Flagg's boat is out, I see," Dave said when they reached their destination.

"I suppose he has gone fishing," Tempest observed.

"No, he said he was going to be very busy on the plantation all day. He will kick up a nice rumpus with his two Kanakas if they have taken the Firefly."

For some hours Tempest and Dave were exceedingly busy. It was probable that their very lives would depend on what they took on board, so they laid out their scant capital with the utmost care at the island's solitary store. A couple of ​axes, shovels, and a few simple cooking utensils were placed on board.

"I'm afraid we have n't got much in the way of navigating instruments," Tempest said, "but Jim will help us to worry through. This pocket-compass of mine is fairly accurate, and with our old chart we ought to manage all right. Heigho! I 've known amateur yachtsmen who'd be scared to death at the idea of making the trip that is in front of us without a sextant, chronometer, patent log, barometer, dividers, and parallel rulers, besides compass and charts. Never mind, it's a comfort to reflect that you can only be drowned once. Dave, my son, we 're in for it now. A life on the ocean wave, eh? In my time I 've done some funny things, but I never before set out in a cockle-shell like ours, with one boy and a Kanaka, looking for lost treasure. Well, we 're ready now," he added, as they placed the last beaker of fresh water in the Nautilus. I only ​want to see the wind shift round a bit and then we will start."

"It's due east now, is n't it?" Dave said.

"Pretty near, and a nice job we should have beating up against it. I should regard it as a good omen if the fates sent us a gentle breeze from the northwest to start us nicely on our journey. Let's go up to the bungalow and say good-by to old Flagg, bless him! He has been a real friend to us."

But Flagg was not there, nor did he put in an appearance when the sun was dipping in a crimson sky to the westward.

"Bother him!" Tempest said. "We can't very well slide off without wagging his paw and saying a few nice things. I wish he'd come. The breeze is dodging round more to the westward, and we should get a fine start now."

After darkness had fallen Tempest began to grow anxious about Flagg. The men employed on the plantation reported that they had seen ​nothing of him all day, and his scraggy pony was securely tethered in its stable.

"This is beginning to get mysterious," Dave said.

"I think perhaps we ought to organize a search-party and hunt for him," Tempest suggested. "He may be lying injured somewhere."

Dave was looking out over the darkened sea. He said nothing for several minutes.

"I wonder whether a search-party would find him," he observed after a lengthy pause.

"Why, what do you mean?" Tempest asked quickly. His own nerves were almost on edge.

"I mean," said Dave, slowly, "do you really think he is on Washington Island at the present minute?"

"Great Mackerel, Dave, but I'm glad you 've said it! Do you know, the same idea has been worrying me ever since sunset, and yet I hated to put it into words."

​"Well, since we have put it into words, what about it?"

There was a steely glitter in the boy's eyes which Tempest had never seen there. The same glitter had come once or twice before, when Dave suddenly found himself in danger or when faced with apparently insurmountable obstacles, just as it had come into the eyes of his father and his grandfather on similar occasions.

"There is no sign of the Firefly," agreed Tempest. "I wonder if the old villain is trying to beat us to it."

"Now I come to think of it,*' said Dave, "he never could look one straight in the face. Tempest, I 've got my suspicions!"

"And so have I, Dave," Tempest replied, now thoroughly strung up. "The longer we hang around here, the better start he has. Fortunately, the wind has n't been in the right quarter to please him all day. Come on, Dave," he added, already ​hurrying in the direction of their boat. "I don't know what speed Flagg can knock out of the Firefly, but we 'll give him a run for his money in the Nautilus."

LOST ISLAND!

FOLLOWED by Jim, they scrambled into their boat, and shot the sails up; and in a few minutes the "Nautilus" was bobbing her way out of Shavay Bay on a course almost due southeast, her bow being in a straight line for Fanning Island. From the latter place Tempest intended to take his bearings, and then veer slightly to the south in the direction of the island Joe Flagg had indicated on the chart.

"I 'll tell you what, Tempest," the boy said when the sails were bellying and the waves were flopping against the boat's nose, "if we do happen to have made a mistake in judging Mr. Flagg, and he's only gone to pay visit to some one, he will think us a queer lot to have bolted like this."

​"If!" commented Tempest, grimly. "I 've got a good deal of faith in human nature, my lad, but I'd rather believe our friend was 'way back in his precious Dogtooth City than where he is at this minute. Foxy old rascal! He'd have given his ears for a breeze like this during the day. As it is, I don't believe he can be much more than two or three hours' sailing in front of us. Who would have thought of him sneaking off like that? I don't know whether he expected we should smell a rat and come after him quickly, but he reckoned on getting a full day's lead of us anyhow."

"It will be an interesting moment when we do meet him," Dave said with a smile.

"He will be polite, even under those circumstances, and try to work in a few funny stories. I 've met his kind before."

"By the way," said Dave seriously, "does it occur to you to wonder what will happen if Flagg does happen to get there first and collar the platinum?"

​"It does n't," replied Tempest. "I know. It is a case of 'finding's keepings.' The first party to grab that treasure has just as much right to it, legally, as he has to his own bank balance. That is why we are not going to stop to gather daisies on the way. As a matter of fact, if only we can find our way without wasting too much time, Mr. Flagg won't have had a chance to do much by the time we arrive on the scene; and then there is likely to be some fun."

"Fun!" Dave exclaimed.

"Well," said Tempest, "as the heads of nations put it, we shall have 'severed diplomatic relations.' In other words, if we find Joe Flagg picking the bones of the old Hatteras, the fat will be in the fire."

"It was a mean trick," Dave commented, gloomily.

"Oh, cheer up!" Tempest laughed. "It's all in the game. If you will come treasure-hunting you must be prepared to hit a snag or two, or a ​head or two if necessary. I'm rather looking forward to hearing what he has to say on the subject."

A little wisp of spray shot over the side as the Nautilus plunged before the wind, which was increasing as the night wore on.

"That's right, blow!" said Tempest, hanging on to the tiller and gripping the stem of his pipe hard with his teeth. "I'd hate a dead calm just now."

"It looks like a dirty night," said Dave.

"Well, we can't wash it," the other replied, grinning. "It's 'neck or nothing' now. There is no turning back for us, and I give you my word it will have to be a lot dirtier than this before Flagg shortens sail or tries to take shelter. He has a pretty fair idea now that the hounds are at his heels. Is n't she a peach in a strong wind, eh?"

The Nautilus was certainly acquitting herself most creditably. She careened over under the ​pressure of wind, but shipped nothing except flying spume.

"I only hope that mast is n't rotten," Tempest said, glancing upwards. "We should be properly in the soup if that snapped."

"Are you thinking of taking in a reef?"

"Take in nothing! We 'll nail our colors to the mast, so to speak, Dave. If the thing goes bust we go bust too, so far as getting anywhere is concerned. All the same, I'm glad those halyards are of fairly new manila."

Jim, who did not know precisely what this new game Dave and Tempest were playing was, sat steadying the boat and staring hour after hour over the black expanse of water. He knew they were bound for an island, and that the pair were looking for a wreck; but beyond that he was not concerned. They had all been distressed mariners together, and therefore had a bond of sympathy between them. Moreover, he had nowhere ​else to go, and might just as well be on the Nautilus as anywhere else.

"Grr," he muttered suddenly about midnight, peering almost straight ahead. "Him light over there."

The others looked but could see nothing.

"Sure?" asked Tempest.

"Him light not there now. Him gone," said the Kanaka.

"That's strange," said Dave. "What do you make of it, Tempest? It could n't have been the Firefly, could it?"

"Can't say. These Kanakas have wonderful sight, but the Firefly must be a mighty long way off."

"But they won't be carrying regulation lights, any more than we are."

"That's true, but I expect they have some sort of a lamp on board like ours, to keep an eye on the compass, and one of them may have been holding ​it up at that minute. All the same, we have to take our hats off to Jim if he really did see it."

Although the wind continued to blow moderately hard that night, it was steady, and therefore caused no particular anxiety. The Nautilus was eating up the knots like a racer, and Tempest awaited dawn anxiously in the hope of sighting Fanning Island.

"Keep your eyes skinned for land, Jim," he said.

Jim merely nodded. The sky was growing fairly light when he pointed with a brown forefinger away on the starboard bow.

"Him land," he declared.

"Rubbish!" commented Tempest. "That's a bit of a cloud on the horizon."

Dave was levelling the binoculars in the direction.

"He's right, Tempest," he said.

"Gee, but that's fine!" said Tempest. "I hardly expected to hit it off quite as near as that, ​not knowing anything about the currents. Allow me to remark, Dave, that that was some feat of seamanship on my part. Jim, you bottle-nosed squab, glue your eyes to these glasses and tell me if you see anything of a sailing boat in the offing. There's a friend of mine in it, and I particularly want to say 'good morning' to him."

Jim obeyed instructions, and searched in every direction without success.

"I guess they 've taken a short cut," Tempest observed. "Flagg did n't have to make Fanning Island first. Well, well, that's a point in his favor. It puts him another hour, or maybe two, ahead. I hope one of his sails splits, and that's the most charitable thing I can say for him."

As the breeze remained steady and there was no indication of any change in the weather, Tempest gave the tiller to Dave during the morning, and snatched a couple of hours' sleep, curled up in the bottom of the boat. It was afternoon when the boy aroused him. He would not have done so ​then, but for the unexpected happening. Within the space of twenty minutes the wind developed a chilly tang, and ominous clouds gathered overhead.

