The Mystery Boys and Captain Kidd's Message

by Van Powell

  CHAPTER XXXI NICKY IS A HERO!

  Things happened so fast and so thick that no one could have told a storyof all that went on. Cliff, landing on all fours, beside Nicky, was upon his knees in an instant, tugging his knife from his pocket, rippingopen its blade.

  He slashed at Nicky’s rope, and loosened it; again he slashed and then,at a warning cry from Tom, he looked over his shoulder, but too late.

  Nicky, frantically tugging to loosen the cut rope, saw Tew coming butwas as helpless as Tom.

  Cliff dropped his knife and tried to get up, to turn, to ward off theblow. Tew, his face working in a rage, his whole, muscular frame behindhis stout arm, drove a fist at Cliff’s head. Cliff instinctively threwup his arm. The fist crashed against it, flung him by its force againstthe cockpit thwart, and Cliff felt sick and faint, struggled to rise,saw the world turn black, big and little pinwheels whirl before hiseyes, and sank in a heap.

  Tew turned, and raced back to his engine. Nicky, his whole being burningwith a fire of fury, tore at his rope and began to loosen it.

  On the _Senorita_, the man atop her cabin was firing at Sam and Jack butthey, under the shelter of the cabin, were crouched low, scampering upthe deck, loading their pistols.

  The men forward with the hose, taken by surprise, without their weaponsin their hands, scattered, several leaping into the water and making forthe islet close at hand.

  Jim had already leaped into the forward cabin of the _Libertad_, andwith his pistol aimed toward the deck of the vessel just above, waswarning off those who wanted to leap down. They stopped, not daring toleap.

  Nicky got his arms free, threw the rope impatiently off and bent overCliff. His chum lay inert, stunned by the shock as his head had struckthe wood in his fall.

  Nicky turned, to look for the knife, to free Tom.

  On the cabin top the man on watch gave over firing and shouted a hoarsewarning!

  “The cutter!” he roared, “she’s coming!”

  Full speed up the channel came Lieutenant Sommerlee’s craft, withBrownie, the lieutenant and the two sailors forward, Mr. Neale at thetiller, aft.

  The men on the _Senorita_ leaped to the water, Jack and Sam coming fromconcealment, standing erect, ordering them to surrender and firing attheir heads as they scrambled for the islet and cover on the farthershore.

  In the cabin of the _Libertad_ the two men, Mr. Coleson and Don Ortiga,called to Senor Ortiga, who was on the deck of the _Senorita_, and atthe same time a rifle ball, from the man on the cabin, aimed quickly atJim, cut into the flesh of the colored man’s arm and he dropped hisweapon.

  Without an instant’s hesitation, Senor Ortiga leaped upon him, landed inthe cabin, bent double, knocking Jim aside, and began to reach for thewheel, as Tew, leaping for the spark lever, advanced the spark, and atthe same time threw the gear lever out of mesh with the bilge pump andinto the gear with the engine propeller shaft.

  As the engine took the spark and began to roar, Mr. Coleson, his facewhite, leaped past Tew to get to the cabin windows and thus to jump outinto the channel and take his chance on swimming clear.

  Nicky made a lunge past Tew, to stop Mr. Coleson, but his foot caught onthe hose, still connected loosely to the bilge pump, and tore it free.There came the gurgle of the gas still in it, as it flowed over thefloor in a trickling, spreading pool.

  Nicky missed his catch, and saw Mr. Coleson leap free and plungeoverside into the channel.

  From the cutter came hails and shots.

  On the _Senorita_ Sam and Jack had captured one man, and were firing atthe islet.

  Nicky felt himself caught by the nape of the neck as he tried to recoverhis balance. With his face white with rage, Don Ortiga brought Nickyupright and sent him, with the full force of his strong arms, toward theforward cabin. Then, as Nicky sprawled in a heap, Don Ortiga turned onhis brother, just arising to face him.

  “This is your fault!” he grated. “If you hadn’t come in and left yourboat to be discovered——”

  “Be still!” cried his brother. “Where is the gold—we must get itaway—some of it!”

  “It is safe!” growled Don Ortiga.

  “Then let’s go away from this spot!”

