CAPTAIN KIDD’S MESSAGE
When they awoke the three comrades found their clothes, soaked by their
swim the night before, dry enough to put on. There was very little
conversation during breakfast, but immediately after the meal Senor
Ortiga drew from his pocket the two halves of Captain Kidd’s map, laid
them on the folding table and summoned the boys to his side.
There were the two halves of the real map, together for the first time
in Nicky’s sight.
The two halves fitted exactly when Mr. Coleson held them together. They
showed the complete sign of the Dipper, with small islands indicating a
very close resemblance to the real constellation of the heavens, as the
chums saw it at night. Beneath them, the two separated syllables formed,
as they had inferred, the name Dipper.
The faint line, zigzagging among the small and irregular dots below, ran
from the wreck to a point at what was the eastward of the reproduced
constellation; but the line ended without pointing to any particular
islet.
“There’s your map,” Mr. Coleson said. “Now, lads, you can see that it
means very little. It shows the point where the wreck occurred many
years ago. It shows a channel that must have been used by the castaways
in transferring the treasure.”
“But,” Don Ortiga broke in, irritably, “we have located the islands that
make the Dipper—they lie inward about half way between the Gulf side and
the inside channel. And we have dug every one of them over, torn roots
apart, plumbed with leads and grappled with hooks——”
“And all we’ve got for our work,” Mr. Coleson growled, “is the ache in
our backs.”
“There is nothing on the chart to indicate where the treasure was put,”
Ortiga commented. “Unless you know something about it that we do not
see.”
“Do you?” demanded Mr. Coleson.
His look penetrated the eager interest of the boys and he thought he saw
something in Nicky’s expression that meant more than it showed.
“You—Nicky, aren’t you?—you know something,” he declared. “Now, what is
it?”
Cliff and Tom also saw a strange expression in Nicky’s eyes.
As a matter of fact, Nicky had just recollected a part of his family’s
legend that had not come into his mind before for the reason that it was
not written down anywhere and had been told to him only once by his
uncle.
Nicky, glancing at his two young companions, wanted to smile. Both were
making vigorous efforts to make him realize that they were signaling;
each scratched a left ear almost wildly. It was the call for a secret
communication.
Nicky folded his arms and stood, pretending to pore over the map, his
brows knitted. He was watching for the next sign, although he already
sensed what it would be.
His guess was correct. Cliff was making the sign to call for the part of
their oath that said “Telling All, I tell nothing!”
Nicky, deliberately, grinned at his chums.
Turning to Mr. Coleson Nicky made a flat statement.
“Yes,” he said, “I do know something!” Everyone bent forward. Ortiga and
Mr. Coleson had eager, intent faces; Cliff and Tom were anxious and
worried. With the key to a treasure in his grasp, was this impulsive
comrade going to “tell All,” or “tell nothing?”
Nicky grinned, a little maliciously, it seemed to Cliff.
“Mr. Coleson,” he said, “you’ve got us ‘in your power.’ It’s no use to
try to fib to you.”
“You’d better not!” snapped Senor Ortiga, while the colored man,
listening in the after cockpit, rolled his eyes and shook his head and
Mr. Coleson bored Nicky with piercing eyes.
“I’ve got to save my friends and myself,” Nicky declared. “If you will
promise——”
“Oh! Certainly!” broke in Senor Ortiga, impatiently. “You will get what
is coming to you! Let us have the secret!”
Nicky’s chums were so far forgetting their usual poise that they shook
their heads vigorously, but Nicky seemed not to notice.
“When Captain Kidd was in prison, as my family remembers the story, he
sent for one of my grandparents—great-great-great, I guess it was! And
he said——”
“Yes! Yes! What?”
“He said, ‘Here is half a map, and I am giving it to you——’”
“Never mind all that!” rasped Mr. Coleson. “Get to the point!”
Nicky nodded.
“Look!” he said, and traced the faint line with his finger. They
followed his movement in fascinated eagerness. “You see, it finally runs
around the top of the islands, the North part, and then straight as an
arrow, points South!”
“Yes. We see that!”
“Well, the message Captain Kidd gave was, as well as I can repeat it—‘At
the end of the line, in the lowest part of the Dipper!’”
“‘At the end of the line, in the lowest part of the Dipper!’” Ortiga
repeated. He snatched the map and pulled it closer. He studied it.
“The line points South,” Nicky said, “so I suppose Captain Kidd meant to
dig or search down at the part that is the lowest part on the chart.
That would be—” He fished out a stubby bit of pencil and placed its tip
on the Westernmost of the lowest islands, drew a slim line from it to
the one opposite, at the East, prolonged the line until it was at a
point below the end of the faint line already on the chart. Then he made
dots to prolong that one until they met.
“That’s it!” exclaimed Senor Ortiga, leaping up in such excitement that
he threw over his chair and almost upset the table. “We did not think of
that place. We dug all the islands, but this is far better.”
“Come—Jim, get the boat ready! We will go at once!” cried Mr. Coleson.
“As for you fellows,” said Senor Ortiga, “we can’t take you; we can’t
trust you with the _Libertad_. So we will tie you until we return!”
In spite of vigorous protests, the powerful men quickly overcame
opposition, bound ropes around the boys’ arms and legs, knotted them,
dropped the helpless bundles unceremoniously on the cabin floor, and
hurried to climb into their own rowboat and the tender which had brought
the chums. The quick orders, followed by a rythmic plash of oars and
voices dying away gradually in the distance was the story their ears
told.
“You’re a nice one!” said Cliff, sourly.
“Why?” said Nicky, wrenching futilely at his well-trussed arms.
“After we’d signalled, and all,” Tom cut in. “Tell all, and tell
nothing—oh, yes! Then you tell all!”
“What would you have done?” demanded Nicky.
“Gave them a false direction!”
“Would you?” asked Nicky and worked again on his bonds.