COUNTING THE COST
“The first thing to be done,” continued Benton, as they all gathered
about the table, “is to figure on the cost of the expedition. In this,
as in everything else, we need the ‘sinews of war.’ We’ve got to lay in
supplies, purchase a diving suit, charter a sailing vessel after we
reach San Domingo and lots of other things. It can’t be done under five
thousand dollars and we’d better figure on ten. How about it?”
“That’s all right,” answered Phil promptly. “We’ve talked it over among
ourselves and estimated that it would be somewhere between those two
amounts. A year ago it might have stumped us a bit, but the reward we
got from the bank for the capture of Muggs Murray and the generous way
in which Uncle Sam treated us after we had helped to run down the
counterfeiters has put us on Easy Street.”
“Good,” said Benton. “I have a little wad of my own stowed away, and
we’ll go in on an even basis. There are five of us—that is, if your
friend Elwood comes in with us—and that will make from one to two
thousand each that we will have to put up. And of course it is
understood that we share alike in all the profits of the expedition.”
“Seems to me that you ought to have a larger share than the rest of us,”
objected Phil. “You’re the one that got the papers, without which there
wouldn’t be any trip at all.”
“Not a bit of it,” protested Benton. “The papers wouldn’t do me any good
unless I had fellows like you to help me realize on them. No, it’s got
to be ‘hoss and hoss,’ share and share alike. That is,” he added, with
his whimsical smile, “if there’s anything to be shared. We’re counting
our chickens before they are hatched.”
“I suppose the first leg of our journey will be from here to some of the
West India Islands,” said Dick.
“Yes,” answered Benton. “I figure that we’d better go from here to New
York by rail, and then by one of the regular steamers to San Domingo.
When we reach there, it will be up to us to charter a small fast sailing
vessel in which we can cruise around in the Caribbean while we’re trying
to locate the old pirate’s island. We’ll drop down to the neighborhood
of latitude 14, longitude 81, keeping our eyes open for any island whose
skyline looks like the teeth of a saw.”
“How about navigating the sloop?” asked Phil.
“Leave that to me,” responded Benton. “I thought one time before I
joined the marines of going into the merchant service and studied for
the position of mate. I got my papers too and can handle a ship with the
best of them. But the marine service appealed to me more strongly
because of the greater chances of adventure, and so I passed the other
up. But I haven’t let myself get rusty, and I’ve had a lot of practical
experience. I’m as much at home on a boat as I am in the barracks. But
how about you young fellows? Know anything about sailing?”
“Not on the ocean,” replied Phil, “but we’ve done considerable cruising
on the Great Lakes, which are the next thing to the sea itself. We know
enough about ropes and sails to understand orders and to obey them
promptly. If you’ll act as captain, we think we can qualify as crew,
especially on as small a boat as we expect to handle.”
“That’s dandy,” replied Benton, “and when we get down to San Domingo
we’ll do a lot of cruising just off shore so that you can get thoroughly
familiar with your work before cutting loose for the big adventure. That
removes a lot of worry from my mind, for I’d hate like thunder to have
to ship a crew from the kind of material you find in a West Indian port.
They’re smart enough sailors, but as a rule a bad lot to have on any
trip, let alone an expedition that’s looking for treasure.
“Now as to supplies. We’ve got to take along guns, revolvers and plenty
of ammunition. Then we’ll need dynamite and blasting powder—”
“I don’t see exactly where that comes in,” remarked Tom.
“For use in getting to the treasure,” explained Benton. “Granted that we
locate the ship, it’s altogether unlikely that we’d be able to get
through the hatches. They’d in all likelihood be crusted with barnacles
or covered with silt and sea growths that would make it impossible for
the diver to get into the hold unaided. But he could plant a charge of
dynamite, and then after he’d been drawn up the charge could be fired by
means of an electric spark from a battery in the boat above. That would
tear a big hole in the deck and give the diver a chance to get in.
“Speaking of the diver,” Benton went on, “brings us to one of the most
important things of all, and that is the diving suit. We can’t afford to
get any but the best, for the man that goes down in it literally takes
his life in his hands. The work though is less dangerous than it used to
be because of the improvements that have been made.
“For instance, in the old-fashioned suits the fresh air was served to
the diver from the surface of the water through a tube and the pressure
within the suit was increased to equal the pressure outside of it. But
the more modern suit that I have in mind eliminates the necessity of the
air tube. The diver carries his own oxygen with him in a tank that is
fitted into a steel shell that is a part of the suit. Beside the oxygen
tank is another tank containing caustic soda which absorbs the carbon
dioxide given out by the expelled breath of the diver. A valve operates
to deliver a certain amount every hour of oxygen properly mixed with
nitrogen.