  “I shall go. You shall stay. Here and now we settle an old score,” criedDon Ortiga. Nicky saw him unsheathe a knife, and at the same instantSenor Ortiga, seeing his danger, leaped to grip the arm holding theknife.

  Nicky, rushing past Tew, who was steering the craft, its momentumincreasing with every turn of the propeller, tried to trip Don Ortiga,but the other man leaped aside, thrust at him with a foot, and at thatinstant Senor Ortiga caught the wrist of his hand holding the knife anda battle ensued that made Nicky gasp.

  Amid the shouts and the shots from the cutter, amid the cries of menbeing caught or being fired at in the water, with the craft makingsteady way under Tew’s guidance, those two brothers strove and strained,fighting wordlessly for the possession of that knife.

  Nicky was held spellbound for an instant.

  Then, with a cruel trick, Don Ortiga lifted a knee and caught thebrother he hated in a vital spot and Senor Ortiga, with a groan, relaxedhis hold on the knife.

  Don Ortiga stepped back, his face a mask of hate and fury.

  His brother began to recover, for the blow had not been delivered withenough force to be permanently damaging.

  “And now, as I said, we settle old scores!” hissed Don Ortiga.

  With a hand that shook he extracted a cigarette from a case in hispocket, staring in meditation on his evil plan while his brother,groaning and white, gained his balance.

  Don Ortiga scraped a match roughly against its box, lit his cigaretteand then, flicking his match carelessly, loosed it.

  Nicky cried out shrilly.

  “The gas!” yelled Nicky. “Get away! The gas!”

  Senor Ortiga sensed the danger, and so did his brother. Both acted; theDon leaped back to the cockpit and began to scramble to its side, hisbrother trying to crawl out of the window.

  It all happened in a fraction of a second—the match was in the air, themen were escaping, Nicky was leaping back toward Tew for he saw what wascoming.

  Tew, as the match landed, yelled in terror and began to climb from thecabin to the forward deck and there leaped into the water.

  As he did so there was a flash, a roar and a seething, boiling pool offlaming gasoline covered the cabin floor around the engine!

  Nicky, whose first instinctive impulse had been self-preservation,instantly thought of his chums in the cockpit—of Tom, bound—of Cliff,perhaps still insensible.

  The men were being rounded up, by shouting navy men and those whohelped. But of this, of the effort of Mr. Coleson to escape, of hiscapture, of the capture of the Don and of his brother, Nicky knewnothing.

  His whole mind was fixed on one purpose.

  He must get through a lake of seething flame to his chums!

  The cockpit was a bare few inches above the floor level of the enginecompartment, and so the gasoline had not spread; but the flame waslicking the sides of the cabin, flaring through the windows, and, fannedby the speed of the vessel’s movement, bellied out aft over the boys.

  Nicky was almost thrown off his feet as the _Libertad_ thrust her nose,unguided by human hand, against the side of the coral, and with a joltstopped.

  Nicky gained his equilibrium and leaped for the foredeck; there heclimbed swiftly atop the low cabin and began to run along its length.

  As he ran he shouted wildly to Lieutenant Sommerlee and Mr. Neale.

  They heard him and the cutter swung her nose toward the beached vesselwith its cabin blazing.

  Nicky saw flames leap up through the windows and lick at the roof andblow over it in the light breeze. It was hot to his feet, still he wenton, a handkerchief over his face, crouching low as he ran.

  He stopped, at the after end, for a sheet of flame was bellying out. Butit subsided, and taking what might be h
is last chance, he leaped ontoall-fours beside Tom.

  Cliff was moaning, stirring. Nicky shouted again to those in the cutterand Mr. Neale leaned far over the bow, to reach the white stern at thevery first instant.

  With seething flame behind him, threatening to belch out over him at anyinstant, with the cockpit edge beginning to burst into flame, Nickyfound Cliff’s knife and sawed Tom’s bonds. Then, cutting down the ropesbetween his legs so he could stand and work, Nicky let Tom help his ownfinal escape while he tugged and worked to get Cliff in his arms.

  “Be still,” urged Nicky. “It’s all right!”

  Sam and Jack had seen the fire occur; with a common impulse they hadleaped into the _Senorita’s_ cabin to get the patent fire extinguishersalways kept in an engine room. With these they leaped back to the deckand alongside the flaming cabin as Nicky crossed it.

