CHAPTER IX.
MATT AND HIS CHUMS GO IT ALONE.
"Hunters are taking shots at us," cried Matt, "and we've got to getaway from them. Where are we, Dick?"
"I had just studied one of the maps with the aid of the electrictorch," replied Dick, "and had made up my mind that we were close tothe line separating South Carolina from Georgia. Just as I had decidedthat point, bang came the first shot. Sink me, but that second shotcame close to the motor! Lucky it was turned by the framework of thecar."
"We'd better fly a little higher while we're going over this country,"said Matt. "It won't do to have a bullet ripping its way through thebag, or putting the machinery out of commission, or doing any damage toyou, or me, or Carl, or Townsend."
Matt picked up the torch, snapped on the light and focussed the glow onthe face of his watch.
"It's nearly eleven, Dick," he went on, "and time for you to take asnooze. Carl and I will take over the ship, while you lie down and geta little rest."
During the balance of the night nothing went wrong. The wind had gonedown with the sun, and through the cool quiet of the night the Hawkreeled off her customary thirty miles an hour. At three in the morningCarl awoke Dick, and from that on till seven o'clock the Dutch boy'ssnores were steady and continuous.
Morning brought no improvement in Townsend's condition. His face wasflushed and his eyes were bright and feverish. He ate some of thebreakfast which Carl dug out of the ration bag, but it was plain thathe forced himself to do it.
"Where are we, Matt?" he asked.
"Below Jacksonville," Matt answered, "and traveling down the Floridacoast."
"How's the wind?"
"It's abeam, Mr. Townsend," spoke up Ferral, "and we're slanted againstit."
"That interferes with our speed, I suppose?"
"We're making barely twenty miles an hour, as I figure it," said Matt.
"Well, that will drop us into Palm Beach this evening--and that'swhere I'll have to give up. I must have broken a bone in my ankle,and the thing for me to do is to stay at Palm Beach and have itattended to. I thought, yesterday, that I might get over it, and somake myself of some use, but I see now that that's impossible. I'monly a hindrance and a drag, and it's necessary, if I want to avoidserious consequences, to have that foot attended to. My leg is ofmore importance than the _Grampus_, so I'll give up, right here, andyou can drop me at Palm Beach and go back to Atlantic City. Willthe twenty-five hundred I have paid you be enough for your time andtrouble?"
"More than enough," answered Matt, "if that is the way you want it, Mr.Townsend."
"It isn't the way I want it--not by a long chalk!" declared Townsend,vehemently, "but it seems to be the way I've got to have it. I've notonly lost the _Grampus_, but I have also proven false to the promiseI made the Man from Cape Town. If I felt that I could go on, with theleast show of success, I'd not hang back; but I'm crippled, and I feelthat, owing to the lack of proper medical attention, I'm getting weakerand weaker all the time!"
Heartfelt regret mingled in the words with the pain Townsend wassuffering.
"How far is it from Palm Beach to Turtle Key, Mr. Townsend?" asked Matt.
"Less than a hundred miles, straight across the Florida Straits."
"If this landward breeze holds," went on Matt, musingly, "we couldreach Turtle Key in three hours after we left the mainland."
Townsend shifted his position a little and fastened his gleaming blackeyes speculatively on the young motorist's face.
"What do you mean by that?" he demanded.
"If you can't go to Turtle Key," said Matt, quietly, "why can't therest of us go? We may not stand so good a chance of recovering the_Grampus_ as though you were along and able to help, but we might beable to find whether or not there's an iron chest on the island; and,if we had the opportunity, we might do what we could to recapture thesubmarine."
"I can't order you to do anything like that, Matt, but I had decided,in my own mind, that you would say something like you have just said.That's your style, my boy. If you want to go and look for the islandand the iron chest, well and good. It will be worth twenty-five hundredmore to me to know that I tried to carry out my promise to the Man fromCape Town, and that I couldn't do it because the iron chest was only afigment of his disordered imagination. Go and look for the chest, butit won't do for you to attempt to cope with Jurgens and the ruffianswith him in the _Grampus_. Yesterday, when it began to grow upon methat I could not see this expedition through to the end, I drew up acopy of that stolen chart as nearly as I can remember it. I believe thecopy is fairly accurate."
Townsend took the folded letter from his pocket and gave it to Carl,who passed it along to Matt.
