The Mystery Boys and Captain Kidd's Message

by Van Powell

  CHAPTER V “NOTHING SHALL STOP US!”

  Nicky wasted no time going around through the door. He scrambled to thewindowsill and leaped out into the darkness. Springing clear of thebushes which were planted close to the house, he landed on his feet andlooked hurriedly about him.

  Nothing was to be seen!

  As soon as his eyes became used to the dark he strained them in everydirection. But there was nothing to reward his eager eyes.

  Finally, after poking around in the brush just beyond the clearing inwhich the house stood, he returned to his friends. The colored boy wasrecovering slowly from the effects of his terror. Tom, too, had regainedsome of his usual steadiness, though he seemed to be much more excitedthan either of his chums. The older men had discovered the absence ofthe map but had thought that Nicky took it.

  “No!” he panted, still laboring under his excitement and his exertionsin running from one dump of brush to another, “it was gone when I lookedaround before I jumped through the window.”

  “But where did it go?” demanded Cliff.

  “That’s the puzzle,” replied Clarence Neale.

  “De ghos’ done taken it!” gasped the small colored boy.

  “Nothing of the sort! There aren’t any ghosts!” declared Mr. Gray.

  The boy stared. “Yes, they is!” he retorted. “I seen it! It was white!It——”

  “Where did you see it?” Nicky asked quickly.

  “By de window, sar!”

  “Was it looking in?”

  “It was comin’ to’ds”—toward, he meant—“to’ds me!”

  “What is all this?” a new voice spoke. The owner of the plantation, arough, stocky Englishman with a bronzed face, stood in the doorway. Hehad been out on another of his many properties for several days and had,apparently, come back in time to discover the excitement withoutunderstanding its meaning.

  Mr. Gray explained the boy’s fright without mentioning the loss of themap. Nicky, about to speak, saw Cliff make a gesture which unmistakablywas the Mystery Boys’ signal for silence; he closed his lips and waited.

  “These colored people are afraid of shadows,” said the plantation owner.“Run along home, boy. Nothing will hurt you!”

  “No, sar, Mister Coleson, sar, I dassent go in de dark alone!”

  “The natives of this island are full of legends and stories aboutghosts,” Mr. Coleson explained to the group. “Why, I have even heardthem declare that the ghosts and spirits of the old pirates appear attimes. Joe, my overseer, here on the plantation, says he once heardwhere treasure was hidden and he decided to try to get it. But when hegot near the place his superstitions got the best of him. The way hetells about it, he saw pirates, in red bandana head cloths, withglittering cutlasses, and smoking pistols, stalking toward him.Naturally, being a coward, he ran. Of course,” he added, “I’m onlytelling you what he said. Personally, I think the fellow built it all upin his mind!”

  “Oh—sar!” broke in the colored boy. “No! I see dem, too! I see Cap’nKidd in my dream, de odder night. He come and he say ‘Boo!’ an’ wake meup!”

  Clarence Neale laughed.

  “That shows how easy it is to believe in ghosts if you hear about themand think about them all your life!” he told Tom. “This lad even dreamsabout them.”

  “Captain Kidd, eh?” repeated the Englishman, laughing and then becominghalf serious. “Well, if there’s any truth in superstition, the old boymust be watching over some of his treasure that is threatened!” Hewinked toward Clarence Neale, but neither Tom nor the colored boy saw itand both thought he was quite serious.

  “Don’t, sar—please, don’t!” begged the boy, beginning to snivel. “He say‘Boo’ at me. Den I mus’ have see him, tonight again!”

  “Well,” said the Englishman, “I’ll leave you people to argue with thislittle scare-cat! I’m tired and I think I will turn in!”

  He said goodnight and went to the quarters he occupied.

  “Wasn’t Sam to come here?” asked Mr. Gray.

  “Yes, he was—” began Cliff; he paused, and glanced at Nicky. The latteropened his eyes wider as the thought struck him too.

  Could Sam have had anything to do with the “ghost business?” Sam hadhalf a map; he saw Nicky, earlier, displaying his excitement when themap was shown. Maybe he had become suspicious, followed them, overheardsomething; perhaps he had even listened at the window.

  They discussed the strange disappearance of their map, stated theirsuspicions, brought up the question of Sam’s possible guilt.

  The colored boy, not understanding, stood with his eyes rolling, afraidto depart.

  “There is an easy way to settle the question, and, at the same time todispose of this boy’s fears,” suggested Clarence Neale. “I will walkhome with him!”

  That seemed to be the best course and so Mr. Neale, reassuring theirdusky charge, put a hand on his shoulder and gently urged him from theroom.

  “I don’t care much for this situation,” said Mr. Gray. “It seems to methat some human agency is at work, trying to frighten you lads. I assureyou that there is no ghost. Whatever Tom may have seen, and whatever theboy saw, there is a human being behind it. And no ghostly hands tookyour paper!”