The weather-wise Kanaka constantly glanced upwards, but made no comment until a sudden rain squall hit them.

"We 'll have um sea get up pretty soon," he said then, without any change of expression.

"You 're right, I believe, Jim," Dave agreed. "This is where we rouse the skipper, I guess."

Tempest frowned as he took the tiller again. He did not like the look of things. They had taken a chance in a small open boat, and if a real storm broke they would be entirely at its mercy, for they were many miles from the nearest shelter. Three minutes later the wind dropped to a dead calm and the sails hung limp, while a curious yellow tinge developed in the northern sky.

"Now we 're in for it!" Tempest muttered. "Here Jim, you hang on to this rudder. Dave, ​the mainsail, quick," he added, letting go the sheet. "That's right. Now the jib—stop! It's too late. Hang on for your life. Here she comes."

A furious blast struck the Nautilus on the starboard quarter. The little craft quivered and then wallowed in a welter of seething water. The jib gave a crack like a mighty whip, one rope tore away, and the canvas flapped madly as it hung over the side. Tempest gave one glance at it, decided nothing could be done to make it secure in such an emergency, and crawled to the Kanaka's side. At all costs they had to keep the boat running before the wind. She was slewing round desperately, spun by the corkscrew action of the growing waves. In an incredibly short space of time the whole surface of the ocean had become a smother of white, boiling crests, with yawning valleys of water between them. At one moment the trim little Nautilus was buried down, down, with great swirling walls on every side. Then she ​climbed, stern first, up the side of an endless hill of green, pausing dizzily at the crest and careening over perilously under the pressure of wind.

Instead of moderating, the gale grew steadily worse, and both Dave and Tempest thought their end was approaching. There seemed no possible hope of the Nautilus keeping afloat. A dozen times she was on the verge of being swamped but always struggled bravely to right herself.

"It's my fault, lad," Tempest said, gripping the boy's hand. "I ought to have had more sense."

Dave's face was white. He looked a little older at that fearful moment. It was terribly hard to have to lie there, braced up against a seat, and do nothing but wait.

"Nobody could have known this was coming," he said quietly.

For about half an hour the storm lashed the surface of the sea with unbridled fury, and then, with startling suddenness, the wind dropped. ​Tempest did not trust this latest antic of the gale. There was something majestic and awe-inspiring about the turbulent water without a breath of wind blowing. He cast an eye at the jib, which now swung like a pendulum as the Nautilus rocked. At any minute the storm might smash down on them again.

"You stop there," he said to the boy; and made his way forward to save the sail while the chance lasted. He had barely accomplished this when the treacherous wind struck the Nautilus once more. It seemed, however, to have spent most of its energy. Warily Tempest made his way to a locker and began fumbling in it for a sea-anchor which he remembered was there.

"We may win out yet," he said to Dave, with a return of his old optimism, as he attached a few yards of rope to the canvas bag and heaved it over the bow. The steadying effect of the dragging bag was noticeable immediately, keeping the craft head on with its resistance.

​After that there remained nothing to do but let the gale wear itself out. It was impossible to get anything to eat or drink, for the little craft never stopped dancing crazily. It was very near sunset when there came a marked moderation of the wind.

"Put um sail up bimeby," commented Jim.

"You 've said it," agreed Tempest. "The worst is over, and it's getting better all the time. This is where we thank our lucky stars, if we have any. I don't mind admitting now that I did n't expect to be alive by night. What do you say, Jim?"

Jim shrugged his shoulders. Whatever his feelings were he was not in the habit of exhibiting them.

"We have some grub now, eh?" he said. With this practical suggestion the others heartily agreed. Now that immediate danger was past they felt half starved.

During the day Tempest had constantly kept an eye on his compass, and he calculated that they ​must have been blown a dozen or more miles off their course. The first thing to do was to take a reef in the main sail and get back in the proper direction. A tremendous groundswell was running, but the water was no longer broken. The Nautilus bumped and thudded her way through it heavily, shaking her occupants like peas in a pan; but Tempest was able to keep her running until dawn, by which time he considered they must be arriving somewhere near their destination. Two islands loomed up during the forenoon, and after a careful consultation of the chart it was decided that these probably lay to the north of the one which they were seeking.

Tempest bent his course south accordingly, and was greatly elated a few hours later to pick up the outline of land.

CHAPTER XX
SHOTS FROM THE BEACH

IT was Jim, as usual, who first caught sight of it, and Dave looked at it for a long time through the binoculars, full of wonder and hope. Either they were doomed to disappointment or this was the mysterious place that they had struggled so persistently to reach.

"I'd give something to know just what happened to the Firefly in that gale," he said, turning to Tempest.

"So would I," was the reply. "They had their full share of it, you may be certain, but, as we weathered it, it's most likely that they did the same unless an unlucky wave flopped on board and foundered them."

"If that is Lost Island, I suppose we shall soon ​have a fair idea what happened to Joe Flagg," said Dave.

"You can wager your last cent on that. If they have n't got ashore there by now they never will step ashore anywhere on this earth. It 'll be a comical situation, anyway, to meet them. I can almost hear Flagg already saying 'Dear me, what a surprise! Now, when I was in Dogtooth City—"

Another hour brought the Nautilus so close that it was possible to get a fair notion of the island's appearance through the glasses. Both Dave and Tempest were filled with suppressed excitement. There certainly was a prominent hill there, which might have been cast up by volcanic action, but from where they lay it bore no resemblance to either a camel or any other animal.

Dave spoke of that fact in disappointed tones.

"Shucks! What of it?" said Tempest encouragingly. "You don't know where the lagoon is yet, if there is one there. Probably you can't see ​the resemblance except from that side. Patience, sonny. It is early yet to give up hope. Wait till we get closer in and then we will make a little trip right round the place on the look-out for zoological specimens like camels."

There were many dangerous rocks, some of them only half submerged when they got within a mile of the coast, making navigation a hazardous business. Tempest placed Jim in the bow on the look-out for snags, and decided to beat his way round the northern point of the island. More than once a warning shout from the Kanaka only just saved them from tearing out the bottom of the Nautilus on a jagged peak; and it was a relief when they got round to the western side to find the water there clear of such death-traps.

All the time Dave's eyes were glued on the crag-strewn hill, on which he sought feverishly to distinguish something remotely resembling a camel.

"Gee," exclaimed Tempest at last, "If there is n't a lagoon down there I 'll eat my hat! We ​shall be able to make sure on that point soon, anyway."

"The camel, Tempest! The camel!" Dave shouted a few minutes later as they got farther to the south. "Don't you see it?"

"It's a funny sort of camel," the other commented with a dry smile. "Wait till we get a bit down the coast. It may show up a little clearer then."

"It is the camel, Tempest. Look! Look!" Dave cried as the formation of the hill gradually resolved itself into the shape he was looking for. The resemblance was by no means perfect. Its most noticeable feature was the lump in the middle. Further behind there was a rising sweep which might roughly be spoken of as the hind quarters of the animal. The shoulders were fairly distinct, and also the rise of the neck, but there was no head.

"Great guns and little fishes, Dave, but you 're right! We 're there at last. Now, where the ​dickens is the entrance to this lagoon? We don't want a smash up now after all our trouble. Jim, you tinted heathen, how do you reckon we can get in?"

The Kanaka stood up and surveyed the reef of rocks which formed the lagoon.

"Maybe p'raps over there," he said, pointing. "Go easy."

The islander's instinct proved right. He directed Tempest to the only channel leading into the calm water beyond the reef.

​"You 've never seen this place before, I suppose, have you, Jim?" Tempest asked.

The Kanaka nodded.

"Never been on him though. He called Tai-o-Vai. Used to sail past sometimes long time ago"

"Tai-o-Vai, eh?" said Dave. "Why did n't you tell us so before?"

"You did n't ask him, idiot," laughed Tempest. "Probably he's never seen a camel in his life, so it's no use pulling off that stunt. Jiminy but is n't this one pretty lagoon?"

Dave did not answer. They were just rounding a bend and the boy put one hand on Tempest's shoulder, pointing with the other.

"As I live," Tempest exclaimed, "it's the remains of the old Hatteras after all!"

The wreck lay embedded in the sand, just as the ancient mariner had described it in Brooklyn so long ago. She was not in an excellent state of preservation, but the mere sight of her gladdened the hearts of the adventurers.

​Tempest pulled the tiller over and turned the nose of the Nautilus straight towards the remains of the old barque. They were within about four hundred yards of her when the sharp crack of a rifle echoed over the water, and a bullet skimmed the surface uncomfortably near.

"Somebody is at home!" said Tempest with a puzzled expression. "I suppose that is just to show us how pleased they are to see us."

He jibed the boat, which then lay with her sails flapping.

"It's Flagg," Dave suggested.

"Dear old Joe Flagg, late of Dogtooth City," Tempest muttered. "And he sent that bullet as a present. The old villain was n't drowned in that gale, Dave."

"What are you going to do now?" the boy asked. "We 're not going to turn tail at this stage."

"If Mr. Flagg imagines that one shot from a pop-gun is going to keep us off he never made a ​bigger mistake in his life," Tempest said. "But as it is a question of life and death, when people are throwing lead around, we'd better come to an understanding. I know you 're no coward, Dave, but I don't want to take chances without you agreeing. What do you say?"

