AN UNCANNY SUMMONS
The spot where the _Treasure Belle_ came to anchor was just at the
lowermost point of the archipelago of coral islets. The solid land which
had Cape Sable for its most Southern tip had been passed and lay to
their left, while the first of the Keys was dimly visible as they looked
off in the opposite direction.
A council was being held on the decked-over top of the stuffy cabin. Sam
was not there. He had taken the dinghy, with its glass bottom, and was
just out of earshot toward the inner bay, fishing to secure their
morning meal.
“I have been thinking a great deal about our next course,” Mr. Neale
stated. “One reason that I anchored just here is this: It is a deep
enough channel between the mainland and the Key for us to navigate the
_Belle_ without danger of grounding or running onto a coral ‘needle.’ My
intention has been to sail along the outer side of the archipelago; but
I wonder, now, what you think of trying the inside channel, between the
mainland and the Keys.”
“We’d miss the place where the wreck was marked, if we go the inside
way,” objected Nicky.
“True,” admitted the captain, “but, on the on the other hand, fellows,
we would come to a point opposite where we think that should be, and
we’d work outward from the inner channel.”
“But we’d miss the route we marked down, from memory, the way it was on
our half of the map. That took in at least two of the Dipper islands,”
Cliff reminded him.
“Here is my reason for wanting to do something else,” Mr. Neale said
quietly. “If we go the outer way there may not be a safe anchorage in
case of a storm. You will remember that the old galleon was supposed to
have been wrecked on ‘needles’ and I can assure you that those sharp,
coral spikes are no pleasant thing to have under your hull in any sea
that lifts the sloop and drops her down hard.”
“I know another good reason,” Tom chimed in. “We don’t suspect Sam of
having anything to do with stealing our map—because he was hit on the
head and his map was taken——”
“So he says!” corrected Nicky. “We haven’t any proof, and he’s the only
one we can think of who would have had any reason——”
“But we don’t actually suspect him,” Tom insisted. “He hasn’t made a
suspicions move or done a wrong thing since we started out. But what I
meant to say was: We don’t suspect him, but we do know that somebody has
the maps—both halves, probably.”
“I see what you are driving at,” Cliff declared. “If somebody else is
after the treasure, we would be right in sight if we anchored in the
outer place; and we’d be a sort of ‘marker’ for them.”
“That was my idea, also,” said Mr. Neale. “And if Sam did have anything
to do with the loss of our map, a change in our plans may cause him to
betray some emotion. We can’t suspect him, but we can’t exonerate him,
either.”
“Not yet,” agreed Nicky, and Tom and Cliff shook their heads.
“I vote for the inside channel,” Nicky added.
“So do I!”
“I do, too,” Cliff completed the vote.
“Then, tomorrow, we will pilot the _Belle_ through by using the dinghy
ahead to look out for coral,” Mr. Neale said.
“Let’s not mention it to Sam in the dark,” Nicky urged. “His face will
show his feelings better in the morning and we will surprise him.” It
was agreed to take Nicky’s way.
“Look—over there!” Tom said under his breath; he clutched Cliff’s arm,
and pointed. They all turned.
“Do you mean on that little Key—where the single tree is—that bluish
light!” Nicky demanded.
“Yes! Isn’t it queer? See—Mr. Neale! It’s—it’s moving!”
Tom’s clutch on Cliff’s arm tightened.
On the small expanse of coral at some distance, countless years had
spread a thin upper covering of mold and dust until enough earth was
deposited to support a small, stunted palm tree. As the four looked a
strange, bluish radiance, seeming to be on the ground itself, showed the
lower part of the tree trunk in relief against its faint glow.
The light seemed to move about within a narrow radius.
“It can hardly be phosphorus,” stated Mr. Neale, keeping his voice low
and his words calm to prevent any growth of superstitious fear.
“What is it, then?” whispered Tom.
“Sam may be over there,” Nicky gave the logical explanation. But as he
spoke they heard the swish of Sam’s oar and the grate of the dinghy
coming alongside on the port side.
“Don’t say a word,” cautioned Cliff. “See if he mentions it.”
Sam did mention the light, and at once!
“I don’t like that, sar,” he said to Mr. Neale, as he paid out the
dinghy line and looped it over a stern cleat of the sloop. “I tell you,
sar, I was educated not to believe in ghosts, sar, but we are right in
the place where all the pirates hid gold and laid in wait for ships. If
not the English and Spanish and French, then the Bahama buccaneers and
the ones that started up their trade from Cuba before they were wiped
out for all time.”
“Nonsense!” said Mr. Neale, rather sharply. “Pull up that dinghy, Nicky.
Want to come along? We’ll see what it’s all about, eh?”
“No, sar—don’t you!” exclaimed Sam.
Tom also whispered to Nicky. The latter, rather surprised at his
formerly cool chum, who had kept his head admirably during their
adventures among the Incas, was about to make a retort that would shame
Tom, but he shut his lips, for once controlling his impulses.
“There is nothing to fear,” declared the captain and Nicky echoed his
words stoutly, as did Cliff. Nicky and Mr. Neale rowed away.
It was a short row to the islet, although they proceeded slowly because
of the darkness and the proximity of coral under the water. The light
disappeared before they reached the island. They could see quite plainly
in the starlight that there was nothing on the small coral Key except
the palm tree.
“Strange,” observed Mr. Neale.
“Maybe it was just some odd reflection of light from a star on the
coral,” Nicky said. “Only—it moved!”
“Perhaps our imagination helped,” Mr. Neale said, and that was the
explanation he insisted upon when they returned to the _Treasure Belle_.
The others accepted it, Cliff calmly, Tom rather silently. Only Sam
objected.