"You can study that," said Townsend, "and it will tell you all I know.Do what you can, and, no matter what the result is, come back andreport to me at Palm Beach."
Townsend did no more talking. The pain he was suffering made talking aneffort, and he sank back and closed his eyes.
"Can we do it, matey?" asked Dick. "Can we cross a hundred miles ofocean and nose out a little turtle-back in all that raft of islands andkeys?"
"Do you know anything about navigation, Dick? Can you take achronometer and a sextant and figure out latitude and longitude?"
"I'd be a juggings if I couldn't. Why, mate, it's one of the firstthings they teach you on the training ship."
"Get in here and manage the Hawk, Dick, while I look over this chart."
Ferral dropped in among the levers and Matt went forward and sat downon the floor of the car.
The chart embraced part of the eastern shore line of Florida and tookin some of the westernmost islands of the Bahama group. From Palm Beacha straight line was drawn, east by south to a dot below the westernpoint of Great Bahama Island. The dot was marked Turtle Key, and itslatitude and longitude were given.
Below this diagram, in the left-hand corner of the sheet, Turtle Keywas shown in amplified form, an irregular circle of sand with a blackcross on its western side. The cross was labeled, "Cavern; can beentered from the shore, or by boat at high tide. Iron chest in thecavern."
"I believe we can find it, pards," Matt finally announced. "Anyhow,I'm for trying. If we can do anything to help Townsend, I think it'sour duty. When we started from Atlantic City, this had the look of awild-goose chase. It may still be no more than that--the only way wecan tell is by running out the trail."
"I vouldn't like to haf anyt'ing habben so dot ve come down in derocean," observed Carl, "aber you bed you I vould like to haf some looksindo dot cave for der iron chest. I haf readt aboudt birates on derSpanish Main, und I vould be so habby as I can't dell to get my handtson some oof deir plunder."
"One for all, and all for one, old ship!" cried Ferral. "Sink or swim,Carl and I are with you."
Getting down the Florida coast, battling with a side wind every foot ofthe way, was slow work. It was five o'clock in the evening before theplace was reached, a landing made, and Townsend removed to a hotel andplaced in the care of a doctor.
The doctor, after a short examination, declared that Townsend hadsustained a fracture of one of the smaller bones in the ankle, and thathe would have to keep to his bed and remain under constant treatmentfor at least a week. So far as any serious results were concerned,however, there would be none. The trouble had been aggravated by thedelay in receiving proper attention, but that was something which wouldnow be remedied.
"I wouldn't start before morning, Matt," were Townsend's last wordsto the young motorist. "The wind, which just now is favorable, willgo down with the sun, so you wouldn't gain much by going on to-night.Besides, it will be better if you are somewhere near the place by noon,to-morrow, so Ferral can 'shoot' the sun and find out where you are.Watch the barometer, and if it promises good weather to-morrow, makethe attempt. Don't fail to come back and report to me. Good-by, andgood luck."
"It looks like a whale of a job, messmate," remarked Dick, as he andMatt walked away from the hotel. "I suppose it looks so big becausei
t's so much of a novelty. I guess this is about the first time any oneever went gunning for treasure in an air ship!"
"Well," said Matt, decisively, "it's up to us to go it alone and findout just what there is on Turtle Key. There are so many of those littleislets scattered through the Bahamas that we'll have to 'shoot' thesun, as Townsend calls it, in order to find whether or not we're on theright spot."
"If we can find the cave that ought to settle it."
"All the islands have caves. If we're going at this thing we've got todo it right; we've got to find the _right_ key, and the _right_ cave,and then there can be no possible doubt when we return and report toTownsend that there's no iron chest."
"You think that's all a yarn for the marines, eh?"
"Nothing else; but Townsend is bound by a promise, and he's the sort ofman who doesn't make a promise lightly."
The three chums slept out the night in the car of the air ship. Whenmorning dawned, the barometer indicated fair weather. The wind wasnorth by east, quartering offshore, but it was so light as not to causeMatt much concern.
Matt was the first of the three to be astir. After he had looked at thebarometer and taken note of the wind, he awoke Dick and Carl.
"We're off for Turtle Key, pards," cried Matt, "and we're going italone. Up with you, and let's put to sea."
Motor Matt's Peril; or, Cast Away in the Bahamas Page 10