  Turning the extinguishers upside down to break their containers andallow the chemicals to fuse and mix and create pressure and a spoutingflow of watery gas, they turned the short nozzles onto the cockpit andcabin. There was the roar and hiss of chemicals meeting their flaringenemy.

  There came a great puff of smoke and flame, but Nicky, just in time, onthe edge of the cockpit, with Cliff in his arms, leaped!

  He struck the water, and began to swim, holding Cliff’s head up!

  Tom, freeing himself at the same time, sprang into the water and paddledto his chums.

  The cutter came alongside and they were drawn from the water.

  And then, with a violent roar as the fire found the gas line and freshfuel, the fire blazed up again.

  “The tank—the aft tank!” cried Jim, leaping from the cabin floor wherehe had, with his hurt arm, been trying to get the _Libertad’s_extinguisher into play. “The tank! Get away!”

  He leaped into the water and swam off, and at the same time, with aglorious feeling that some High Power had held back the end until allwere safely away, Nicky, in the cutter, saw _El Libertad’s_ stern burstinto a mass of fire, sparks and rending wooden splinters.

  Her stern, literally blown to bits, sank, blazing and hissing, into thechannel, leaving her still blazing with her nose on the coral.

  There was nothing to do about it.

  “But the treasure—” gasped Cliff, who had come to himself somewhat, witha good sized bruise on his temple. “It will all be melted.”

  “Let it melt!” cried Nicky. “As long as you and Tom are safe!”

  And, with no further word than a tight grip of Cliff’s hand, Nickywatched wordlessly the blazing pyre of all their seeking.

  “The gold won’t burn,” Lieutenant Sommerlee consoled the boys.

  “And there is more in the coral ‘safe,’” said Mr. Neale.

  They laid off all that day, watched the embers sink down to the water’sedge, saw the last spark die, and then plumbed the wreckage for thetreasure, hoping that in a state of molten yellow blocks it would bebrought up. But no golden bars were there, nor could a single glint ofmelted metal be discovered, though Sam, Jim and Brownie dived with awill and almost tore the charred insides out of the _Libertad_.

  “Where can it be?” mused Mr. Neale.

  They questioned their captives, but all were silent. With a fiercegrimace of hate Don Ortiga told them they would never find it.

  But Nicky held on firmly to hope!

  CHAPTER XXXII HOW VOODOO BROUGHT SUCCESS

  Jamaica’s Blue Mountains, looking with their lordly heads over the wideexpanse of a sunlit sea, discerned a white sail. That was no unusualsight to them; but this particular sail seemed, in some way, to be moreimportant than the rest.

  It was. Under its wide, unreefed expanse, three youths, a colored and awhite man watched eagerly for the closer signs of the island’s harbor atKingston.

  In time they landed, and, after a while, they had secured a conveyanceand were whirling out through the lazy streets, noticing with delightthe familiar sights, the indolent colored people on the streets and inthe shops, the family “flitting” or moving, its colored woman headingthe procession with the dining room table balanced on her head, its legssticking aloft, the family stuff piled within its upturned top; whilethe children bore their respective loads and the man of the family, asusual, stalked along behind—carrying nothing!

  “It’s great to see the cactus again!” grinned Nicky, noting the greatplants by the wayside when they left the city and rose into higherground, seeing cactus plants many feet high, sometimes making averitable forest with their close-set ranks.

  In time Mr. Gray, Cliff’s father, greeted them on the old plantation.They had cabled from Florida before sailing back in Sam’s _TreasureBelle_.

  Many were the greetings exchanged, and long were the tales that had tobe told. Nelse and the hi-jackers were in prison.

  “Mr. Coleson was let go free,” Nicky explained. “I guess the navalpatrol did not want to get into any trouble with the British—or theauthorities in Jamaica.”

  “It would have brought about complications,” said Mr. Neale. “Iunderstand that Mr. Coleson won’t return to Jamaica.”

  “He cabled me,” said Mr. Gray. “He asked me if I wanted to buy thisplantation.”

  “Will you?” Cliff asked his father, the scholar who wrote many booksabout ancient civilizations.

  “No, sar,” broke in Sam, smiling his bright smile. “But Sam will.”

