by Van Powell
CHAPTER VIII CROCODILE KEY
Like a jackrabbit, Sam, in two moves, dived into the cabin. His firstjump took him from the deck to the cockpit; his body hardly landed,facing astern, before he doubled on himself, snakelike, and shot himselfthrough the narrow door.
Tom was on the point of following; but his fear of his comrades’laughter was greater even than his dread of the unknown. Sam’s comicalappearance brought a shout of laughter from Cliff and Nicky; even Mr.Neale was compelled to chuckle. Tom, therefore, mastered his impulse andremained on the cabin roof.
“Now what do you suppose that was?” Cliff wondered, after they relievedthe tension of the momentary start of instinctive terror by a good laughat Sam.
“I must give it up,” answered Mr. Neale, “but I am inclined to look forsome human agency before I admit any supernatural cause.”
“It—it didn’t sound like—anything human!” Tom said with a shiver.
“Have you heard so many ghosts that you know what they sound like?”asked Nicky with a chuckle. Tom shook his head.
“I don’t feel much like investigating in the dark,” Cliff went on.
“I don’t see what there is to investigate,” Nicky added.
“I’ll take the dinghy in the morning and look for some evidences ofhuman causes,” declared Mr. Neale. “Perhaps a Seminole Indian may bearound here, fishing—or something. Or some white resident of themainland, with a sense of humor, is playing a joke on us.”
“This message doesn’t seem like a joke,” Nicky defended. “It looks realto me. See how rusted the old can is—why, it’s almost like paper—and theparchment is awfully old.” He indicated, by the dim lantern, how frailthe edge of the sheet was by tearing it.
“I think it’s real,” Cliff agreed. “Don’t you, Mr. Neale?”
Their captain and mentor hesitated.
“There are several strange points to consider by daylight,” hecommented. “If we had found it by chance I should consider it genuine;but the light—and the ghostly voice—those make me suspicious.”
“But—look!” argued Nicky, “it gives a definite place, and tells about alandmark to show where to dig for treasure. Our map wasn’t even clearabout the channel or where the treasure was hidden.”
“However,” Mr. Neale said, “it came to you in a logical way. The new onedid not. I cannot account for that bluish light but it is surely notsupernatural.”
“I’ve heard of very old things, decomposing, giving off light,” Cliffdeclared. Mr. Neale nodded and since there was really nothing to begained by any long argument, they finally became calm enough to lie downagain, Mr. Neale agreeing to stay awake and watch until dawn.
Not much sleep was possible; nevertheless they all dozed some, and theirdreams were, to say the least, thrilling.
However, as is usual with any form of terror of supernatural things, thecoming of the sunshine dispelled their timidity. True it was that thecoral showed no footprints and the water told no story of the previousnight’s incidents. They remained unexplainable.
Sam served a breakfast of fish, with bacon and some turtle eggs he hadfound the evening before, and during the meal their procedure wasdiscussed.
Nicky, Cliff and Tom were for giving up their indefinite search, among amultitude of islets, and trying for the new treasure trove, and Samagreed with them with the words, “Anywhere, sar—anywhere but hereabouts!It’s bad lucky, so it is!”
Mr. Neale, outvoted, gave in.
“I hunted crocodiles for the Museum of Natural History one winter,” hestated, “I did not secure a really successful specimen—all I got was agiant turtle head, and part of the skeleton of some great snake; thecrocodiles were too shy to be caught or even shot.”
“Don’t you mean alligators?” asked Tom, who knew some natural history.
“No,” replied Mr. Neale. “Mostly the saurians of Florida are of thealligator family; but in some southerly parts of the Florida bays thereare to be found certain species that are different from the alligatorsand more closely allied with the crocodile species. I really believe itwould do us no harm to delay our search here for a while. There isdelightful fishing and a great deal of fun—good bathing, sponge fishing,crawfish catching and so on—to be had.
“Card Bay,” he went on, “is a curious slip in the parchment; it isreally Card Sound—a sheet of water about six miles by two and a half.But possibly when this parchment was put where we found it—if it isgenuine—the names were different.”
Up came the anchor and instead of running into Whitewater Bay to go upthe channel—if they could find one—inside the islets, they swung the_Treasure Belle’s_ bow southward, and ran slowly down to round the landof the nose named Cape Sable, and then beat easterly along the coast,finding snug harbors behind keys or in some of the many small bays, tolie to during the nights.
The trip was fairly uneventful.
There was one time when they thought they would not find the rightchannel and almost went aground in a narrow passage between twomangrove-covered points. Rather heavy wind made steering hard as theyrounded Southeast Cape, the lowest part of the Florida mainland, evenbefore that; but Sam was a good man at the tiller and they had little tofear, being quick and alert to obey his quiet commands to haul on theropes, to swing the mainsail or to take an additional reef in theircanvas.