"I'm game for anything," said the boy. "Perhaps he only intended to frighten us off. He would hardly be likely to shoot us in cold blood when we got near, would he?"

"Jim, your skin is as precious to you as ours is to us," Tempest said. "Are you agreeable to running the risk of looking like a sieve?"

"Sieve?" the Kanaka repeated without understanding.

"There's a kindly disposed gentleman over there who wants to make little holes in us with a gun, and he may do so if we go much nearer. But we particularly do want to go nearer. Do you mind?"

Jim shrugged his shoulders.

​"Good enough," said Tempest. "Now, Joe Flaggy we 'll just see a little further into this matter. I 'll have a word with you if it kills me."

He brought the boat round and she moved once more towards the wreck. There was no sign of any human being ashore. The Nautilus ran another hundred yards without interruption before the crack of another shot rang out, and there was a splash sixty feet ahead of them.

"Keep your heads ducked well down, boys," said Tempest. "He could n't shoot a haystack in a passage. If only we can get ashore we may be all right."

They were twenty yards from the beach when a bullet crashed through the side of the Nautilus just above her water line, and grazed Jim's leg.

At the same moment the form of Joe Flagg emerged from the trees. Holding his rifle up menacingly he advanced to meet the incoming boat.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Flagg," greeted ​Tempest. "You 're looking very well. Pretty scenery about here, is n't it?"

"If you come any nearer I 'll shoot the lot of you," snarled the fat man. There was nothing urbane about his manner. The mask was off now.

"You 're not feeling very well, Mr. Flagg," said Tempest. "Perhaps you had a bad night's rest. I'm afraid you 've had a long journey and you must be tired."

"This island is private property," snapped Flagg. "It's mine, see? And I don't allow any trespassing. Keep off, or there 'll be a quick funeral."

"You 've bought it in a mighty hurry," replied Tempest. "You don't happen to have the title-deeds about you, do you? Now, don't try to be funny," he added sharply. "We 're a long way from civilization, but even in the middle of the Pacific you can't kill people with impunity. There's a law against it, you know, Mr. Flagg."

"Dead men don't tell tales," Flagg snapped, ​"and I warn you you 'll be as dead as mutton if you land here. It's my island, and I won't have any one on it."

"I hate to argue with you under the circumstances," said Tempest, "but I'm afraid I don't believe that yarn. Now, listen, I 'll make you a little business proposition."

"What is it?" asked Flagg.

"We will assume that we are all here for the same purpose."

"I'm not here for my health," said Flagg ungraciously.

"Precisely. You came after our treasure."

"That's my business."

"And it is mine too, Mr. Flagg," said Tempest. "If I had a gun I should n't feel inclined to be so amiable about it, either. However, I 'll make you a sporting offer, to save further unpleasantness. You 've been very good to us at your home, even if you did finish up with a sneaking trick by trying ​to steal a march on us. Look here, I 'll agree to give you a third of anything we may find."

"Nothing doing," replied Flagg without a moment's hesitation. He was perfectly aware that he held the trump card in his hand, and moreover he was not in the mood to accept anything less than the lot.

"Now be reasonable," Tempest urged. "We may have an awful lot of trouble before we get it, anyway, even if we ever do get it, and so we might just as well be friends instead of enemies. Because you don't think we 're going to slip away quietly and leave you in possession of the field, do you?"

"I neither know nor care. Clear out."

"But I told you we were not going to clear out."

"That's up to you," said Flagg in level tones. "I'm tired of this. If you like getting shot that's your own affair."

Without further warning he pulled the trigger ​again, and a splinter jumped into the air from the gunwale of the Nautilus.

"You murderous old crook," shouted Dave.

"That's nothing. I'm only finding the range," Flagg said with a mirthless laugh, as the rifle spoke once more.

"It's no use committing suicide," muttered Tempest, swinging the boat round. "Good afternoon, Mr. Flagg. I hope you will take great care of your health until I see you again. I'm afraid you 're not exactly in training, so I shall anticipate the pleasure of giving you the biggest walloping you ever had when I wade into you."

Flagg's reply, as the Nautilus began to gather speed, was another shot which ricochetted past.

"All right," Tempest shouted back over his shoulder. "You 're only storing up trouble for yourself."

"Is n't he a nice, kind-hearted gentleman?" commented Dave. "Let's try to land somewhere on the other side of the island."

​"We can try," said Tempest, "but to tell you the truth I don't think we shall stand a dog's chance. That brute does n't mean to stop at anything. I believe he would polish the lot of us off without the slightest scruple. There was nothing playful about the way he handled that gun of his, you must remember. And I do hate being shot on a Tuesday. This is Tuesday, isn't it? The blooming island is so small that he can dodge round as fast as we can. However, we 'll fool him if we can. Here goes."

Tempest ran the boat straight out to sea until the sun dipped under the horizon. It was far from dark, for the stars were aggravatingly bright, and a full moon was soon due to appear on the scene.

"It's a chance," Tempest said, as he headed once more for Tai-o-Vai, "but an extremely rotten chance. We 'll see what we can do at the back of the island now. I doubt whether we could land there anyhow because of the surf."

A slight haze partly obscured the moon when it ​rose, but there was far too much light to please Dave and Tempest, who would have liked a coal-black night for such work as they had on hand. Trusting to memory to avoid the dangerous patch of rocks through which they had threaded their way earlier in the day, they made a wide detour, and then headed straight for the surf. The thunderous roar of it reached them when they were still a quarter of a mile off.

"That sounds lively, does n't it?" Dave commented. "There's no earthly hope of making the beach in that without smashing the Nautilus up and probably ourselves too."

"Jim," said Tempest, "you can see like a cat in the dark. Can you tell us how we 're going to get ashore?"

The Kanaka shook his head. That was a problem beyond him.

"Maybe p'raps there's a li'le cove somewhere along here," he suggested. "Try bit furth'r down."

​"All right," said Tempest. "It's rocky along here, and we can't see where we are going, so don't be surprised if we have to swim for it all of a sudden."

More by good fortune than by good management they escaped piling the boat up, and, sure enough, Jim piloted them to a sheltered cove.

"'Pon my word, I believe we 've caught him napping, Dave," Tempest said as they approached the beach.

"There's no sign of anybody," agreed the boy, eagerly scanning the shore.

They were within fifty yards—forty—thirty.

Crack!

A little spurt of light flashed out and a bullet sang its way over their heads.

Tempest ground his teeth. Had he been alone he would have made a dash for it. Reluctantly he put the helm over and swung the boat away again.

"That is one extra thump in the ribs he will get from me when we do meet," he said bitterly. ​"Hang me if I know what we are going to do now! We can't mess about like this indefinitely."

"He certainly has got us in a corner," said the boy.

"It is a corner we have got to wriggle out of, somehow," observed Tempest. "I think I 've got a scheme that will work, though. It seems to me the only way. Desperate situations demand desperate measures. Dave, I want you to stop in the Nautilus whatever happens until I tell you to come ashore. I'm going to swim to the beach."

"And what then?"

"I 'll deal with Flagg once I get on dry land with him. We 'll go round to the lagoon, where the wreck is. That is the best place."

"But he 'll shoot you the moment he sets eyes on you."

"He 'll probably try to, but I'm going to take the risk. I may be able to take him off his guard."

"Um rain pretty soon, pretty hard," said the ​Kanaka, sniffing the air as they ran round to the lagoon. Clouds were already gathering.

"Tempest, let's wait a while and see exactly what is going to happen. I 've got an idea that we might be able to land after all, without your running an almost certain chance of getting hit with a bullet."

A few heavy drops were beginning to fall, and the light was failing.

"If a regular tropical shower does come down, that will work the trick," Tempest said.

Almost as he spoke the patter of the rain drops increased. They got through the channel into the lagoon just in time before the shower became a drenching storm, blotting everything out of sight.

"Now for it!" said Tempest "Not a sound, boys!"

CHAPTER XXI
THE PARLEY

AS the keel grated on the beach they all sprang out. In spite of the danger they ran of being attacked any instant, Dave glowed with excitement at the idea of actually setting foot at last on the island.

"What about the boat?" he said.

"The tide is going down," Tempest replied. "She 'll be all right for the present. Anyway, we can't carry her."

They took the precaution of carrying an anchor ashore and digging it into the sand, and then drifted like shadows through the bushes.

"Listen," said Tempest, softly; "I took my bearings as well as possible, but we 're working very blindly in the dark, I want to make for that ​hill. We shall be safest there. It will be mighty rough going, and you must look out that you don't break your necks. Stick together as much as you can. I grabbed a few biscuits before we left the boat. Goodness only knows when we shall get our next meal, but there 's no time to fol about with provisions now. Follow me, and don't call out unless you 're in trouble."

The next hour was like a nightmare to all three of them. Only desperate necessity drove them forward. Behind lay the possibility of being shot; somewhere in front stood a hill, the nature of which was unknown to them. Their only hope was to find some crevice which would not only provide shelter from the torrential rain, but also form a sort of stronghold. In broad daylight their task would not have been so difficult, but the darkness was intense, and Tempest had to feel his way with nothing to guide him toward his goal except memory, which was fast becoming confused in the maze of tangled undergrowth. So long as ​the ground seemed to be rising, Tempest felt fairly confident in spite of the baffling conditions, but at length, when he stumbled into a gully and scrambled out, thankful that no bones were broken, he had to confess himself beaten. He no longer knew north from south, east from west. He had tried to force a passage through an impenetrable cluster of trees and had utterly lost his sense of direction while turning and twisting.