  “I think that way too,” Nicky declared, and Cliff nodded his agreement.Tom also gave a rather lame assent.

  “Anyhow,” stated Nicky, practically, “if there was a ghost—if CaptainKidd did watch!—he sent part of the map to my own ancestor. He wouldn’twant to scare us! If he scared anybody, or took a map from anywhere, hewould go after the colored fellow, Sam. His half of the cipher wasn’trightfully his, the way mine is.”

  “But there is no ghost,” repeated Mr. Gray. “If you ever get the truefacts you will see that some person is at the bottom of this.”

  “Sam, most likely!” declared Tom, entering into the spirit of thediscussion and reassuring himself.

  “No,” said Mr. Neale, coming in, his arm around the shoulders of thecolored man they had just named, “no—Sam isn’t at the bottom of it.”

  They looked at Sam. He was weak and shaken, and slumped down in a chair,rather limp and groggy.

  “I found Sam out by the gate,” Mr. Neale explained. “He had been knockedout, actually, by a blow. He was on his way here, he managed to tell me.He thought he saw something light-colored near the house and he stoppedby the gate. But whatever—whoever—it was, disappeared behind the houseand he stood a moment wondering. Then he heard the voice in the house,here, and wondered whether to come in or to wait. Before he guessed whatwas happening, some one was behind him and struck him. That is all heremembered.”

  “No ghost did that!” exclaimed Nicky.

  “I don’t—know,” Sam said, weakly. “They tell, on the island, that ghostshave terrible power. I never did believe much in it, but—I don’tknow—now!”

  “Well, I do know!” declared Mr. Neale defiantly. “Your part of the mapis gone, of course!”

  “Yes, sar—yes——”

  “Of course! Does that seem like the work of a ghost?”

  “It might be!” Sam said uncertainly. He drank the water Nicky hadbrought him, and seemed to be pulling himself together, but his age-oldinstinct of fear was beginning to triumph over his education.

  “At any rate,” Mr. Gray summed up, “whatever and whoever did thesethings, the result amounts to this: neither Sam nor we have any clue tothe treasure——”

  “You wouldn’t let that stop you, would you?” demanded Nicky.

  “I wouldn’t, if Father would let us go on,” Cliff stated.

  “Nor I,” agreed Clarence Neale. “We can remember the map closelyenough—we know the longitude—we could even cable Nicky’s uncle and getthe original if necessary——”

  “But we don’t remember the latitude on Sam’s half,” said Cliff. “UnlessSam does——”

  “When he gets over his bump—it won’t be serious—he will be able to help.Anyway, we kn
ow in a general way that the place is somewhere in theFlorida Keys, about twenty-five degrees and some minutes of Northlatitude and we all recall the longitude—and one-half of the map had thephrase ‘dip’ and the other ‘per’—put them together and they mean‘Dipper.’” Mr. Neale sketched on a bit of envelope the picture of theconstellation know as “The Dipper.”

  “There!” he said, triumphantly. “Doesn’t that show you the same littlemarks that were on the two maps?”

  Nicky, Cliff, Tom and Mr. Gray nodded.

  “Well, then, we can find that set of islands,” declared Mr. Neale, “and,if Mr. Gray would carry on my work here, I, for one, would vote to goahead!”

  “Here too!” cried Nicky.

  “Same for me!” stated Cliff, giving his father an imploring look.

  “I’m with you,” Tom chimed in, not as aggressively, but with his willpower overcoming his uncertainty.

  “I’d go if you would let me,” said Sam, while Mr. Gray bandaged a lumpon his head after it had been disinfected and washed. “I know where Icould get a sloop with a little engine to kick it along if the windfailed——”

  “That would be fine!” exclaimed Nicky. “I vote we take Sam in!”

  “Share and share alike!” cried Cliff eagerly. “That is, our part ofwhatever we find! Of course we’d give some to the governor’s family ifwe can find them.”

  “We’d have to keep it secret—our plan!” said Nicky, earnestly. “We’dhave to pretend to be going——”

  “To cruise for Carib relics on smaller islands!” broke in ClarenceNeale, as excited as his younger companions.

  “Fine!” agreed Nicky. “Is the sloop big enough, Sam? Where is it? What’sit like? Is it seaworthy for a cruise like this?”

  Sam said “yes” and described the one-masted, thirty-foot boat with itsheavy duty motor. “Maybe close quarters to sleep in,” he said, “but shehas shorely got a good name for treasure hunting!”

  “What?” demanded all three chums in unison.

  “The _Treasure Belle_——”

  “Oh!” cried Nicky. “With a name like that we simply must get her! Mr.Gray, you can’t refuse us permission.”

  Three eager youths pleaded. The older man, counseled and reassured byClarence Neale, finally agreed.

  “Hooray!” Nicky exulted. “Treasure bent in the _Treasure Belle_! Nothingcan stop us!”

  Tom, a little silent, hoped that nothing could!