WAVE-TOSSED
A tremendous concussion, a muffled explosion that seemed to shake the
bowels of the earth—then a spout of water shooting high into the air, a
sight to inspire an awed and fearful wonder.
Removed as they were from the danger zone, the boys were yet near enough
to feel some of the effects of the explosion. The tremendous incoming
wave caught them on its crest and flung them high and dry upon the
shore, then broke over them, rumbling onward.
Instinctively they dug their fingers and toes into the yielding sand,
waiting for the outward rush of the water to pull them with it out into
the turbulent sea.
It came, in tugging sucking volume, striving to break their hold—a
smothering whirl of water. With all their might they fought to retain
their hold upon the shifting sand—and won. Retiring with a defeated
roar the great wave swung outward.
Gasping the boys rose to their feet and made for the higher ground while
a second wave, lesser than the first tagged at their heels.
“The boat,” gasped Phil. “The raft—”
“Safe, Marse Phil,” chattered the voice of Bimbo in his ear. “The wave
done took ’em an’ half buried ’em in de sand. Reckon we’ll have to tug
to get ’em out, yessir.”
Phil followed the shaking black finger and there, sure enough, fifty
feet away were the boat and the raft, half buried in wet sand.
Miraculous as it seemed, the craft had been so deeply buried they had
even resisted the tremendous tug of the outrushing waters.
“That’s a stroke of luck,” muttered Phil thankfully, then looked for his
companions.
They were there, looking kind of white and shaken and staring as though
fascinated out to sea. One wave had followed another, each smaller than
the last, finally settling into a froth of white capped combers, a
seething whirlpool of writhing waters.
“Say,” remarked Steve with a shadow of his famous grin, “if you ask this
old boy I’ll say we sure stirred things up some. Who’d have guessed that
that much dynamite would have made all that fuss?”
“It was a mighty pretty sight,” said Tom, waxing enthusiastic now that
the danger was passed. “A magnificent sight.”
“And we ought to thank our stars we lived to see it,” said Dick dryly.
“Say boys, what’s become of the boats?”
Phil pointed them out and they went over to examine their contents and
see how much loss there was—if any. They found that a couple of
batteries had been swept overboard, but as they had more safe in the
cave, this was not an important loss.
The diver’s suit which Phil had removed before setting off the charge,
had been thrown clear off the raft but it was so heavy that it had dug a
hole for itself and lay there, distorted and grotesque like some monster
thrown up from the sea.
“Lucky for us we didn’t lose that,” said Phil softly. “We’d have had a
pretty time trying to get hold of the treasure without.”
As though the word itself had some magic power the minds of the boys
immediately returned to the hunt. As though moved by a single impulse,
they turned and looked out to sea.
The tumultuous waters had quieted until now only a slight eddy and swirl
marked the spot of the explosion.
“Safe enough now, I imagine,” said Benton, answering the unspoken
question of them all. “What do you say we put out again?”
“Aye, aye,” cried Steve joyfully. “Can’t be too soon to suit me. What
are you doing, Phil.”
“Trying to get into this suit again,” replied Phil, his hands fumbling
with his undersea armor. “This rig is about as comfortable as a hair
shirt.”
“Mighty handy when the sharks come snooping around, just the same,”
laughed Jack Benton as he and Tom helped to adjust the clumsy suit.
“Oh I don’t know,” Phil’s voice came muffled to them from inside the
hideous head gear. “I’d just about as soon play around with a shark as
this thing.”
And how could he know that soon he would remember those words and under
circumstances that would live with him in the form of nightmare for many
years to come? Perhaps it was just as well that he didn’t know!
Once more they put off from shore, Phil remaining on the raft eagerly
impatient to descend once more to the ocean bed, to probe at last into
the mysteries of the treasure ship. What would the dynamite-torn hulk
reveal to him? He had hard work to keep his teeth from chattering with
excitement.
“Steady now, Phil, old man,” he heard Steve yell to him as he slipped
over the side of the raft and felt the water gurgle up about him.
“Be sure you don’t come up without a fistful of gold,” added Tom, and by
way of response Phil shook a claw at them.
Slowly the water crept up to his lips, to his eyes, and then he knew
that he was fully submerged, moving downward, ever downward toward the
open hatch.
That the hatch would be open he had not the slightest doubt. No hatch,
however stout, could hope to withstand a force that had created a small
tidal wave so many feet above it. The way would be open—for him to
explore.
The descent seemed torturingly slow to his impatience. Once more
bright-colored fish swam and swirled about him, bewildered, and yet
attracted by the light from his lamps. Once more he felt as though this
marvelous experience were a dream from which he must presently awake to
find himself once more in the humdrum world of commonplaces.
And then at last, the touch of sand to his feet. The rope slackened. He
was at the bottom.
This time they had judged the location better. He recognized the now
familiar formation of the coral rock that lay near the wreck and with
ever-increasing excitement he made for the ship.
His progress was a rather gruesome affair, hampered as it was by the
bodies of dead fish, floating bellies up in a grotesquely helpless
attitude.
The sharks and larger fish had suffered also and Phil was conscious of a
creepy sensation at the roots of his hair as a dead shark bumped against
his legs.
“I don’t like ’em alive,” he muttered, evidently referring to the
sharks. “But I don’t like ’em even when they’re dead.”
Then he was stopped by an unusually unpleasant thought. What—beside
possible treasure would he be likely to find within the shattered hulk
of the old Sea Rover. The thought was enough to give anyone pause.
“If I hate dead fish,” Phil communed with himself, “how much more will I
hate dead—” he paused at the word and then went resolutely on again.
According to the old pirate the good ship had gone down with all hands
on board and the pirate ships were always well manned. “Bricks and
stones and dead men’s bones—” Phil tried to laugh but he didn’t get
very far with it.
At that moment the hulk of the sunken ship loomed before him, but in
spite of his eagerness for the treasure Phil’s feet lagged. If only he
could find the gold first—then, calling himself all sorts of names he
started forward again, making the best speed he could toward the wreck.
“Don’t be a fool,” he said, briskly. “The fellows on the Sea Rover have
been dead long enough not to mind my company. Their stolen money isn’t
doing anyone any good here at the bottom of the sea.”
As he clambered to the slanting deck of the vessel it seemed to him that
the oxygen in the tank was becoming exhausted but he soon discovered
that it was only his excitement that caused his labored breathing.
As he stood balancing on the slippery deck he took in with a quick
glance the work that the dynamite had done. No need to worry about the
hatch now! The whole upper deck had been torn to shreds and the interior
of the vessel yawned toward him, a dark gaping hole.
With a feeling of one who is venturing into the unknown, Phil strove to
pierce the gloom in the depths of that strange vessel. What did the
blackness hide from him?