  “So that’s how you will spend your share of the treasure?” asked Nicky.

  “Part of it,” agreed Sam.

  “But you haven’t yet told me how you discovered it,” Mr. Gray said. “Youstopped at the point where you failed to bring it up from the burnedvessel.”

  “Well,” said Nicky, “we ‘worked’ a little voodoo, sort of, didn’t we,fellows?” Tom and Cliff nodded.

  “You see, if the treasure wasn’t in the burned boat somebody must havehidden it,” Cliff took up the explanation. “Nicky suggested that we makean experiment. He thought that as long as Don Ortiga declared, up anddown, he knew nothing about it, and Senor Ortiga and Mr. Coleson saidthe same, it might be that somebody else had hidden it during the night.Mr. Coleson, who was sorry for what he had done, tried to help us, andwe believed his statement.”

  “Yes,” said Tom. “So Nicky got Sam and Jim, the colored boys, and madethem tell all they knew, or guessed, about voodoo.”

  “He certainly was clever, sar,” broke in Sam. “He found out that we hadheard of people ‘divining’ from tricks, and that night we had a voodooaffair on the after deck of the _Senorita_.”

  “Yes,” Cliff took up the tale, “Nicky got Lieutenant Sommerlee to getthe sailors and Tew together on the deck, then he and Sam and Jim put ona regular show, making believe they were going to find out who knewabout it. They had a smoky fire, and took bits of hair off the heads ofthe sailors and burned them. Tew acted as though he was afraid of itall—he was superstitious. So he refused to give us his hair and thenSam, here, pretended to slip up behind him and snip some off with aknife. And that made Tew nervous, but what we really burned was some ofthe other sailors’ hair—only Tew didn’t know that. Then Sam leaped upand pointed to Tew, and said: ‘You know, sar,’ and Tew broke down andshowed by his face that he did.

  “And do you know where it was?” demanded Nicky, unable to represshimself any longer. “He had waited till they were all asleep, the nightbefore they were caught, and he had dropped the bars, one at a time,into a pool beside the boat. We found them there.

  “And Lieutenant Sommerlee took us around to Miami, and we stayed thereseveral days, unloaded the gold bars, had the bank assay and value them,and deposited—oh, a heap for everybody!”

  “And of course the hi-jackers were sent to prison,” Tom added.

  “Has anyone been found belonging to the old Governor’s family who shouldrightfully share in our find?” asked Mr. Neale.

  “Yes,” said Mr. Gray. “An old, widowed lady, and she will be very gladof the money for she is poor.”


  The boys were glad for her, and unselfishly voted to add a little fromtheir plenty to help the lady. Later she refused to take more than afair part, for that, she said, would keep her in easy circumstances forthe rest of her life.

  While the boys were adding details of their adventure and discussingwhat they might do with some of the gold, and Mr. Neale and Mr. Graywere comparing notes on the gold figures and silver placques of a lootedInca city which had been secured later from the treasure key, a knockcame at the door and Ma’am Sib, the old voodoo woman, came in with agoggle-eyed boy of dark skin and about ten years old.

  “Who sen for Ma’am Sib?” she demanded in her high, querulous tones. “Didyou, white sirs?”

  “We did,” Nicky stated. “We, the three members of a secret order aspowerful as any in the world.”

  She looked at him sharply to see if he was joking or trying to make herfeel ridiculous. Oddly enough, Nicky was really serious.

  “This won’t be a lecture, Ma’am Sib,” Cliff added. “But we want to showyou something about voodoo that even you won’t guess about. If you cantell us how it’s done, we’ll be glad.”

  She looked at him curiously.

  Nicky, very serious, nodded to Tom who rose and walked slowly over tothe window.

  “It’s just a roundabout way to do her a favor,” Mr. Neale whispered tothe mystified father Cliff was winking at. “There’s no harm.”

  Tom was unostentatiously moving aside the curtain on a small chest ofshelves in which various relics were stored.

  Cliff came close to Ma’am Sib.

  “Ever see anything like this before?” he asked. He laid on the tablebefore the shriveled old crone a small, rude figure, cut out of stone,very much discolored, with its legs broken off, and having a hideousface and arms that stuck down without any hands to finish them off.

  The old woman stared.

