GHOSTLY SOUNDS.
Clank! clink! clank!
“What are they doing?”
“Digging!”
The boys had followed the men to a lonely part of the island, where the
wind howled through the trees when it came down in fitful gusts, or
moaned when it sank low.
The booming of the surf was like the steady roar of a distant battery
in action. The night seemed full of alarms and terrors.
Frank had followed the unknown men with the skill of an Indian trailer.
The others had followed him with less skill, but the sounds of the
storm had favored them by drowning such noises as they made while
stumbling along through the darkness.
At last the men had stopped, and, bit by bit, the boys had crept upon
them.
There was a gleam of light to guide them. The lights came from two dark
lanterns, the sides of which had been opened. The lanterns were held to
aid the men who were at work.
Clink-clank! clink-clank! clink-clank!
One man was plying a pick. After a little he paused.
Scrape-swish! scrape-swish!
Another man was using a spade, flinging out the earth which the man
with the pick had loosened.
“Digging!” repeated Diamond, in a palpitating whisper. “What does that
mean?”
“Digging!” fluttered Rattleton. “Digging a grave!”
“Huah!” grunted Browning. “For whom?”
“Somebody! I knew it! Going to bury that girl! She’s been kidnaped!
They’re going to put her out of the way!”
“How about the man they have with them--the man they forced to show
them this spot?” asked Diamond. “What are they going to do with him?”
“Don’t know. Kill him, too, perhaps! Let’s git!”
“And leave him to be killed?” said Frank. “Well, I didn’t think that of
you, Harry!”
Harry felt the cut of the reproach. He choked as he tried to whisper
something back. After a little, he asked:
“Well, what can we do? Tell me that.”
“We can do our best for the man, if necessary; but I do not think it
will be necessary.”
“Then you think--just what?”
“That you are off your trolley.”
“How? Which way?”
“I do not believe they are digging a grave.”
“Then what are they doing? Why are they digging that hole?”
“They are looking for a souvenir.”
“Eh? Are you jollying, Merry? A souvenir of what?”
“Capt. Kidd!”
The others had been listening eagerly. Frank’s words caused all of them
to gasp for breath.
“Then--then you think they are digging for----”
“Kidd’s gold!” finished Merriwell.
There was a moment of silence, and then Browning hoarsely whispered:
“That’s it--just it! It explains everything.”
“Everything but the prisoner. One of those four men is not here of his
own free will. That is certain.”
“And the mystery of the girl on board the vessel,” came from Harry. “It
is certain she is not there of her own free will.”
There was no doubt in the minds of the boys; all were satisfied that
Frank had hit upon the truth.
Harry, however, was no less afraid, for he realized that, without
doubt, the men who had taken such pains to come there under cover of
the storm and had brought a captive with them were ruffians capable of
any desperate deed.
The men worked steadily. One would use the pick a short time, and then
the other would toss out the dirt with the spade. Not one of the four
spoke. Deeper and deeper grew the hole.
The light fell on the faces of the men occasionally. They were rough
and bearded. Frank watched them closely, and he soon decided that one
was the man who had been at the wheel of the black schooner when they
first saw the vessel that day.
Now there was no longer a doubt that the same black schooner lay in
the cove, having run in there under cover of darkness, for all of the
frightful risk.
The boys had heard one of the men speak to Capt. Horn as they crouched
to let them pass, and that was quite enough to settle the point.
Who was Capt. Horn?
He was the commander of the black schooner _Pirate_, but what was
his record and his business? He had looked like a man who would not
hesitate to enter into anything by which it seemed likely he might make
money, no matter how dishonest or dangerous the project might be.
Frank crept a bit nearer the four men, hugging the ground. The others
followed him.
Merriwell remembered the stories he had heard of other attempts to
recover Kidd’s buried treasure--remembered how it had been necessary,
according to superstition, for the treasure hunters to obey certain
rules. They always dug on a dark and stormy night, and not one of the
party could speak from the time they began to work till the treasure
was found. If they did speak the treasure would turn to old iron or
vanish entirely.
For some time the boys watched the digging, wondering if there was a
bare possibility that, at last, some one had located the spot where the
pirate’s treasure was buried.
The hole grew deeper and deeper. The two men got down into it, and were
hidden to their hips.
Frank became tired. He resolved to test the courage of the diggers in
some manner.
The wind sank to a low moaning, but, from far, far away it seemed to
bring a sound that caused the men in the hole to start, stop digging
and listen.
It was a voice singing, and it seemed to be away on the distant cove:
“Oh, my name was Capt. Kidd.
When I sailed, when I sailed;
And so wickedly I did,
When I sailed, when I sailed.”
It was the famous song of the famous pirate, and it caused those men
to tremble in their boots. They felt like dropping pick and spade and
taking to their heels, but one of the men who stood above savagely
motioned for them to go on with the work.
The wind rose to a shriek, full of mockery. The surf boomed in the
distance.
Slowly the sailors picked up the pick and spade and resumed their work,
but they were trembling now.
The sound of singing came nearer and nearer, as if Kidd himself were
approaching the spot, singing at the top of his voice as he advanced.
The men grew more and more nervous as the sound came nearer, but still
the man above motioned for them to go on.
At last, when the singer seemed close to that very spot, the song
ceased.
“Thunder!” muttered Browning. “Where is that fellow? Thought it must be
another one of their gang coming.”
“Nothing of the sort,” whispered Diamond. “Didn’t you see how scared
the men digging were?”
“Sure.”
“They would not have been frightened if it had been one of their own
crowd.”
“That’s so. Who was it, then?”
“Capt. Kidd’s spook,” suggested Harry. “You know it is said his ghost
haunts the place where he buried his treasure.”
“Rot!” grunted the big fellow. “Don’t take stock in spooks.”
Then, of a sudden, when the wind had died once more to a low moaning, a
wild burst of laughter was heard. That laugh was full of fiendish glee
and mockery, and it seemed to come from some vague point in the very
midst of the treasure-seekers.
Then the men in the pit did drop their implements and scramble out in
hot haste. But they were met with a revolver in the hand of one of the
men above, and it drove them back to their digging.
“Ha! ha! ha! Ho! ho! ho!”
Again the weird laughter sounded, and it seemed to the excited
imagination of the diggers, to come from the pit they had made.
But that revolver was menacing them, and they dared not leap to the
surface and take to their heels, although it was certain they wished to
do so.
Again and again that laugh rang out. Then a deep, sepulchral voice was
heard to say:
“Fools, do ye think to rob me now that I am dead? You shall find I
guard my blood-stained gold! Not a single piece shall you touch!”
That was quite enough to frighten any sailor. Again the men in the pit
dropped the pick and spade, but they seemed paralyzed with fear, and
stood there, staring about with bulging eyes.
“Avaunt!” cried the hollow voice. “Flee from my wrath, or ye shall feel
the touch of my dead hands--the touch of doom! That touch means death!”
A wild shriek broke from the lips of one of the diggers.
“I feel it!” he screamed. “He has touched me! I am a dead man! I am
doomed!”
Then, shrieking with terror, he leaped out of the pit and fled.
That was enough to completely unman the others, and they lost no time
in taking to their heels also.