Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
file which includes the original illustrations.
See 53515-h.htm or 53515-h.zip:
(https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/53515/pg53515-images.html)
or
(https://www.gutenberg.org/files/53515/53515-h.zip)
Transcriber’s note:
Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
[Illustration: The inert colored man was lifted over the gun-wale.
(_Page 200_)]
THE MYSTERY BOYS AND CAPTAIN KIDD’S MESSAGE
by
VAN POWELL
Author of
“The Mystery Boys Series,” etc.
[Illustration: Series Logo]
A. L. Burt Company
Publishers
New York Chicago
Printed in U. S. A.
* * * * * *
THE MYSTERY BOYS
THRILLING STORIES IN FAR DISTANT LANDS
By VAN POWELL
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
* * * * * *
Copyright, 1931
By A. L. Burt Company
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. Nicky and the Voodoo Woman 5
II. One Half of a Cipher 13
III. A “Mystery Boy” Meeting 22
IV. Captain Kidd’s Ghost 30
V. “Nothing Shall Stop Us!” 39
VI. On the Way to the Keys 49
VII. An Uncanny Summons 57
VIII. Crocodile Key 68
IX. Black Caesar’s Buccaneers 78
X. Sam Shows His True Colors 86
XI. One Mystery Is Solved 94
XII. Modern Pirates 102
XIII. The Mystery Boys Decide 110
XIV. The Chase 121
XV. Disaster! 129
XVI. Captain Nicky Takes Command 137
XVII. A Parley and a Plan 144
XVIII. A Surprise! 155
XIX. Captain Kidd’s Message 162
XX. Nicky Changes a Word! 168
XXI. In the Bottom of the Dipper! 176
XXII. Gold—Gold—Gold 186
XXIII. Marooned 195
XXIV. “A Needle in a Haystack” 203
XXV. In the Everglades 214
XXVI. Nicky Does Some Scouting 223
XXVII. In the Enemy’s Hands 232
XXVIII. Two in the Toils 238
XXIX. One Last Hope! 248
XXX. Cliff Plays His Part 254
XXXI. Nicky Is a Hero! 264
XXXII. How Voodoo Brought Success 274
THE MYSTERY BOYS AND
CAPTAIN KIDD’S MESSAGE
CHAPTER I
NICKY AND THE VOODOO WOMAN
“What is the matter with that colored boy?” whispered Nicky Lane to his
comrades, Tom and Cliff, “Look! He stares up at the sun and then he
watches us as if he expects something to happen.”
Cliff and Tom lifted their heads from the shallow pit in which they were
digging. A glance toward the top rail of the fence around the field
showed them a black-faced boy of about ten, perched there. As they
stared at him he looked away.
“He’s only curious to know what we are doing,” Tom declared.
“All these Jamaica colored folks are,” Cliff added. “They can’t
understand why we want to find old relics.”
“But why does he look up at the sun?” Nicky persisted. “See! He’s doing
it now.”
The boy gave a glance toward the sun, about two hours high, and then
resumed his intent stare toward the trench. Nicky leaned on his spade
handle and glowered back.
“Do you suppose he expects us to be sun-struck?” Cliff suggested. “Only
it isn’t hot enough yet, and we’re not working hard.”
“I don’t know,” Tom declared, “but I wish I did. He seems to be
fidgeting and nervous.”
“I’m going to find out!” exclaimed Nicky. Of the trio of chums he was
the most excitable and impulsive. As he dropped his spade and strode
toward the fence, its occupant tumbled off; scrambling to his feet he
ran out of sight around the side of an old, ramshackle cabin in a corner
of the enclosure.
“That’s a funny one,” Cliff observed when Nicky returned.
They discussed the strange actions of the colored boy for a moment but
since there was no explanation they went back to work.
Nicky Lane was on a holiday with his two bosom companions. The Amadale
Military Academy, which they all attended, had been closed because there
was an epidemic of “flu” in the suburb of a mid-Western city in which
the school was located.
Most of the students had gone to their homes. Cliff Gray lived with his
Aunt Lucy in the very suburb most affected by the epidemic; Tom and
Nicky were boarding there also. Cliff’s father, whom the boys had helped
to rescue from detention among some Incas of Peru, in an old hidden Inca
city among the Andes, was, at this time, exploring and studying in the
island of Jamaica, among the West Indies. He was a great scholar and a
student of old civilizations and was writing some chapters of a book on
the Carib Indians, the original inhabitants of the islands when Columbus
discovered them.
Cliff’s Aunt Lucy thought it would be wise for Cliff to join his father,
to be well away from danger of infection; because the three chums were
inseparable, consent was easily secured for Tom and Nicky to go with
him. The three friends had been residing on a plantation in the heart of
the island for nearly a week. There, with Cliff’s father and a young
man, Clarence Neale, who was securing Carib relics for a great Museum of
Indian History in New York, they tried to help out by searching for
Carib pottery and ornaments. Jamaica had a great lure for them, for
Nicky, a “pirate bug,” called Jamaica “Pirates’ Paradise!”
