MATT AND HIS CHUMS GO IT ALONE.
"Hunters are taking shots at us," cried Matt, "and we've got to get
away from them. Where are we, Dick?"
"I had just studied one of the maps with the aid of the electric
torch," replied Dick, "and had made up my mind that we were close to
the line separating South Carolina from Georgia. Just as I had decided
that point, bang came the first shot. Sink me, but that second shot
came close to the motor! Lucky it was turned by the framework of the
car."
"We'd better fly a little higher while we're going over this country,"
said Matt. "It won't do to have a bullet ripping its way through the
bag, or putting the machinery out of commission, or doing any damage to
you, or me, or Carl, or Townsend."
Matt picked up the torch, snapped on the light and focussed the glow on
the face of his watch.
"It's nearly eleven, Dick," he went on, "and time for you to take a
snooze. Carl and I will take over the ship, while you lie down and get
a little rest."
During the balance of the night nothing went wrong. The wind had gone
down with the sun, and through the cool quiet of the night the Hawk
reeled off her customary thirty miles an hour. At three in the morning
Carl awoke Dick, and from that on till seven o'clock the Dutch boy's
snores were steady and continuous.
Morning brought no improvement in Townsend's condition. His face was
flushed and his eyes were bright and feverish. He ate some of the
breakfast which Carl dug out of the ration bag, but it was plain that
he forced himself to do it.
"Where are we, Matt?" he asked.
"Below Jacksonville," Matt answered, "and traveling down the Florida
coast."
"How's the wind?"
"It's abeam, Mr. Townsend," spoke up Ferral, "and we're slanted against
it."
"That interferes with our speed, I suppose?"
"We're making barely twenty miles an hour, as I figure it," said Matt.
"Well, that will drop us into Palm Beach this evening--and that's
where I'll have to give up. I must have broken a bone in my ankle,
and the thing for me to do is to stay at Palm Beach and have it
attended to. I thought, yesterday, that I might get over it, and so
make myself of some use, but I see now that that's impossible. I'm
only a hindrance and a drag, and it's necessary, if I want to avoid
serious consequences, to have that foot attended to. My leg is of
more importance than the _Grampus_, so I'll give up, right here, and
you can drop me at Palm Beach and go back to Atlantic City. Will
the twenty-five hundred I have paid you be enough for your time and
trouble?"
"More than enough," answered Matt, "if that is the way you want it, Mr.
Townsend."
"It isn't the way I want it--not by a long chalk!" declared Townsend,
vehemently, "but it seems to be the way I've got to have it. I've not
only lost the _Grampus_, but I have also proven false to the promise
I made the Man from Cape Town. If I felt that I could go on, with the
least show of success, I'd not hang back; but I'm crippled, and I feel
that, owing to the lack of proper medical attention, I'm getting weaker
and weaker all the time!"
Heartfelt regret mingled in the words with the pain Townsend was
suffering.
"How far is it from Palm Beach to Turtle Key, Mr. Townsend?" asked Matt.
"Less than a hundred miles, straight across the Florida Straits."
"If this landward breeze holds," went on Matt, musingly, "we could
reach Turtle Key in three hours after we left the mainland."
Townsend shifted his position a little and fastened his gleaming black
eyes speculatively on the young motorist's face.
"What do you mean by that?" he demanded.
"If you can't go to Turtle Key," said Matt, quietly, "why can't the
rest of us go? We may not stand so good a chance of recovering the
_Grampus_ as though you were along and able to help, but we might be
able to find whether or not there's an iron chest on the island; and,
if we had the opportunity, we might do what we could to recapture the
submarine."
"I can't order you to do anything like that, Matt, but I had decided,
in my own mind, that you would say something like you have just said.
That's your style, my boy. If you want to go and look for the island
and the iron chest, well and good. It will be worth twenty-five hundred
more to me to know that I tried to carry out my promise to the Man from
Cape Town, and that I couldn't do it because the iron chest was only a
figment of his disordered imagination. Go and look for the chest, but
it won't do for you to attempt to cope with Jurgens and the ruffians
with him in the _Grampus_. Yesterday, when it began to grow upon me
that I could not see this expedition through to the end, I drew up a
copy of that stolen chart as nearly as I can remember it. I believe the
copy is fairly accurate."