On consulting the others he found them equally befogged. Even the Kanaka could only guess in which direction the hill lay, and an incorrect guess might prove dangerous.

"Well, here we are, and here we 'll stop for the present," said Tempest. "I fancy the rain is easing off a trifle. There isn't much fear of Flagg prowling around in this particular spot with his pop-gun till it gets lighter, so we are safe as far as he is concerned. The moment we get a glimmer of the moon we can push on."

Standing there, with the rain trickling down his ​neck and his clothing sticking to him uncomfortably, bewildered, and more than a little tired, Dave began to wonder for the first time whether treasure-hunting such as this was worth the trouble. The chance of success was extremely vague, anyway; and the difficulties immediately in front of them were sufficient to damp the ardor of any one. He almost felt at that moment that he could barter his share of the problematical treasure for a square meal and a sleep round the clock, in his own comfortable bed in far-away Brooklyn. He was fast becoming despondent when Bruce Tempest came to the rescue with his wonderful fund of cheerfulness.

"You 're very quiet, sonny," he said. "I can't see you, but you don't sound as though you were enjoying this."

"It's exciting, anyway," said Dave.

"I 'll wager you never got anything at the movies that thrilled you as much," Tempest declared. "Everything is real, this trip, including ​the rain. You will remember it as long as you live. 'Pon my word, I believe it's getting a shade lighter! Don't you think so, Jim?"

"See to go ahead bimeby p'raps," the Kanaka responded. "Rain stop pretty soon."

As a weather-prophet, Jim was a wonder. Sure enough, the rain did ease off about half an hour later, and a pale light showed from a hazy moon. Tempest, however, could not make out much of their position, as they were hemmed in with trees.

"Goodness only knows how we got here," he said. "Jim, do you think you could nose around a bit and try to spot where that blessed hill is?"

Without a word the Kanaka disappeared, nor did he return for some time. Dave was beginning to wonder whether the man had got lost, and was on the point of suggesting that they should give a call to him, when Jim reappeared as silently as he had gone. The moon was growing more distinct every moment now.

​"Um hill over there," said Jim, pointing. "Come round this way."

Leaving him to take the rôle of guide, Dave and Tempest followed, and after a while emerged from the trees. A few hundred yards away the hill towered, but the ascent was difficult enough, even though they could now see where they were putting their feet.

"Why, we must have wandered half-way round the island," said Tempest. "Jim, where is the lagoon?"

"’Way across there, I think," the Kanaka replied, pointing.

"Well, all I can say is that it's a mercy we did n't blunder down to the beach where old Flagg is," Tempest commented. "We went round in a half-circle."

It took the trio nearly half an hour to reach the summit, but when they gained the top of the "camel's back" they were in a fine position for observation. Not far below them was the placid ​water of the lagoon, and the black hull of the Hatteras was plainly discernible. Here, too, they solved the mystery of the Firefly's whereabouts. They had wondered where Flagg had hidden her. Now they could see her moored behind the wreck, in such a position that she would not be observed by any one entering the lagoon.

"I wish I had brought my glasses," Dave said.

"You'd only have lost 'em in the scramble," his companion commented. "Besides, we shall be able to see all we want in a few minutes. Those clouds are rolling away fast."

Half hidden behind a rock, the three peered down at the strange scene for some time. The rain had ceased altogether, and the sand glistened silvery in the moonlight.

Suddenly Dave took a quick inward breath, and his fingers tightened on the rock he was leaning against.

Stealthily, silently, three forms emerged from the shadow below, and moved in the direction of ​

Three forms emerged and moved in the direction of the Nautilius

​the Nautilus, which now lay awash, canting over slightly. Of the three forms it was easy to distinguish that of Joe Flagg.

"What's their game now?" Dave asked, speaking in a low voice, as though afraid of being heard by those beneath, even at that distance.

"A little midnight exploration party of some sort," Tempest replied. "We 've got Flagg guessing, and he wants to be sure how things stand. He's not getting much sleep, anyway, since we disturbed his operations. Look, they 're making a bee-line for our old tub, but what on earth they are after I cannot imagine, unless it is to make sure we are not on board."

"There is n't much there for them to steal," said the boy.

Tempest laughed softly.

"Flagg isn't that sort of a thief, lad," he observed. "It takes bigger things than what we have there to interest him. He is quite brainy, in a fashion. I guess they would tell us that in ​Dogtooth City, if we could ask them; but they have n't got any pleasant memories of him, you may be dead sure. No siree! Joe Flagg is up to some scheme, and I'd give a lot to know what it is. He has the advantage over us for the moment, though. We can do nothing—except keep our eyes open."

Dave nodded. As a matter of fact it was all he could do to keep his eyes open, in spite of the mysterious manœuver that was going on under them.

Warily Flagg approached the Nautilus, and while he stood on guard with the rifle his two Kanakas climbed over the side.

"Good-by, binoculars!" muttered Dave.

"Good-by nothing!" was Tempest's rejoinder. "He may score here again, but the game is n't over yet. No, by jiminy, it's only just beginning, Dave," he went on, warming up. "We 're all guessing now, but we 'll see who wins out in the long run. You can't argue much with a man who ​is holding up a loaded gun at you, and he knows it. So far that has been his one big advantage—that and the low cunning of sneaking off ahead of us. It's going to be a battle of wits, boy, and there's absolutely no telling what may happen, because he is foxy."

"We are three to three," Dave said.

"Three to three and a gun at present," Tempest corrected. "Great Mackerel! What are they doing with the Nautilus?"

The beach dropped at a sharp angle at the place where the boat had been left, so that in spite of the falling tide she still remained almost afloat. Flagg and his two assistants were putting their shoulders to her bow and heaving her off.

"They can't be going to cast her adrift," Tempest said, puzzled. "What would they gain by that?"

"They could starve us into accepting their terms," the boy suggested.

Instead of leaving the Nautilus to drift away ​onto the rocks, Flagg and his men climbed on board.

"See, they are taking her over toward the Firefly," said Tempest. "Well, they 've captured her fairly. Still another point in their favor. Dave, boy, the battle is not going well with us. It's about time for us to do a bit of scoring, but I shall feel like a piece of wet rag until I have had a good sleep. Jim, you did a bit of snoring yesterday. Do you think you could keep a watch on them while we turn in?"

"I sleep to-morrow," replied the Kanaka. "You sleep now."

He did not move from his position, leaning over the rock, while the others sought out a dry patch under a sheltering ledge; and like typical sailors they were both in the land of dreams a few moments later. It was broad daylight when they awoke, and the Kanaka still stood there like a statue.

With Dave at his elbow, Tempest looked down ​from their secure nook; and for the first time they were able to get a clear view of Tai-o-Vai. The peak on which they stood dominated the whole island, enabling them to obtain a wonderful panoramic view. The place was virtually oval in shape, sloping down gradually on three sides from the hill to the shore, and covered nearly from end to end with the impenetrable mass of trees which had proved such a formidable obstacle in the darkness. Beyond the trees the sea, now calm again, lapped the beach lazily. On the fourth side of the hill the slope was precipitous, forming almost a cliff, overlooking the lagoon cupped in its semicircle of rocks. No pathway led down that untrodden ground, but it was possible to scramble to the sea by taking a zigzag route.

"All is quiet in the enemy's camp," Tempest said. "There's nobody moving about on the deck of the Firefly."

"What puzzles me," Dave said, "is why are they stopping here so long? Evidently they ​have n't found the platinum, or we should n't see their heels for dust. They must have made a fairly good search on the Hatteras by now."

"Surely!" Tempest agreed. "But Flagg must still have some hope, or he would have cleared out. The trouble is that we shall lose the game altogether if they do happen to strike the stuff while they are holding us off, for then they can put up their sails and leave us guessing worse than ever."

"The sooner we take a hand, the better, then,"Dave said. "What about making another attempt to come to terms with the old villain?"

"It's worth trying," said Tempest. "At least we could n't lose anything. Let's hold a council of war. Jim, we want to have a little pow-wow with that nice kind gentleman down there with the pop-gun, but he's got a horrid temper, and he might forget himself and start shooting if he saw any of us. We won't trust him any more than he trusts us. What do you suggest?"

​Jim looked down thoughtfully at the scene below for a while,

"Um talk with Meester Flagg and no shooting, eh?" he said at last.

"You 've got the idea," said Tempest, encouragingly.

"Jim fix um up," he declared. "You come half-way down hill and wait."

"Don't you do anything rash, now," Tempest said. "We don't want to have him taking potshots at you."

The Kanaka grinned, which was the nearest he ever came to actually laughing. Without another word he began the descent, the others following. When they had gone within a hundred yards of the edge of the trees near the Hatteras, he motioned them to stop, and then he crept forward alone. While still hidden by the bushes he uttered a peculiar call, evidently intended to attract the attention of the other Kanakas.

​There was no response the first time, and Jim repeated the cry.

This time an answer reached them faintly through the trees.