“No star, sar!” he declared. “We would still see the light—and no star
is blue. But——”
He drew closer to the little riding light which was on the mast and
which they used as their only illumination that evening. “Back in my
island there is a story, sar, that when a treasure is in danger ghosts
appear to scare people away and when a treasure is not being guarded by
ghosts there is a light hovering over the spot where it is buried!”
“Well, that is great!” declared Nicky eagerly. “All we have to do then
is to go there tomorrow and get the treasure!”
Although neither Tom nor Sam fully agreed that there was nothing to
menace their personal welfare, they retired with the others. Sam curled
up, as usual, in the cockpit, and the three chums laid themselves on the
roof of the cabin, on blankets, their air pillows inflated and under
their heads.
They did not discuss the matter of the light. It did not appear again
and Nicky and Cliff dropped off to sleep. Tom, lying awake, battling
with himself mentally, trying to make his common sense defeat his
instinctive apprehension, started and almost thrust Cliff over the low
rail with the violence of his motion.
From somewhere about the hull of their sloop came three distinct taps!
Rap! Rap! Rap!
“What was that?” whispered Tom.
Mr. Neale, seated near the tiller, half dozing, answered, as Cliff and
Nicky stirred and came awake.
“Probably drifting wood or possibly we are almost on a coral reef—or the
anchor cable may have rubbed and made the noise. There is not a
thing!——”
“Look!” gasped Nicky—“Look! In the water! Light—bluish light, moving
away.”
Everyone was fully awake and staring in every direction. Cliff located
Nicky’s indicating finger, followed the direction, saw a swirl of
phosphorescence in the water.
“Maybe a shark!” he declared, “a shark came up to investigate us,
looking for food, I’ll bet!”
“That was it!” declared Mr. Neale. “Go back to sleep.”
“There’s the light again!” Tom quavered. Even Cliff and Nicky felt
chilling prickles run up and down their spines at Tom’s tone. Sam looked
and slumped down, hiding his face in the cockpit.
“Hit’s—hit’s—ghos’es!” he shuddered, forgetting his educated diction in
his terror.
“Mr. Neale, let’s go and see—” begged Nicky.
“Let me go too?” urged Cliff, “Nicky went last time.”
“Wait till mornin’—please, sar, wait!” pleaded Sam. “Doan’ leave us here
for the ghos’es to git us, sar!”
“Now—right now, we go!” stated Nicky. “We’ll settle this thing once and
for all. If you aren’t strong enough to fight off a ghost, Sam, I’m
sorry for you.”
He had the dinghy alongside. Cliff and Mr. Neale clambered in and held
the rail of the sloop until Nicky slipped into the dinghy’s bow. Tom,
knowing the small boat had its full complement of passengers, and
realizing that his own timidity had made him an enforced companion of a
terrified Negro on the sloop, strove to drive away his fear.
“Can you whistle, sar?” urged Sam. “Dey says whistlin’ keeps off
ghos’es!”
“Then you try, too,” ordered Tom.
Both puckered their lips and essayed a shrill whistle. It came out each
a quavery, hissing failure that the ones in the boat, pushing away from
the sloop, peered and chuckled.
“Get yourself a tin whistle,” laughed Cliff, and even Tom had to chuckle
at his own tremulous muscles.
It seemed as though the dinghy was away a long time; the queer light
shone for awhile but suddenly vanished.
After a wait there came a hail.
“What do you think we found?” called Nicky, excitedly.
Tom couldn’t guess. When they all assembled and the riding lantern was
hauled down to show their discovery better, Tom gasped.
“Right where the light had been, we found this!” stated Nicky, showing a
rusted, broken and almost completely disintegrated old can, such as
vegetables are preserved in. From it he drew an old, torn slip of some
sort of thin leather or parchment. Time seemed to have eaten into it, or
else the washing of the water had rotted it.
Nevertheless, faint, distinguishable marks were on it.
“Why, it’s a message or something!” exclaimed Tom.
“Dat’s what the light was for,” said Sam, his teeth chattering. “It
marked where the can was, sars.”
“Well, it did us a good turn,” Nicky stated joyfully. “Read it, will
you, Mr. Neale?”
Their captain put the parchment very close to the light.
They almost held their breath, waiting in a thrill of eagerness.
“I declare!” he cried, “it looks as old as the can—and yet—and yet—this
is a message to us!”
“It is?” shouted Nicky.
“Listen!” He bent closer, holding the dim lettering almost against the
lantern globe.
“This is what it says. ‘Treasure—found—long ago. Dig under tallest of
three trees on Crocodile Key in Card Bay for more!”
“Hooray!” Nicky exulted, “one treasure gone and another to be found!”
“Where did it come from?” Cliff asked. “I know how we found it, but I
mean, how did it get there?”
“Maybe it was left here for some buccaneers who knew about the other
treasure,” Tom hazarded a guess.
“I know the answer,” Nicky cried, “this isn’t meant for us. There may
have been a treasure hidden on that key; somebody got it and either took
it where this says, or else knew of another one and left this word for
the ones who would come for the original one.”
“But—the light!—” began Tom.
“Well,” laughed Nicky, “if ghosts want to be as friendly as to light a
beacon, I’m their friend! Thank you, ghosties!”
“Sh-h-h!” whispered Sam. “Please, sar—don’t!”
“But they did us a favor,” said Nicky. “They gave us a much better
‘lead’ than the one we had. I say it again.”
He faced the little key and cupping his hands, sent out a hail.
“Ghosties—thank you!”
Even Nicky was electrified in the next instant.
From somewhere—they could not say where—came a sephulchral, gurgling
answer.
“You—welcome!”