“Matt, is that you?”
Jack turned to a crouching form beside him.
“Yes, and Merryweather’s here, too. Thank God we are all saved.”
“I got an awful wallop on the head,” declared Jack. “I feel dazed,
where are we?”
“In the bowsprit rigging of some ship,” rejoined Matt Sherry.
“We must have been born under a lucky star,” declared Merryweather.
“I just jumped straight up and then suddenly found I’d grabbed a
rope.”
“Same here,” declared Jack, “I didn’t know what I was doing. I guess
I was so scared of going down with the tender that I jumped for the
first thing I saw.”
[Illustration: “We saved ourselves,” bawled Matt. “We’re here in
the bowsprit rigging.”]
“That’s the instinct of self-preservation,” said Matt. “I’ve read
that it works blindly. But we’d better give ’em a hail up above.
Hark! They are laying the vessel to and lowering a boat. I reckon
they are going to look for us.”
“They must think that we are all in the water,” said Jack as there
came a flapping of sails from out of the mist and then the creak of
davit blocks and the splash of oars. The rush of water under the
ship’s forefoot ceased and she came to a standstill.
“Ahoy, on deck there!” hailed Matt with stentorian lungs.
“Ahoy!” came from above, “where are you? We’ll save you. Keep up
your courage.”
“We saved ourselves,” bawled Matt, “we’re here in the bowsprit
rigging. Heave us a rope, and we’ll come on deck.”
“Are you all there?” came the voice incredulously.
“Well, I can’t see anything missing about me,” declared Matt, “yes
we were all saved. You can call back the boat.”
A rope ladder was lowered to them and one by one they clambered on
deck. Jack, as commander of the sunken tender, came last. He found
an excited group clustered round his two shipmates asking a perfect
tornado of questions. Lanterns gave light and revealed the faces of
the group.
Foremost among the questioners was a little old man, with a gnarled
face, like those you sometimes see carved on pipes. His skin was
burned a rich mahogany color and his eyes twinkled restlessly. He
was dressed as if he were the captain of the ship, in a pilot coat
with brass buttons and a seaman’s cap with crossed anchors. Beneath
his coat could be seen the end of a wooden leg with which he stamped
impatiently on the deck as he volleyed his questions. Just as Jack
appeared he had drawn from his coat a big medicine bottle which he
offered to Sherry.
“Take a pull of this, mate,” he crief in gruff, sailor-like tones,
“t’wont hurt yer.”
“What is it?” demanded Sherry, “I’m no drinking man.”
“It’s not liquor,” the other assured him volubly, “it’s Cap’n Toby
Ready’s Universal Remedy and Banisher of Pain in Man and Beast. It’s
made frum the best of yarbs and roots under my personal supervision
and--great tom cats!”
“Hullo, Uncle Toby,” said Jack, coming forward and causing this
abrupt breaking off of Uncle Toby’s eulogy on his favorite
concoction.
“Jack! Sufferin’ humanity! It’s Jack!” cried the old man. “How under
the almighty sun did you get here. Did I run you down? How did it
happen? What were you doing?”
“One question at a time, Uncle Toby,” laughed Jack. “Can’t we all go
aft to your cabin and I’ll tell you everything leading up to this
queer meeting.”
“Queer you may well call it,” vociferated Uncle Toby, “broomsticks
and bangaloons, if I ever heard the like, and me sailin’ the Seven
Seas. But heave to there, Toby, you ain’t doing the polite. Jack, I
want you ter meet my partner, Mr. Rufus Terrill, of Terrill & Co.”
“How d’ye do, my dear young man, how d’ye do.”
From the lantern-lit group a tall, cadaverous figure detached
itself. Mr. Rufus Terrill was as angular as an old fashioned
candlestick, and about as slender. His skin was yellow and his teeth
long and sharp, projecting like tusks from under a scraggly
mustache. His eyes were cold and watery, yet had a penetrating
quality. He looked sharply at Jack. Perhaps he read a look of
disapproval in the boy’s eyes, for he soon relaxed his clammy clasp
on the lad’s hand.
“Mr. Terrill is my partner, my business partner, Jack,” said Uncle
Toby.
“So I’ve heard,” said Jack shortly.
“You have. How’d you find out that?” asked Mr. Terrill quickly,
darting his head in and out of a collar several sizes too large for
his scrawny neck, like a box-turtle looking out of his shell.
“I visited your offices in New York,” rejoined Jack, “and now let’s
go aft, Uncle Toby.”
Sail was made again and the party, including Merryweather and
Sherry, made their way toward the stern. Jack was not a little
troubled. By an extraordinary coincidence he was reunited to his
uncle. But he had yet to learn the details of the mad cruise, of
which the note nailed up on the door of the _Venus_ had first
apprised him. Of one thing, however, he was very sure. His first
five minutes’ observation of Mr. Terrill had convinced him that that
gentleman would bear watching.
After he had told his story, Jack maneuvered things so that Mr.
Terrill was told off to show Merryweather and Sherry their sleeping
places.
“Now, then, uncle,” said Jack, “what is all this?”
Uncle Toby’s lined and seamed old face assumed a look of
extraordinary cunning.
“We’re on our way to get rich, lad,” he chuckled, “rich as that
Greaser chap history tells about.”
“Crœsus?” ventured Jack.
“Aye, that’s the bully. We’re shaping a course fer Cedar Island and
the stone chest Cap’n Walters hid from the white Esquimaux, you’ve
heard of ’em.”
“You mean the tribe Steffason discovered?”
“That’s them. They’re all blondes, though rightly speaking they
ought to be black. Well, to cut a long yarn short, Walters got lost
in a whaling ship up here and hooked up with a tribe of ’em. He
married one of their gals and she told him about the stone chest on
Cedar Island. He didn’t dare try to get it alone but one night he
sneaks out in a native canoe, an’ by good luck is picked up by a
sealer bound fer the states. But when he got thar he was too sick
fer even the Universal Remedy ter be of any good. Afore he died he
give me the bearings and so on of Cedar Island, all ship-shape, an’
I hunts up Terrill & Co. an’ they agrees to go inter it with me
and--and here we are.
“With my pockets full o’ gold. As I sailed,” croaked the old man in
a harsh voice.
“Here’s the map all drawed kerrect an’ ter scale,” added Uncle Toby,
drawing a yellow, dirty bit of paper from his pocket and shoving it
toward Jack. It was at this moment that Terrill reentered the cabin.
“Ah! giving our young friend an idea of what we are after, eh?” he
said, rubbing his thin hands till his knuckles cracked like
firecrackers, “good, very good. But our young friend must be
secretive about it. No loose talk, you know. This is a close
corporation.”
“Which you would like limited to Terrill & Co.,” thought Jack, aloud
he contented himself by saying shortly:
“I understand all that. Captain Ready is my uncle, you know.”
“Quite so,” agreed Mr. Terrill, displaying all his teeth in a grin,
“but he’s my partner, my dear young man.”