Jim began to speak in his native tongue. The sounds were meaningless to Dave and Tempest, who could only listen and wonder. After a while Jim came back toward them and beckoned.

"Meester Flagg stand ashore without gun and talk if you no go too close," he reported. "If you go close, he 'll grab gun and shoot."

"Very amiable of him, I'm sure," Tempest said, as they went down to the beach. "I take my hat off to you, Jim, all the same."

Flagg had come off the Firefly in a dory, near which he was standing. Evidently the rifle was lying in the boat ready for any emergency.

"You 're looking well this morning," Tempest greeted him. "Evidently this climate agrees with you."

​"I 've no time for fool talk," the other jerked back. "What have you got to say to me?"

"We just thought we should like to know how you are progressing."

"That's my business," Flagg snapped.

"Our business, if you don't mind," Tempest corrected. "And really it is very generous of me to include you like that. Anyhow, I'm willing to make one last offer to you. Let us work together on this job, and forget any unpleasantness there may have been, and split the proceeds into three."

"You 're in a nice position to dictate terms to me, are n't you?" Flagg sneered. "No, there is only one thing I will agree to."

"And that is?"

"I 've got your boat and your grub. I did n't ask you to come here. You can starve to death for all I care. You will do that pretty soon. The only alternative is that I 'll give your boat back to you if you clear right out."

​"I am afraid Dave Hallard and I have come too far to agree to that, Mr. Flagg," replied Tempest, striving to keep his temper under these difficult circumstances. "Are you sure I can't persuade you to change your mind?"

"That's all I have to say on the subject," said Flagg.

"In that case, all I can do is to wish you a good morning. It is to be war to the finish. I'm sorry, because, to tell you the truth, I 'm beginning to believe we 're all on a wild goose chase."

"What makes you think that?" Flagg asked suspiciously.

"That is my business," Tempest responded, turning his back.

"You 'll sing another tune when your stomachs get empty," Flagg snarled after him, a remark which Tempest did not deign to answer.

"Back to our stronghold for the present, Dave," he said to the boy. "He's as obstinate as a mule, and it would n't surprise me in the least if he tried ​to hunt us out and force us off the island at the point of the rifle."

"Did you mean that—when you said you thought we were all on a wild-goose chase?"

"Partly," Tempest replied. "As a matter of fact, things don't look too rosy, do they? But I really said it to see how he felt on the subject."

"He did look a hit sick," Dave commented.

CHAPTER XXII
A MIDNIGHT VENTURE

DAVE and Tempest were by no means cheerful when they regained their refuge on the hill. The last of the biscuits had already been eagerly devoured, and all three of them had an uncomfortable desire to attack a hearty meal. Thirsty also, was bothering them a good deal.

"Something has got to give way soon," Tempest said, "or else Flagg will have a complete walk-over."

"What a horrible thought!" Dave ejaculated. "And yet I don't see how we can live on the memory of a few biscuits for more than another forty-eight hours."

Tempest was leaning over the rock with his eyes glued on the Hatteras. Flagg and his assistants were doing something on the wreck, and sounds ​of hammering ascended—as though they were smashing woodwork. It was evident he meant to leave no stone unturned before abandoning his search.

"Sometimes I feel sorry I dragged you into this, Tempest," the boy said. "It looks as if it were going to turn out a fizzle."

"I'm not sorry—yet," Tempest replied. "I 'll be able to tell you more about my feelings to-morrow. I'm wondering whether that old villain really would shoot in cold blood if we went down there boldly and got busy on the Hatteras. It would be an exciting experiment."

"Too exciting for me," said Dave. "I don't like the look in his eye when he's pointing the business end of that rifle at us. Yes, I'm afraid he would shoot, because he knows it's a long way to the nearest policeman. He could polish us off without a soul being the wiser except his Kanakas, and at a pinch he could say it was done in self-defense."

​"I'm afraid it may come to that at the finish," said Tempest, grimly. "Personally, I have n't the least desire to have holes bored in me. A crazy sailor once put a bullet into my ribs, and it was a distinctly unpleasant experience. All the same, I don't see how anything can be done now but make an attack in force. Once I got hold of his firearms, I'd make him dance. Whether we ever get any treasure or not, I should just love to come out on top in this deal, wouldn't you?"

"We might make a surprise attack somehow. I expect one of them is always on the lookout for something of the sort, though."

"A surprise attack is what I have been thinking of for hours," Tempest said. "But it's a pretty difficult proposition, let me tell you. Jim, are you willing to take a bit of a risk? I 'll buy you anything in the wide world that you fancy, as soon as I can, if you 'll stand by me in this."

"What you do, Jim does," the Kanaka responded nonchalantly.

​"Good man! All we can do is to wait for an opportunity, and then we 'll rush the citadel, so to speak. Not just now, however. It does n't look to me as though it would be exactly healthy down there at the present minute."

All day long the trio watched and waited, while the hammering and smashing on the wrecked "Hatteras" continued and the gnawing pangs of hunger grew steadily.

"I believe I could eat my shoes," Dave said desperately toward evening of the longest day he could remember.

"You 'll probably get all you want in the way of grub before morning, somehow or other," Tempest replied. "We are staking everything on this next throw, you know. If we lose and don't get hurt in the gun-play, we shall get our boat back, anyway. Flagg will be only too glad to see the back of us. If we win, we shall get our boat back just the same. So you can make up your mind to be ready for supper or a funeral."

​At sunset Flagg and his Kanakas left the Hatteras and returned to the Firefly in their dory, one solitary figure remaining on deck on guard. An early moon lit up the scene distinctly—much too distinctly for Tempest's liking.

"Jumping Cæsar!" exclaimed Tempest, several hours later, "but I 've got a notion. Jim, you can swim like a fish, can't you? I have seen you doing stunts in the water that would make an otter green with envy. Thank goodness, I'm fairly good myself at that game. There is one positive, certain thing, and that is that two of the men on that boat will be snoring like pigs about midnight. Two from three leaves one, or at least it did when I went to school. Dave, my son, I'm afraid we shall have to leave you out of this little performance except as a spectator, though you 'll come in useful after the first stage. Jim, it is risky, but it is worth while under the circumstances. We will wait until the 'witching hour,' and then do our fish act. One of us may get potted in the ​excitement, and perhaps both of us, but we simply must do something, and this looks to me like a golden opportunity to catch Flagg napping."

As all remained quiet at midnight, the three descended the hill and made for the beach inside the lagoon, but a considerable distance away from the Firefly.

"Not a sound, mind!" Tempest cautioned. "Everything depends on being able to steal a march on them. I know you 're just burning to come along with us, Dave, but you could n't do any good and two can do the thing more quietly than three. I want you to stop right here for about twenty minutes. I'm afraid, if you move, you will be heard by their sentry, and the less alert he is the better. After a while you can creep through the edge of the trees until you are opposite the Firefly, and there ought to be something doing by then, though goodness only knows what it may be."

Stripped of their clothes, Tempest and Jim ​crawled down to the water's edge, taking advantage of a ridge of sand for cover most of the way. Dave stood watching, with his heart beating fast. This was the climax of their adventures, and he dreaded to think of the danger Tempest was running. He would have attempted to dissuade his friend from going, but Tempest was in no mood to brook interference. Nothing short of an earthquake would have held him back.

Sliding into the water like seals, the pair struck straight out, with the intention of making a wide detour, so that they could approach the Firefly from the seaward side. That, Tempest considered, would at least give them a better chance of reaching their goal without being detected. He was fully aware of the enormous odds that were against them—odds much greater than he had allowed Dave to suspect. Only desperate need had driven him to this undertaking. His chief fear was that they would be seen from the Firefly, and probably shot before they had a chance to board ​her. If they did happen to be lucky enough to get onto the boat unobserved, they would still have their work cut out. He knew he could depend on Jim to stand by him, whatever occurred, but two men, unarmed, were not likely to have much chance against Flagg and his crew if it came to a rough-and-tumble.

These thoughts raced through Tempest's brain as the pair glided along for the first ten minutes. When he considered it safe to turn they headed straight for the Firefly, and then the most hazardous part of the journey began. It was now more necessary than ever to exercise caution, for though the dark form of the Kanaka was almost invisible, Tempest's face gleamed in the moonlight occasionally. He swam under water as much as possible, coming to the surface only to take breath, and moving slowly so that scarcely a ripple marked their progress. It was eery work; and though Tempest was a brave man, a chill ran down his spine more than once when he reflected how ​probable it was that a bullet would be their greeting. One careless splash would be almost certain to attract the attention of the sentry on the Firefly, and Tempest did not like to think what an easy target his face would make.

The Nautilus lay anchored near the Firefly, and their object was to reach her safely first if possible. The suspense of the last stretch was terrible. The Kanaka now disappeared under the water for long distances, and showed little more than his mouth and nose when he came up again; but Tempest had not the marvelous skill of the South Sea Islanders. While completely submerged he progressed with powerful strokes, and he did not venture to take breath until his lungs seemed to be bursting.

He was never more thankful for anything in his life than when they reached the side of the Nautilus. Hanging on there, and taking a much needed rest, he listened intently before daring to make the next move. Not a sound reached his ​ears. With infinite caution he paddled round the prow and, grasping the cable of his boat, raised his head a trifle.