This interest was not due to any desire on Nicky’s part to be a wild,
fierce seadog, sailing from some port with letters of marque, to pillage
unprotected ships. The days for such things lay far in the past and
although Nicky was excitable and impulsive he was, at heart, a very
steady, sincere boy, a true American living up to the ideals of all that
American boyhood means.
But in Nicky’s family there was an old paper which was a direct message
to one of his ancestors from no less a person than the alleged pirate,
Captain Kidd!
Naturally Nicky, scarcely more than fourteen, was elated when he knew
that he was permitted to accompany Cliff Gray, with their comrade, Tom,
slightly older than either, to the island which had once been governed
by a reformed pirate, in the heart of the West Indies where once piracy
had flourished.
They found very little more than legends and old tales to whet their
interest. Piracy had given place to commerce on the seas, as sailing
ships had surrendered to steam. And so, instead of digging for buried
treasure, on the sixth morning of their visit, they had found themselves
digging carefully in a corner of an uncultivated field, to unearth
broken bits of earthenware, possibly some small ornaments, or other
relics of the Caribs who once roamed the island.
Digging early to avoid the mid-day heat during which everybody was quiet
and inactive, they had discovered the unaccountable interest of the
colored boy and when he had scuttled away they returned to their work
wondering a little about it.
“When we rescued your father from the Incas and got some of their gold
the whole business started with a mystery, Cliff.” Tom referred to an
adventure during the previous summer in which they had explored a hidden
city in Peru and gone through many exciting escapades.
“Wouldn’t it be odd if that boy started up a new mystery?” Nicky
suggested. “We’re right in the heart of mystery land. Voodoo—piracy in
the past—and—and everything!”
“Look—but don’t let him see you!” Cliff nudged his comrades. “By the
right side of that old cabin—there’s our ‘boy-friend!’”
Sure enough, the ebony face protruded around the old shack that stood in
the field, not far from their trench.
“Listen, fellows,” whispered Nicky, “there is something queer about
this. How can we get hold of him and make him tell us what he expects is
going to happen. He’s just looked up at the sun again!”
“You pretend to chase him,” Tom advised. “When he disappears and is out
of sight I will go the other way and head him off.”
Nicky promptly started toward the boy, who ran away around the cabin.
Tom lost no time in taking a direction around the other side of the
shack. There was a shrill yell of fear and the sound of a scuffle, and
back came Nicky and Tom, almost dragging a terrified colored boy.
Cliff joined them close to the cabin.
“Now,” said Nicky, “we’re not going to hurt you. But you tell us what
made you look at the sun and then watch us!”
The boy was silent. Suddenly he began to wriggle and to struggle and all
three took hold of him. They did not intend to harm him but his actions
had their curiosity fully aroused.
“Here! White boys! Let that colored boy alone, do you hear!”
A shrill, cracked voice came from the cabin. The three white chums
hesitated, looking at one another and then at the cabin.
In its doorway stood an old, bent woman, who seemed to be all skin and
bones. Her face looked like crinkled, black parchment, dry and wrinkled.
Her hands were skinny and had long nails and clawlike fingers. She
leaned on a stick and made them all think of pictures of witches they
had seen. Her eyes blazed at them.
A little frightened by the old crone’s evident fury, they let go of the
boy who scuttled past the woman into the shack.
“We didn’t hurt him,” Nicky said defiantly. “He was—” and he told her
how the boy had acted. “We wanted to know why he did it,” he ended.
The woman scowled at them.
“You know very quick,” she said in her shrill, cracked tones. “You go
away or sun make you very sick in the head!”
“Ho!” cried Nicky, “will it? Who says so?”
“Sh-h-h!” Tom nudged him. “Don’t you remember what Cliff’s father told
us about Voodoo on these islands?”
“Yes, I do,” Nicky answered under his breath. “But I’m not afraid! Why
does she want us to go away? What is there in this field that she
doesn’t want us to see?”
“It’s Voodoo, I tell you!” Tom urged. “These old Voodoo witches can
enchant people.”
“Do you really believe that?” demanded Nicky. The old woman was fumbling
and tugging at an old bag, dirty and of some queer animal or reptile
skin, as he spoke.
“Well—” Tom hesitated, “I know they say it’s only the effect on ignorant
minds that makes Voodoo hurt people.”
“Well, it can’t hurt me!” declared Nicky, “And, as I say—why would she
want to ‘voodoo’ us—white fellows and strangers?”
“I think Nicky’s right,” Cliff declared. “She must have some reason.”
“Listen,” whispered Nicky, excitedly, “one of you run and bring Mr. Gray
or the other man—Mr. Neale. Let’s get to the bottom of this. I’ll give
you any odds you like that she is trying to drive us away because
something’s hidden in this field—maybe—maybe——”
“Treasure!” gasped Cliff and ran like a deer for the older members of
their party. Treasure!