CHAPTER XXXII

CONCLUSION

"What are the sticks for, Mr. Stoodles?" asked Dave Fearless.

"Shure, they're reed torches."

"Oh, we have to have a light, have we?" asked Bob Vilett.

"Shure, ye have. It's simmering darkness we're going into."

"This is the famous cave island, is it?" said Dave. "Well, it deserves the name. Why, it's a regular honeycomb."

"No sign of Nesik and the others yet," said Captain Broadbeam. "I wonder what has become of them?"

"That's aisy to surmise, captain," declared Pat Stoodles. "They left the fellows aboard the _Swallow_ to guzzle and get sthupid while they took a yawl and came here to remove the threasure."

"Yes, you must remember," said Dave, "that their whole plan all along has been to delude their crew into the belief that the treasure went down in the _Swallow_.'"

"Wan, two, three, four, five," spoke Stoodles, patrolling a patch of beach, and looking up and counting along the immense row of fissures and openings in the solid rock. "The lasht one I indicate is the place we must go into."

"You mean to say," observed Dave, "that the treasure is hidden in that cave."

"Thanks to you I mane to say it, and sthick to it, too, my brave lad," cried Pat exuberantly.

"Thanks to me?" repeated Dave blankly.

"Begorra, yes."

"You puzzle me, Mr. Stoodles."

"Arrah, then, out with it: The outcast was dead when I saw him, but I happened to notice that his back was tattooed. It took me eight hours to make out the marks. I can spake the native dialect well enough, but the script was hard to figure out. But I did it."

"And what did it tell?" asked Dave interestedly.

"Well, two outcasts had found the gold. So as not to forget exactly where it was, one tattooed a diagram or chart, or whatever you may call it, on the back of the other. One of them died a little later. That's all, come on."

The wonders of the next two hours, those who followed the guidance of Pat Stoodles never forgot. It was like a visit to fairy-land. They penetrated underground chambers of dazzling magnificence, the torches illuminating walls and roofs of glittering splendor.

At last, in a depression of a great rock-crystal stone, they came across a heap of straw.

Pulling it aside, a golden gleam dazzled the eager eyes of the onlookers.

"It's there! Oh, it's there!" cried the enraptured Dave Fearless.

The ocean treasure, again recovered, lay before them.

It had come so easily, so naturally, that there was something unreal about the whole thing.

The moment could not help but be filled with the intensest joy and excitement. Yet in a plain, practical, business way they went to work to encase the great mountain of loose golden coins in sacks which they had brought with them.

It was nightfall when they had got the golden hoard all on board of the _Swallow_, and safely stored in the hold of the stanch little steamer that had carried them through so many adventures and perils in safety up to this supreme moment of their lives.

What of Nesik and his cohorts? Fifty times during the evening this theme was earnestly discussed.

Dave Fearless sat thinking over this and many other things late that night, enjoying the cool, refreshing breeze as he lay comfortably in a hammock.

Suddenly he jumped upright with a shock. A form dripping with water clambered into view. He landed on the deck, staring wildly about him.

"Someone, quick!" he gasped. "I'm done out. Quick, Fearless! Start the steamer, quick! Danger--explosion!"

"Daley!" shouted Dave. And then, as the man fell like a clod at his feet, he ran right down into the engine room.

Something told Dave that this man was giving an important friendly warning.

He fairly pulled Bob Adams from his bunk. He ordered him to start the engines at once. He ran to the cabin and roused Captain Broadbeam.

"What's this--the steamer going?" cried Broadbeam.

"Yes, something is wrong," gasped Dave. "Come on deck--the mischief!"

A frightful roar rent the air. The whole ship shivered. Just behind him as he came up on deck Dave saw a mighty flare, a great lifting of the waters. Then all was still.

It was not until the following morning, when Daley recovered consciousness, that they knew the terrible peril they had escaped through his friendly intervention.

It seemed that he had managed to get to the second west island. He was nearly starved when he ran across Nesik and the others.

He decided it was politic to make friends with them. The night previous he was the only trusted one of the crew that Nesik and the Hankers took in the yawl that went for the treasure.

"They got the gold," narrated Daley.

"Oh, they did?" muttered Captain Broadbeam, with a jolly smile.

"I helped them--in bags just as Gerstein had left it."

"Smart boy, that same Gerstein!" chuckled Pat Stoodles.

"Then they discovered that you people had recaptured the _Swallow_," continued Daley. "All day they hid with the yawl in a little cave. They decided you people would be too watchful to ever afford them a chance to again get possession of the steamer. You certainly would try to find them. Gerstein submitted a diabolical plan. They had some dynamite used in clearing away a stopped-up passageway in the cave. They made up a float, fused the dynamite, and with a cord guided it down the beach towards you. I got away from them."

"And warned us in time, brave mate!" cried Captain Broadbeam, heartily grasping the sailor's hand. "We're your friends for life."

The _Swallow_ did not leave the Windjammers' Island for a week. During that time Stoodles made several visits to the natives. On one of these he and Dave took with them the two boxes Dave had purchased at Minotaur Island.

They returned feeling pretty good over something accomplished, and refused to discuss it with the intensely curious Bob Vilett.

Jones and Lewis were found and taken aboard of the _Swallow_, which started homeward-bound at last.

At Mercury Island their prisoners from the _Raven_ were set ashore. Of Captain Nesik, the Hankers, and the others not a trace had been found.

Dave and his friends well knew that a terrible disappointment had faced the plotters when they came to discover that the bags they had secured in one of the caves did not contain the gold.

The native outcasts they were certain had removed the gold to the place where they found it, filling the bags with something heavy and replacing these at the original hiding-place.

Amos Fearless gave his friends a royal banquet the day the _Swallow_ arrived at San Francisco.

Each one, down to the humblest sailor, received a generous share of the ocean treasure they had suffered so much to secure.

The rest of the gold was shipped by rail to Quanatack, and Doctor Barren's curiosities to the Government at Washington.

Captain Broadbeam, Doctor Barrell, Pat Stoodles, and Bob Vilett were special guests of Dave and his father in the new beautiful home they bought on Long Island Sound.

"Dave, when are you ever going to tell us that secret of yours and Stoodles' about those two boxes you took from Minotaur Island?" asked Bob one evening, as they all sat on the broad veranda of the Fearless home, enjoying the lovely evening.

"Oh, that is only a side issue now," smiled Dave, "seeing we got the treasure."

"A great scheme, though," said Stoodles. "I'll tell it. Dave simply got the royal sanction at the Windjammers' Island to establish a postal service. We did it up officially before the whole tribe. We printed ten thousand postage stamps."

"And as we control the whole issue," said Dave, "of course we can charge our own price for them as rarities."

The old ocean diver and his son were sorry when their loyal friends had to leave them for the duties of life that called them to business.

They saw much of one another, however, from time to time. Each was splendidly provided for out of the ocean treasure. Good fortune did not spoil any of them, and each settled down to a practical, useful, and happy life.

THE END

* * * * * * * *

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