This nearly ended in his undoing. At the stern of the Firefly one of Flagg's Kanakas was squatting, his head resting on his hand. Across his knees was balanced the rifle which had hitherto kept the invading force at bay. This much Tempest took in at one lightning glance, when his hand slipped on the wet cable, and the Kanaka spun round as he heard the slight splash Tempest could not avoid making.

Like a stone the swimmer sank and made for shelter behind the Nautilus, with a dreadful fear that the lookout had seen him. The Kanaka, however, after staring with suspicion in the direction of the noise, came to the conclusion it must have been made by a fish, and settled down again to his long, monotonous vigil.

Tempest waited impatiently for a while, and then ventured to take another peep. The sentry ​did not appear to be particularly alert. On the contrary, it almost looked at that distance as though his head was nodding sleepily. Tempest held up a warning finger to Jim, motioned him to remain where he was, and glided through the water nearer to the Firefly. With infinite caution he placed his hands on the side of the boat and raised himself partly out of the water, until his face was within a few feet of the sentry.

The Kanaka was fast asleep at his post.

Tempest could hardly believe his good fortune. Quietly as a ghost he disappeared back into the sea, and swam to where Jim was waiting. At the far side of the Nautilus he gave his companion a few whispered instructions, and then the pair of them stole to the stern of Flagg's craft.

Inch by inch the two men raised themselves over the side, fearing to awaken the sleeping Kanaka with the slightest oscillation, but so carefully did they work that the boat hardly moved. The sentry was nodding peacefully when Tempest's hand ​closed over his mouth like a steel vise, and Jim gripped his legs.

The startled sentry instantly began to struggle, but he could only squirm. Tempest had him by the throat, and his fingers tightened. The terrified Kanaka showed no sign of submission. So far there had scarcely been a sound, but it would not have needed much of a scuffle to bring the other two on the scene. Tempest had no intention of choking the sentry. The situation was extremely critical, when Jim wrested the rifle away and gave the victim a blow on the head with the butt end.

The sentry collapsed, unconscious, and Tempest stood motionless for a while, listening to see if the sound of the blow had disturbed the others. There was no sign of movement, however, in the little cabin, so the unconscious Kanaka was lowered over the side, and Tempest and Jim towed his form to the beach. Dave appeared out of the shadows and approached them.

​"You have n't killed him?" the boy asked anxiously in a whisper.

"No. You keep guard over him. Thump him on the head with a rock or something if he gets too lively. We may have our hands quite full enough with the others. Come on, Jim, quick as you like."

While Dave stood on guard over the captive, Tempest and Jim swam off again to the Firefly and regained her deck as silently as before. Flagg's bunk was in the cabin just forward of the cockpit. An oil lamp was burning, and by its light Tempest could see the form of their arch enemy reclining in his bunk. Within reach of the sleeping man lay a revolver, which glistened in the rays of the lamp. At the far end of the cabin was a door, evidently leading to the place where the other Kanaka was asleep.

With Jim at his heels, Tempest took a step forward.

CHAPTER XXIII
THE SKELETON IN THE SAND

ADVANCING on tiptoes, Tempest stretched out his hand to gain possession of the revolver, and his fingers were almost closing on it when one of the flooring boards creaked. Flagg, who had evidently been slumbering lightly, stirred uneasily. Casting caution to the winds. Tempest reached forward impulsively, bumping against a table as he did so.

With a startled exclamation, Flagg half raised himself in his bunk, but by that time the weapon was in the other man's hand, and the muzzle was pointing straight between Flagg's eyes.

"Don't move an inch!" Tempest said in a voice which carried conviction. "Jim, fasten that door. We'll bottle up the other Kanaka till this gentleman has thoroughly grasped the situation."

​"That—that thing's loaded," gasped Flagg, beginning to regain his self-possession after the shock of being so rudely awakened.

"I suspected the fact," said Tempest. "And just because it is loaded, you will be more reasonable."

"Well, don't point it at me. It might go off."

"It not only might, but it will if you make a move. Jim, see if you can find any more rifles or six-shooters around."

Jim turned out lockers and ransacked pockets, but was unable to find anything except a box of cartridges, of which Tempest immediately took possession.

"Now," said the latter, "the game is up, as far as you are concerned."

If looks could have killed, Tempest would have been a dead man. Flagg, however, had wonderful control over himself, and his expression altered.

"We've all come on a fool's errand, Tempest," ​he said, in tones that were intended to he ingratiating. "There may have been treasure here at one time, but there isn't now."

"All the more reason why you can scoot back to Washington Island at top speed with an easy mind," was the uncompromising reply.

"Of course, there's always a chance, if we searched long enough—"

"You've had your chance, Flagg, and you took it dishonorably. You won't get another until we have had ours."

"But couldn't we all work together? It's a bigger job than you seem to think." The man still, apparently, cherished the hope that the Hatteras treasure might be located.

"Listen to me," said Tempest. "I did intend, if ever I got this opportunity, to give you the biggest hiding you ever heard of. You deserve it—and worse. I'm not sure I shouldn't be doing a kindness to you by teaching you a lesson. You 're a sneak, Flagg, a low sneak-thief. I have felt like ​punching your fat head until you cried for mercy. But now that you are where I can do it, I won't soil my hands on you. A bullet is more the sort of medicine you need," he added, suddenly warming up and pushing the muzzle of the revolver within an inch of the man's forehead.

Flagg squirmed. For a moment fear showed in his eyes.

"Bah!" said Tempest. "You're a chicken-hearted old scoundrel, after all, when it comes to a pinch, and when you aren't holding the gun. See, I'll give you ten minutes to clear out. Jim, take the dory ashore, and bring off the Kanaka. You needn't be afraid of leaving us alone. I've got something here that will keep our friend quiet."

Jim rowed to the beach and there found Dave standing on guard over his prisoner, with a stout piece of driftwood in his hand. The man had recovered, but was lying still, evidently realizing that the boy had him at a disadvantage.

"What's happened?" Dave asked eagerly.

​"Meester Flagg going for li'le trip," Jim replied. "He take this feller with him."

Dave ordered the prisoner forward, and the trio pushed off again in the dory. They found Tempest, as Jim had left him, still master of the situation.

"Say good-by to Mr. Flagg, Dave," Tempest observed quizzically. "He is just about to take a sea voyage for his health, and you may not see him again."

"Sorry he can't stop," said the boy, dryly. "Why, we were just beginning to like him! Say, Tempest, I don't want to interfere with the program, but the sooner I get some grub, the sooner I shall begin to forgive him."

"Righto. A pleasant journey, Flagg. And let it be clearly understood that if we see you hanging around here again, I'll shoot in dead earnest. Savvy?"

Flagg had been lying on his back, apparently accepting the situation now as one in which he was ​hopelessly beaten. Neither his cunning nor his tenacity, however, had deserted him. As a last desperate resort he made a sudden grab to wrest the revolver from Tempest's hands, knowing that if the move succeeded he would turn the tables again. His wrist was powerful, but fortunately the other man was half expecting some such trick. He bent the weapon down, involuntarily tightening his pressure on the trigger as he did so. There was a deafening explosion, and a bullet bored its way through the bottom of the bunk, missing Flagg by the breadth of a finger.

Flagg sank back limply.

"I give in," he murmured. "Let me get out of this."

"You'd better," said Tempest. "If that had killed you, it would have been your own fault. Jim, Dave, hop into that dory. Take the rifle with you. Now, Flagg, you 're to make a start as soon as we get off this boat, see? If you don't, I shall begin boring holes in it."

​But Mr. Flagg was thoroughly subdued, and the sails of the Firefly began to flutter without the slightest delay.

"I don't think he will come back, somehow," Tempest commented as the craft passed through the channel and into the open sea. "All the same, we must keep our eyes skinned. But for the love of Mike, let's get something to eat."

Nothing had been disturbed in the Nautilus. Even Dave's cherished binoculars were exactly where he had left them. In a few minutes the trio were ravenously devouring a meal and regaling themselves with steaming cups of coffee, after which they took turn and turn about in keeping watch until dawn.

As soon as it was light, Dave and Tempest paid their first long-deferred visit to the Hatteras, and the boy's face fell as he scrambled onto the ruins of the bark. The ravages of time had not left much of her framework. Her hull was more or less intact, being embedded deeply in sand which ​had silted around her. In places her deck had caved in, and most of the woodwork had either been rotted or washed away. Flagg had evidently been breaking away timbers in the neighborhood of the poop, endeavoring to reveal any locker which might contain the platinum, but the task did not seem to have been a very promising one.

Tempest scratched his head and pulled a wry face.

"It's no use spoiling the ship for a penn 'orth of tar," he said lugubriously. "Now that we are here, we might as well finish the search; but it's pretty clear that this isn't where we get rich quick, eh, Dave?"

Though their hopes had now dwindled down to zero, they worked hard throughout that day and the following one without the slightest encouragement. With an immense amount of labor they dug into a cavity which appeared to have been the captain's cabin, and cleared it of tons of sand. They came across sundry half-decayed articles, ​and tore away the covers of one or two lockers, the contents of which had all nearly rotted.

By the end of the second day it was obvious that there remained no reasonable prospect of recovering the lost platinum from the wreck.