Townsend took the folded letter from his pocket and gave it to Carl,
who passed it along to Matt.
"You can study that," said Townsend, "and it will tell you all I know.
Do what you can, and, no matter what the result is, come back and
report to me at Palm Beach."
Townsend did no more talking. The pain he was suffering made talking an
effort, and he sank back and closed his eyes.
"Can we do it, matey?" asked Dick. "Can we cross a hundred miles of
ocean and nose out a little turtle-back in all that raft of islands and
keys?"
"Do you know anything about navigation, Dick? Can you take a
chronometer and a sextant and figure out latitude and longitude?"
"I'd be a juggings if I couldn't. Why, mate, it's one of the first
things they teach you on the training ship."
"Get in here and manage the Hawk, Dick, while I look over this chart."
Ferral dropped in among the levers and Matt went forward and sat down
on the floor of the car.
The chart embraced part of the eastern shore line of Florida and took
in some of the westernmost islands of the Bahama group. From Palm Beach
a straight line was drawn, east by south to a dot below the western
point of Great Bahama Island. The dot was marked Turtle Key, and its
latitude and longitude were given.
Below this diagram, in the left-hand corner of the sheet, Turtle Key
was shown in amplified form, an irregular circle of sand with a black
cross on its western side. The cross was labeled, "Cavern; can be
entered from the shore, or by boat at high tide. Iron chest in the
cavern."
"I believe we can find it, pards," Matt finally announced. "Anyhow,
I'm for trying. If we can do anything to help Townsend, I think it's
our duty. When we started from Atlantic City, this had the look of a
wild-goose chase. It may still be no more than that--the only way we
can tell is by running out the trail."
"I vouldn't like to haf anyt'ing habben so dot ve come down in der
ocean," observed Carl, "aber you bed you I vould like to haf some looks
indo dot cave for der iron chest. I haf readt aboudt birates on der
Spanish Main, und I vould be so habby as I can't dell to get my handts
on some oof deir plunder."
"One for all, and all for one, old ship!" cried Ferral. "Sink or swim,
Carl and I are with you."
Getting down the Florida coast, battling with a side wind every foot of
the way, was slow work. It was five o'clock in the evening before the
place was reached, a landing made, and Townsend removed to a hotel and
placed in the care of a doctor.
The doctor, after a short examination, declared that Townsend had
sustained a fracture of one of the smaller bones in the ankle, and that
he would have to keep to his bed and remain under constant treatment
for at least a week. So far as any serious results were concerned,
however, there would be none. The trouble had been aggravated by the
delay in receiving proper attention, but that was something which would
now be remedied.
"I wouldn't start before morning, Matt," were Townsend's last words
to the young motorist. "The wind, which just now is favorable, will
go down with the sun, so you wouldn't gain much by going on to-night.
Besides, it will be better if you are somewhere near the place by noon,
to-morrow, so Ferral can 'shoot' the sun and find out where you are.
Watch the barometer, and if it promises good weather to-morrow, make
the attempt. Don't fail to come back and report to me. Good-by, and
good luck."
"It looks like a whale of a job, messmate," remarked Dick, as he and
Matt walked away from the hotel. "I suppose it looks so big because
it's so much of a novelty. I guess this is about the first time any one
ever went gunning for treasure in an air ship!"
"Well," said Matt, decisively, "it's up to us to go it alone and find
out just what there is on Turtle Key. There are so many of those little
islets scattered through the Bahamas that we'll have to 'shoot' the
sun, as Townsend calls it, in order to find whether or not we're on the
right spot."
"If we can find the cave that ought to settle it."
"All the islands have caves. If we're going at this thing we've got to
do it right; we've got to find the _right_ key, and the _right_ cave,
and then there can be no possible doubt when we return and report to
Townsend that there's no iron chest."
"You think that's all a yarn for the marines, eh?"
"Nothing else; but Townsend is bound by a promise, and he's the sort of
man who doesn't make a promise lightly."
The three chums slept out the night in the car of the air ship. When
morning dawned, the barometer indicated fair weather. The wind was
north by east, quartering offshore, but it was so light as not to cause
Matt much concern.
Matt was the first of the three to be astir. After he had looked at the
barometer and taken note of the wind, he awoke Dick and Carl.
"We're off for Turtle Key, pards," cried Matt, "and we're going it
alone. Up with you, and let's put to sea."