  “Why—why—let me see! I know that—I seem to remember——”

  “Oh, no,” laughed Nicky. “Don’t strain your memory, Ma’am Sib. That isone of the ancient Gods of an old Central American tribe. We got hold ofit—well, never mind,” he did not wish to say they had found it in thedespatch box with treasure, recovered later from the locker of theburned _Libertad_, and that they supposed the Spanish Inquisitors hadtaken it from the Indians. “It’s a powerful god.”

  “I—I seem to see—” began the crone, rolling her eyes toward the ceiling.

  “Oh, no, you’re not as old as this god,” Cliff told her. “But it hasstrange powers and we are going to show them to you.” She shivered anddrew back but Nicky smiled gaily at her.

  “It won’t hurt you,” he said. “Now you stand it up in front of you—propit against this book! Now, make a circle in the air in front of it, andthen draw a circle around it with your index finger on your left hand,and then say—‘Abacca-abbaca-brab!’ three times and see what happens—itwon’t hurt.”

  The woman looked at Sam. He was grinning, but he nodded for her to doit. She hesitated and then, taking some bits of queer stuff from a bagshe had, muttering some charm to protect herself from evil, she made thecircles and muttered the words of Nicky’s fol-de-rol.

  There came a thump, and a small bar of gold fell onto the table. Tom hadflung it adroitly, of course, but she fixed her eyes and stared as ifshe would pop her eyes out.

  “How—how—” she stammered.

  “Want to know how it was done?” demanded Nicky.

  “I’ll give you this gold if you tell me,” she said.

  “I see,” began Tom.

  “I know,” said Nicky.

  “I’ll tell—” began Cliff. But suddenly all three saw that Mr. Neale,whom they had long before taught their secret signs, was making a signwhich they all interpreted to mean, “Seeing All, I see nothing; KnowingAll, I know nothing; Telling All, I tell nothing,” the oath of theMystery Boys. Nicky grinned and nodded.

  “This is it,” he said. “Once you made three clay figures of us and stucktheir heads in the sun; they brought us good luck so we brought this godto give you some of it.”

  And that was all she ever found out.

  THE END

  Mystery and Adventure Series for Boys

  The Mystery of Lake Retreat]

  Here’s a Series of thrilling, exciting mystery stories by some of thebest-known authors for Boys in this Country. Each volume is a separatestory in itself; independent of any other volume in the Series.

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  TOM BLAKE’S MYSTERIOUS ADVENTURE. By Milton Richards BARRY DARE AND THE MYSTERIOUS BOX. By Gardner Hunting THE BLACK SKIMMER. By Philip Hart WRECK OF THE DAUNTLESS. By Philip Hart THE VALDMERE MYSTERY. By Milton Richards THE FLIGHT OF THE MYSTIC OWLS. By Philip Hart THE SECRET OF THE ARMOR ROOM. By Capwell Wyckoff ADVENTURES OF A PATRIOT. By Philip Hart DONALD PRICE’S VICTORY. By L. P. Wyman, Ph.D. IN THE CAMP OF THE BLACK RIDER. By Capwell Wyckoff THE MYSTERY AT LAKE RETREAT. By Capwell Wyckoff THE STRANGE TEEPEE. By Philip Hart THE MYSTERY OF EAGLE LAKE. By L. P. Wyman, Ph.D.

  _Thrills and Adventure Aplenty!_

  The Mystery Boys Series

  By VAN POWELL

  The Mystery Boys and the Inca Gold]

  Here are five great, red-blooded stories for Boys. Each volume is astory in itself and entirely independent of any other volume in theSeries. If you like mystery and adventure in large doses, read THEMYSTERY BOYS SERIES.

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  THE MYSTERY BOYS AND THE INCA GOLD THE MYSTERY BOYS AND CAPTAIN KIDD’S MESSAGE THE MYSTERY BOYS AND THE SECRET OF THE GOLDEN SUN THE MYSTERY BOYS AND THE CHINESE JEWELS THE MYSTERY BOYS AND THE HINDU TREASURE

  A. L. BURT COMPANY PUBLISHERS New York Chicago

  Endpapers]

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  Transcriber’s note:

  --Silently corrected obvious typographical errors.

  --Left non-standard spellings and dialect unchanged.