"It's no good," said Tempest, taking a seat on one of the ship's old ribs and lighting his pipe. "We've had a run for our money, and that's about all we can say. I've no regrets, and I hope you haven't either, Dave. It was a sporting chance, and a good one at that, so far as we could judge. You don't get a good sporting chance every day of your life. Poor old Jim, here, gets the thin end of it, because we can't pay him any wages at all. I'm sorry for that, because he has been a brick."

Jim shrugged his shoulders. He did not seem to feel that the others were under any obligation to him.

"Well, we'd better make a move for Washington Island, I suppose," Dave observed ​lugubriously. "We can't spend the rest of our lives here."

Jim was scanning the sky and the horizon carefully.

"Better stop here to-night," he said. "Pretty rough bimeby. Big wind coming."

"Bother you, Jim! No, I won't say that You're a great weather-prophet, though how in thunder you know there's going to be a storm without looking at a barometer is more than I can tell. I guess you feel it in your bones. The sky certainly did look a bit angry as the sun went down, but nothing very special. Let's get back to the Nautilus. Good-by, Hatteras! Sorry there's nothing doing, but you certainly have provided us with an interesting trip, if not a particularly profitable one."

Dave looked back regretfully at the old wreck as he left her for the last time. He was disappointed, not so much on his own account as on ​that of his father, whom he had so much hoped to cheer with visions of wealth. With Tempest, the matter seemed to have been already forgotten. He was laughing as gaily as though such a thing as a treasure-hunt had never been suggested to him.

Before it was time to turn in for the night the storm that Jim had prophesied began to put in an appearance. Dark clouds raced across the sky, and sudden gusts of wind screamed through the rigging of the Nautilus.

"No need to keep a lookout for Flagg to-night," Dave commented, with mingled emotions. "He could come and camp here as long as he liked now, so far as we are concerned. If he hasn't got back to Washington Island yet, he will be having a rough night.'

"Plenty more wind coming," declared Jim.

"If that is so, I'm glad I'm not out in the open sea in a twenty-five-foot boat," observed Tempest. "A lagoon like ours is a blessing under such ​circumstances. Dave, I have a fancy for a stroll on the shore to-night. Coming? It will be the last time we shall tread on Tai-o-Vai."

They all three dropped into the dory and paddled to the beach. There was no rain, and the great camel's back sheltered them from the wind. They had not landed five minutes, however, before the gale switched round with startling suddenness, and a fierce blast, coming straight in from over the lagoon, nearly knocked them off their feet and enveloped them in a whirl of fiercely driven sand.

"Gosh!" Tempest shouted, endeavoring to wipe some of the grit out of his eyes. "Now who'd have expected that? It's a regular typhoon. Looks to me as though we were going to have some difficulty in getting back to the Nautilus."

"Plenty more wind bimeby," said Jim, impassively.

"If it gets much worse, it'll blow the blooming island away," complained Tempest. "Ouch! Here comes another dose of sand!"

​This time the storm burst on them with all its force, and they staggered in the overwhelming cloud of fine sand which beat savagely on their backs, filled their hair, ears, mouths and clothing, and left them temporarily blinded, although instinctively they covered their eyes with their hands. Dave stumbled and fell, but Tempest dragged him to his feet again. Grasping the boy's shoulder, and keeping his own back to the force of the blast as much as possible, he forced his way in the direction of the trees. It was like moving in a nightmare, for he could only guess vaguely in which direction that shelter lay. He called hoarsely to Jim, but his voice was swallowed up in the roar of the gale. Sometimes falling, himself, and regaining his feet with difficulty, he pushed grimly on. It seemed a long while before he felt the low bushes on the outskirts of the wood brushing against his legs. They gave him renewed hope. Unable to see a thing, he forced his way under the trees, dragging Dave, and at length, ​having struggled a little way into the timber, sank down panting, and choking with sand.

They lay there well over an hour before the force of the storm decreased, and then, having recovered somewhat, began to shout for Jim. Presently they heard an answering call, and the Kanaka came toward them through the trees. As soon as he had lost sight of the others he, too, had sought shelter.

"For goodness' sake, don't say it's going to blow harder soon, Jim," said Tempest.

"Pretty near finished," replied the Kanaka. "Fine again quick."

Like most sudden tropical storms, it died down rapidly, and before long the island was bathed again in radiant moonlight, without a breath of air stirring. Only the thunder of the surf on the outer reef, and curious shallow cavities dug in the silvery sand by the whirling wind, remained to show how terrific had been the force of the storm. In places, whole stretches of beach had been ​scooped away, to be piled up farther on like drifts of snow.

Dave and Tempest surveyed this strange effect of nature in her angriest mood.

"Gee, but it is a wonder we came out of that alive!" said Tempest, thankfully.

Dave did not answer for a moment. He was leaning forward a little, with his eyes fixed on an object which protruded through the sand in one of the excavations left by the gale far above high-water mark, at the edge of the trees. The object gleamed like a streak of silver in the moonlight. Prompted by curiosity, he stepped down toward it. An instant later he called to his friend, his voice sharp with restrained excitement:

"Tempest! Come here! It's—it's a skeleton!"

CHAPTER XXIV
THE PRIZE IS WON

"THAT'S queer!" Tempest exclaimed, coming to his side and prodding aimlessly into the bank of sand with his foot. "It must be some poor beggar who died here after the Hatteras came to grief."

"Sure to be," agreed the boy, quietly. "I wonder if he—if it happened when he was alone. Why, here's a piece of timber—a beam!"

He scooped the sand away with his hands, and revealed another beam running parallel with the first one.

"It looks like a hut that has been covered over with sand," said the boy.

"That's it, sure enough," agreed Tempest. "I wonder how long this chap existed after he ​was marooned. Ugh! It's gruesome. Let's get back on board."

They found the Nautilus had dragged her anchor in the storm and nearly been beached; but she was unharmed, and they soon had her back in her old moorings. Shortly after midnight the trio were asleep, with only the moon to watch peacefully over the dead, the living, and the scene of Tai-o-Vai's unsolved mystery. Dave slept fitfully, however, the events of the last few days crowding into his brain every time he awoke. He tossed and turned in his narrow bunk, thinking of what might have been the fate of Flagg in the storm, wondering when he would set foot in Brooklyn again, guessing what secret the skeleton might reveal if it could but speak, and above all trying to imagine what could have happened to the treasure that had vanished from the Hatteras, for vanished it obviously had. At last, weary in mind and body, he dozed off, and did not awaken until broad daylight.

​It was a rather subdued party that sat down to their last breakfast in the beautiful lagoon of Tai-o-Vai. Jim was, as usual, apparently immersed in his own thoughts and uncommunicative. The reaction after the recent excitement had left even Tempest quiet. He kept casting a professional eye at the sky, and seemed engrossed only in the thought of their long run back. Dave glanced occasionally in the direction of the silvery beach. His grey eyes were thoughtful. This was the end of their adventures, and the least satisfactory part of them because it involved failure. And failure was a thing which rankled in the minds of all the Hallards. Like his father and his grandfather, Dave hated to be beaten, whatever object he had set his mind on.

"You look mighty pensive, sonny," Tempest observed, dipping a hard biscuit into his coffee and munching it. "Always remember there are as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it."

"It's not the size of the fish I am concerned ​about, so much as losing it," the boy replied. "Tempest, I'm really sorry now that I ever mentioned this rotten treasure to you. You 've been fine right through. I do wish you could have got a fortune out of it."

"A fortune!" said his friend. "I'd be as miserable as a yellow pup with a tin can tied to its tail if I had a fortune."

"Well, half of what we might have found, anyway," said Dave.

"That would have depended on the amount of the treasure," mused Tempest. "If I had a lot of money, I should be unhappy till it was all gone except about five thousand dollars. That's the share of the treasure I should have taken—just enough to let me settle down on a small farm in South Carolina where I was reared. I wouldn't have touched another penny, not only because I shouldn't want it, but because I shouldn't feel I had any right to accept more. You see, I'm only one of your crew, the same as Jim, really. ​However, that's neither here nor there now. When you're quite ready we will make a move. There's a fair breeze."

Dave, however, was not inclined to hurry away.

"I can't get the idea of that hut out of my mind," he said slowly.

"What about it?"

"Well, suppose some of the people off the Hatteras got ashore here, don't you think they would have made an effort to fetch the platinum off the bark as soon as they had a chance?"

"Why, yes, I suppose they would," agreed Tempest, wrinkling his brows. "I've thought of that already. Even at this minute it may be buried somewhere on Tai-o-Vai, but we're not out exactly on a mining expedition. You are not proposing digging all over the island, are you?"

"No, Tempest," said Dave, seriously, "but I surely would like to see exactly what there is in that hut. It wouldn't take us very long to dig it out, would it?"

​"Certainly not. I'm game. Let's take the shovels ashore and get to work."

Tempest had not much faith in the new venture, and he worked more to satisfy the boy's curiosity than anything else. Prior to the storm, sand had evidently sifted over the hut to a considerable depth, but the upheaval had made the task of the treasure-hunters easier. The roof of the hut was now covered with only a couple of feet of sand, and this they cleared off quickly. The next problem was to find the entrance, and this involved much hard work, but eventually they found an opening. For over an hour they delved steadily, gradually emptying the place, after digging a hole and placing the skeleton in it.

There was but little to reward their search—a few rusty tins, the handle of a knife, and the case of a silver watch, blackened with age.

"It looks to me like a place built for one man," commented Tempest, during a momentary pause in their labors.