“You see how much safer the diver is under these conditions. Most of the
danger used to lie in accidents to the air tube. It might get entangled,
or cut or bitten by a shark and then it was all up with the diver. Now
he’s independent of that. He can work longer at a time and with much
greater peace of mind.
“Then too he can see under water much better than he did in the old
days. The head piece of this suit I’m talking of has four openings which
are fitted with heavy glass, so that he can look out in front or on
either side without shifting his position. And as the diver goes down,
three blazing lights of many hundred candle power each, in glass
especially made to resist pressure, are let down with him so that
instead of groping around he can work at his ease in a great zone of
light that floods the water and the ocean bed for many yards on all
sides of him.
“Moreover they’re using manganese bronze nowadays for the trunk and
headpiece of the diving suit and that is a good many times stronger than
steel. Take it altogether, the work of the diver isn’t nearly as hard
and perilous as it used to be.”
“No cinch though under the best of conditions, I should think,” put in
Dick.
“That’s true enough,” assented Benton, “but the point is that with all
these latter-day advantages it doesn’t take as long to learn the
business as it used to. Another thing that adds to his safety and
facilitates his work is a telephone wire that is attached to the cable
by which he is lowered and pulled up, by means of which he can keep in
constant communication with his helpers above.
“Still, although the work has been made so much easier and safer than it
used to be, there is still a certain amount of actual experience that
one has to have before he can carry it on effectively. If we had to work
at great depths, there’d be nothing left for us but to take a diver
along. But from what the old pirate said about the soundings and the
fact that the _Sea Rover’s_ masts would show above the water after she
sank if they had not been snapped off by the hurricane, I figure that
the depth won’t be much more if any than about fifty feet.
“Now if we had to take a diver with us, he’d have to know all about the
treasure, and that might lead to all sorts of complications. What
occurred to me was this. There’s a good deal of dredging being done in
the vicinity of San Domingo, and in my off hours I used to watch it
being done and got quite chummy with one of the divers. He’s a regular
fellow, and I’m sure he’d be glad to do me a favor. When we get down to
San Domingo, I’ll hunt him up and ask him to take one of us and give him
some practical lessons in the diver’s business. We’ll have to be there
several weeks perhaps, while we’re getting our stores and chartering our
boat, and in that time it ought to be possible to get enough experience
for the work we have to do. We’ll pay him well of course for his
trouble, and he probably won’t bother us much with curious questions. If
he does, it will be easy enough to evade them.”
“Count me in as a volunteer,” broke in Phil. “The thing has always had a
wonderful fascination for me, and it would be a great experience to find
one’s self walking on the bottom of the sea.”
“How about me?” asked Tom.
“And me too,” chimed in Dick. “Don’t forget your uncle Dick.” Benton
smiled at their enthusiasm.
“I can see that you fellows need the brake rather than the spur,” he
said. “You’d all perhaps better have a taste of it, but in the limited
time we’ll have it would be better to single out one and let him have
the main part of the experience. But that’s a matter of detail and we’ll
have plenty of time to settle that later.”
“Of course, we’ll take a radio set along,” suggested Phil.
“That goes without saying,” replied Benton. “We’ll want it on our boat
and we’ll want it when we get to the island. There may be times when
it’ll be the only thing that’ll stand between us and death. It’ll keep
us in constant touch with civilization. If Robinson Crusoe had had a
radio set, he wouldn’t have had to stay long on his island. There are
always United States naval ships in the waters of the Caribbean, and if
we got into trouble they’d come to our help in a jiffy.”
For several hours they discussed their plans, and when at last Benton
arose to go they felt that they had overlooked little and had marked out
a pretty complete program.
The next few days were busy ones for Benton and the Radio Boys. Each one
was assigned a certain part of the work, and they kept the radio busy
ordering from different cities the objects necessary for the expedition.
Passage was engaged on one of the steamers sailing for San Domingo.
And the reservations were for five instead of four, for as Dick had
predicted, Steve’s acceptance of his invitation came by telegraph, to be
followed by a letter in which he expressed his delight at the
prospective adventure and prophesied in glowing terms the success of the
treasure hunt.
“The old boy’s in it with both feet,” grinned Phil as the Radio Boys
read the letter together.
“I knew he would be,” chortled Dick. “Just speak to him of adventure and
it’s like showing catnip to a cat. He goes crazy over it.”
“He’ll get his fill of it on this trip or I miss my guess,” laughed Tom.
“Gee, but it seems a long time to wait before we get to that old
pirate’s island. I’d like to start tonight.”
But all things come to him who waits, or as Dick amended it “to him who
hustles while he waits,” and finally the day came when all their
preparations were complete, when the farewells were said and they set
their faces southward toward the sunlit waters of the Caribbean.