They skirted the shore of lower Matecumbe, and stared interestedly atIndian Key.
“That is where the Seminole Indians killed a Doctor Perrine,” Mr. Nealeexplained. “During the Seminole War that happened. His children hid in aturtle pen. They escaped. Really, it was a miracle!”
It was a high island of about ten acres, and in the plentiful wateraround it they ran quite close to its high banks in passing.
That evening they anchored after running between two points where thedraught was very slight and only by judging the color of the water werethey able to starboard, or port, the helm a trifle, moving slowly, toavoid the shoal or the more dangerous coral itself.
They anchored just before sunset and so beautifully clear was the waterthat the sponges growing on the bottom were plainly visible, in thecross light, as Tom and Nicky rowed the glass bottomed dinghy slowlyaround on the smooth water.
“Isn’t this great” exclaimed Nicky. “See those sponges! How many kindsdo you know, Tom?”
“Well, I know them by name, but not by sight,” Tom responded. “I haveread that the marketable kinds are the yellow, the sheeps-wool, thegras—and I think one is called the glove. But there are more kinds thataren’t any good to sell, and they have to be recognized or else you’dget a lot that aren’t salable. There is the loggerhead, for one, Iremember—and the potato sponge. And there are some that are spiny, andthey hurt your hands if you grab them.”
“They don’t look like what we see in the stores,” Nicky commented. “Theyare sort of the same shapes, but they are black, and Mr. Neale says theyfeel like india-rubber to touch and they are smooth, with little cratersor holes in the top—look! There’s a beauty. Is that a salable one, Tom?”
Tom peered down through the boat’s transparent bottom.
“I’ll bet it’s a sheeps-wool one,” he declared.
Nicky stood up and began to fling off his clothes.
“I’m going to dive for it!” he exclaimed. Tom, fired by his enthusiasm,and with the spirit of rivalry, began to “shuck” his clothes. It becamea race toward nakedness—with no one but their comrades to observe, theyoften plunged into the limpid, translucent water in nature’s swimmingsuit. Cliff, observing them from the sloop, began to emulate their hastydisrobing. But Sam put a stop to their plan.
“Why?” demanded Cliff, rather warmly. “We’re not afraid of sharks!”
“No, sar,” called Sam, “but you are liable to dive crooked or if yourfoot slips you may go in backwards—and a cut from that sharp coral isn’tto be chanced, sar.” He showed Cliff a deep scar under his wooly hair,and Cliff, alarmed, ca
lled for his comrades to desist—until daylight, atleast. They agreed reluctantly, and, looking down more carefully Nickyconfided to Tom that he was glad they had. Overlooked in theirexcitement, they were able in calm study to observe a long, arrow-likefrond of coral extending upward at an angle so close to the sponge thatit must have been struck by any but a most expert diver.
Green turtle, cooked by broiling beside a good beach fire, as theIndians did it—a tasty meat, and equally good when made into a sort ofstew of the whole creature’s flesh, was eked out by a four poundcrawfish caught by Nicky from a veritable crawling mass of theselobster-like shellfish in their bay. Corn-pone, or cornbread made thesouthern way and baked in ashes, a process learned by Tom during asummer camp, in the South, made a fine dinner that night and they atethe more lustily for the realization of their narrow escape earlier inthe evening. “It doesn’t pay to leap before you look!” declared Nicky asthe chums settled down to sleep that night.
After rather eventless days, during which they passed many bays, inlets,keys and reefs, they sighted Key Largo, one of the most fertile of thefew larger Florida Keys, beat along its shore, ran along past WhalebackKey, and finally slipped to the end of what the natives call Barnes’Sound, and through Jewfish Creek, a narrow and deceptive passageconnecting the larger sheet of water with what the natives call LittleCard Sound, although the Geodetic Survey charts give different names toboth major and minor waters.
The opening of Jewfish Creek was deceptive because mangrove trees grewso closely that it looked like an impassable place until Mr. Neale, whohad used it previously during his crocodile hunting expedition, tookcommand and piloted them through cleverly.
“Little Card Sound!” exclaimed Nicky—with considerable eagerness.“Now—where is Crocodile Key?”
“I never heard of it,” Mr. Neale replied. “But——”
“Yonder—yonder!” cried Sam, extending his arm toward a point on thedistant shoreline. “That may not be a key, sar—but there shorely arethree trees in a row!”
“So they are!” agreed the captain, jamming over the tiller as the sloopheeled in the breeze and swung her bow toward the trees.
“But they are on the shore—not on a key,” objected Tom.
“Coral may have closed a channel during the years,” Mr. Neale explained.“Then earth covered it. That is, granting that our message is genuine.”
“The trees prove it!” Nicky cried. “Now, all we have to do is to waittill tomorrow and then——”
“Dig for treasure!” cried Tom and Cliff, together.