​"It may have been the man who owned the platinum," said Dave.

"More than likely. I can quite imagine that if he did land with the stuff, and the crew wanted to make Christmas Island in an open boat, he might prefer to stop on dry land with his blessed treasure until they sent a steamer of some kind to pick him up."

"If that's what did happen," said Dave, "the dory they went off in must have been lost, and that accounts for nobody ever hearing what happened to the Hatteras."

"'Pon my word, Dave, you're getting me quite excited about the thing again!" declared Tempest. "It's only a theory, but it fits in with the facts perfectly. I don't know who the chap was who died here, but I do wish he'd been considerate enough to leave a message of some sort corked up in a bottle, giving us instructions how to find his old treasure."

"Perhaps he did," said Dave. "Anyway, let's ​go on till we get the cabin emptied of sand. If we don't find anything, then we will chuck it."

Again they plied the shovels vigorously, until nothing remained within the bare walls of the rudely constructed cabin.

"That settles it," commented Tempest, at last. "Now are you satisfied, Dave?"

"I suppose so," said the boy ruefully, straightening his back and resting on his shovel. "There's nothing more to be done, is there?"

"No, I'm afraid this is the finish. Not even the message in a bottle to lure us on."

"But," Dave exclaimed, with a touch of impatience, "what the dickens can the man have done with the platinum? He couldn't eat it."

"Buried it somewhere, I guess. People generally do bury treasure, you know."

"Maybe he buried it under the floor here," said Dave, casually digging his shovel deep into the sand. There was a metallic click as the steel struck something hard.

​"Gosh! That's funny!" the boy exclaimed, looking round at his friend as he lifted out the sand on the shovel. "Tempest, do you suppose—"

"Rock, I expect," said Tempest, not waiting a second, however, before he too had his shovel at work on the same spot.

"Rock be hanged!" shouted Dave, a moment later, as the unmistakable sound of metal striking metal reached their ears. "Tempest, it can't be—it can't be—"

"Can't it, though!" replied Tempest, joyously. "It's a metal-bound box, or my name's Joe Flagg. Now don't get so excited. Wait a minute till we get it out."

Dave was excited, however—wildly excited. He and Tempest fell on their knees and tugged at the box, but its weight was considerable, and they could not lift it out until Jim gave them a hand. It was a small chest made of oak or some other ​hard wood, encircled with solid bands of iron which had almost rusted through in places. The woodwork was in a fair state of preservation.

"It's the treasure—it's the treasure!" Dave sang out gleefully.

"Well, if it isn't, it ought to be," said Tempest, trying in vain to prize off one of the metal bands with his shovel. "Jim, streak to the Nautilus for an ax—a couple of axes—a dozen—before I burst!"

The Kanaka shot across the water in the dory, and returned in a few minutes.

Even with the aid of an ax it was not easy to burst the chest open, for there were hinges and a lock to force, beside the iron bands.

At last, with a creak, the lid was lifted, and Dave and Tempest stared at the contents of the box, fascinated.

Lying neatly stacked in rows were bars and bars of silvery-white metal which, in spite of their long ​burial in the sand, shone as brightly as when placed there years before by the man who had mined and molded them.

Tempest laughed at the Kanaka's comical expression of disappointment He had evidently expected something much more exciting. Dave stooped and took one of the small bars in his hand with a curious thrill.

"You don't suppose it's just—just lead or something like that?" he asked anxiously. "It's frightfully heavy!"

"It would be," answered Tempest, striving to keep the excitement from his voice. "It's platinum all right, and it's worth a fortune, Dave."

"A fortune!" repeated the boy, gazing down in awe at the serried rows of silvery bars. "Yes, it must be, for it's worth more than a hundred dollars an ounce. Tempest, we—we're rich!"

"You are," said Tempest. "All I'll accept is that five thousand for my little farm in Carolina. ​

Tempest laughed at the Kanaka's comical expression of disappointment

​Gee! I never saw anything that pleased me so much in all my life!"

He weighed the bar in his hand.

"There's a good sixteen ounces in that, I fancy: maybe more," he added. "Let's see how many bars there are."

With trembling fingers they laid the metal out on the sandy counting as they did so.

"Twenty-seven!" they said at last in chorus.

"Over four hundred ounces, sure as you're alive!" Tempest added. "I reckon it must be worth between forty and forty-five thousand dollars altogether, if it's worth a cent!"

"Goodness!" Dave exclaimed. "Enough to buy back my dad's place ten times over."

Three pairs of eyes were staring from the Nautilus at an old tramp steamer which, two days later, had overhauled the little sailing-boat in a dead calm.

"That's a stroke of luck," said Tempest, while ​the vessel was bearing down upon them. "Somehow, I don't fancy Mr. Cresswell will ever get his Nautilus back after all."

"What are you going to do?" Dave asked.

"Do? Why, I'm going to heave this treasure on to that tramp steamer and sit on it till we reach civilization."

"What about the Nautilus?"

"Let her go adrift. She isn't worth much, anyhow, and Mr. Cresswell will be the surprisedest man living when he receives a check for five hundred dollars—or make it a thousand, if you like, for overweight. We owe him a debt of gratitude."

The steamer was now within a cable's length of them, with her engines stopped. A dozen faces appeared over her rail.

"You look lonely there. Want any help?" called a deep voice.

"Glad of a passage," Tempest replied, as a rope ladder was slung over the side. "Lower a ​rope, will you? There's a box here I'd like to take along with me."

The crew of the Seven Seas stared with curiosity as the trio scrambled on board. One sees strange things in those lonely waters, but not often such a strange thing as two men and a boy at the mercy of the waves in a cockle-shell of a boat.

"Been on a little pleasure-trip?" asked the captain, coming forward with a smile.

The engines had already started again, and the Nautilus, left to her doom, was dropping astern.

"Shipwrecked," Tempest replied briefly. "Much obliged to you for picking us up, Cap'n. May I ask where you are bound?"

"Frisco the next stop. We've got a pretty full crew, but I don't doubt we can keep you busy till we hit America."

Tempest exchanged glances with Dave, and laughed.

"I think, sir," he said, "for once we'll enjoy ​the luxury of being passengers, if it's all the same to you. We've had rather a rough time, one way and another, and just at present there's no shortage of funds. But that's another story. I'll tell you all about it later. Meanwhile, if you could oblige us with a decent square meal, we'd appreciate it a whole lot."

"Sure!" said the captain, turning to one of the hands. "Slip below and tell Bill Barnes to fix these men up with something special as a treat."

"Barnes!" repeated Dave, with a puzzled look. "He doesn't happen to be a comical-looking chap with one tooth and bushy eyebrows, does he?"

"I guess that's his photograph," said the skipper, amused. "Do you know him?"

Dave, hardly waiting to reply, dived after the sailor to the galley, and astonished his old friend of the Pacific Queen by bursting in upon him.

"Great Mackerel, kid! sha'n't I ever get clear of you?" exclaimed that worthy, wiping his greasy hands as he came toward the boy. "Who in ​thunder would have thought of this? Jerusalem, but I am glad to see you! What d'you mean by bobbing up out of the sea like this?" His face had grown red with astonishment, and he was performing gymnastics with his mighty eyebrows.

"Been treasure-hunting, dear Barnsey," said Dave. "Come on, pour out some of that stew. We're starved. Haven't had a proper sailor's meal since goodness knows—"

"Treasure-hunting!" spluttered the cook, as he filled a dish with savory-smelling stew. "You've got the brains of a caterpillar. Haven't you learnt yet to stick to your job? Treasure-hunting, indeed!" he snorted.

"Wait till we've finished dinner, Barnsey," said Dave, "and then I'll tell you something that will make you sing a different tune!"

Nearly four weeks later the Seven Seas entered the Golden Gate, and deposited Dave, Tempest, and the Kanaka at San Francisco, where Tempest ​immediately took steps to turn the platinum into money. He found that he had slightly underestimated its value. After deducting the five thousand dollars for his farm, he placed the balance in a bank in Dave's name, and it was a proud moment for the boy when he made out one check for Mr. Cresswell, one for the passage-money on the Seven Seas, and one for current expenses. Jim was arrayed in bright colors, such as gladden the heart of his kind, and his cup of joy was filled when Dave and Tempest showed him the sights of the city in a fleet taxicab. He soon grew weary of city life, however, and on the second day insisted on joining an outward-bound steamer for China.

"Tempest," the boy said when they had seen him off, "I'm going to ask a favor of you. We'll be traveling together as far as Chicago, anyway. Won't you come on to New York and stop a few days with me before you go south? Dad will want to see you, and—and I want you to meet him; and Aunt Martha, too. Will you?"

​"Well, it's a long time, Dave, since I've mingled in polite society," replied Tempest, with a smile; "but I'd like mighty well to see your folks, and so, if you think they won't mind entertaining a tramp—"

"Tramp!" Dave exclaimed, indignantly. "Don't be silly! And anyway," he added, laughing, "tramps don't buy five-thousand-dollar farms!"

"That's so," replied Tempest. "After this I'm a regular farmer. And you're a—a—what are you, by the way, with all that money in the bank?"

"I'm—" Dave hesitated. Then, "I'm just your chum," he finished shyly. "Come on, let's beat it for the train!"

THE END

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article  Metasyntactic variable, which is released under the  Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.