CHAPTER XII

SHIPWRECKED

“That looks promising,” said Benton. “Let’s explore it and see if it amounts to anything,” and suiting the action to the word, he dropped to his knees and crawled into the narrow passage, that was barely wide enough to admit his broad shoulders. The others followed close behind, all except Bimbo, who preferred to wait in the open air.

“Dere’s no tellin’ whut kind ob a conjur dere may be in dat place, an’ Ah ’lows Ah’ll stay outside,” he declared, with chattering teeth, and no amount of persuasion could get him to follow the others.

For their part, they were willing to risk worse things than ‘conjurs’ to find a place where they could dry out, and they had not gone far when their persistence was rewarded. After about twenty feet the narrow passage widened out into a roomy cave, with a floor of hard dry sand. A faint light trickled down through some opening above, so that they could dimly make out the interior. In one corner were the remains of a rude stone fireplace, and the little party were delighted with their discovery. There were even a few sticks of wood lying beside the fireplace, rotted and crumbling, but ideal material for starting a fire. Luckily Benton had a small waterproof box of matches on his person, and in a few minutes they had a fire snapping and crackling in the ancient fireplace. It flickered and danced on the rough stone walls, casting grotesque shadows as they all crowded about it and absorbed some of its welcome warmth. Phil went back to fetch Bimbo, and after much persuasion got him to enter the narrow passage. The negro’s eyes rolled as he saw the red glint of the fire at the further end, but Phil had craftily made him go first, so that there was no chance to retreat. But when he finally reached the big cave, which was already filled with the cheery warmth from the fire his fear changed suddenly to joy, and he capered about, executing impromptu jig steps and clapping his hands.

“Ef Ah only had somethin’ heah to cook, A’d turn you geemmen out a meal dat would make you hair curl, yessah, dat Ah would,” he declared, with an expansive smile.

“Yes, and if we only had some ham, we could make some nice ham sandwiches if we had some bread,” said Tom, sarcastically.

“Yessah, dat we could,” agreed Bimbo, utterly missing the sarcasm, to Tom’s great disgust. “Specs we’ll have to tote some outn de old ship when de storm done goes down.”

“Yes, I don’t think it will take me long to get sick of clams as a steady diet,” agreed Phil. “But we’re lucky to have a dry place like this. Br-r-r! I never knew it could be so cold in this part of the world.”

“Wait until the sun comes out, and you’ll wonder how you could ever have felt cold,” Benton assured him. “This isn’t half bad, though,” he continued. “We’ll make this place our headquarters, and sleep here at night. We can easily block the entrance and make it safe against any intruders.”

“I don’t imagine there’s anybody on this island to bother us, is there?” inquired Steve, in some surprise.

“That’s an open question,” said Benton. “These islands are often visited by savage natives, and we can’t afford to take any chances. In fact, somewhere in his papers the old Spaniard mentions some such visit, if you’ll remember.”

Steve nodded, and they all agreed to use every precaution against surprise. By this time their clothes were beginning to dry out, and they felt very sleepy and comfortable. The smoke from the fire drifted up to the roof and disappeared through an opening there, leaving the air below comparatively clear. When their clothes were quite dry, they rolled a couple of big rocks across the entrance to the cave, and then, scooping out hollows in the soft dry sand, they lay down and were soon fast asleep.

Phil was awakened by a shaft of brilliant sunlight that pierced down through the opening in the roof and glided over the sandy floor until it reached his eyes. He leaped to his feet, and the others, awakened by his action, sat up, yawning and rubbing their eyes.

“Hooray!” shouted Tom. “The sun’s shining again, so the storm must be over.”

“How did you ever guess it?” grinned Phil, and made for the entrance, followed by the others.

They stepped into a different world from the one they had left the previous evening. Brilliant sunlight trickled down through the thick foliage, rousing joy in the breasts of countless birds, who flitted about among the branches like living rainbows, so gaudy was their plumage. The boys rushed down to the beach, and gazed anxiously for their vessel. Had it been destroyed during the night they would have been in a sorry plight indeed, but on the contrary it had survived the pounding of the waves, which had only succeeded in forcing it closer to the beach. The tide was also low, and had the little vessel not been canted at such an angle, they might have imagined that it was still afloat. The surf still roared on the outer reef, but the wind had disappeared, and the water about the Fleeting had scarcely a ripple upon it.

“Things might be a lot worse,” declared Benton. “One of us will have to swim out to the wreck, and either get one of the boats, or make a raft, if they’ve all been smashed.”

“It doesn’t look like much of a swim,” said Dick. “I could make it in fifteen minutes.”

“The swim doesn’t amount to much,” agreed Benton. “Don’t forget, though, that these waters are full of sharks, and it’s dangerous to venture more than a few feet from the beach. I suggest that we all draw lots to see who goes.”

“I’ll take a chance,” declared Phil, and before they could stop him he had thrown off his coat and shoes and was in the water. He used a fast crawl stroke that took him through the water at surprising speed, but none the less his friends on shore watched his progress anxiously, and heaved sighs of relief when they saw him seize a trailing rope and haul himself up on deck.

Once there, he found everything in a terrible state of devastation. The deck was strewn with wreckage. The after deck house had been swept away entirely, while the forward one was badly damaged. But by great good fortune a large quantity of food that was stored here, where the galley had also been, was almost undamaged. Phil caught up a handful of sea biscuits from a big tin, and munched them ravenously while he explored further.

All the boats but one had been swept away and even this one had two planks stove in near the bow. But Phil got hammer and saw out of the carpenter’s chest, and after two hours of hard work had the boat patched up so that it would float. The boat was a serviceable twenty foot dory, and Phil felt thankful that it had survived the general disaster.

After great exertion he contrived to get the boat into the water, and then proceeded to load it with provisions, together with a few tools from the chest. The improvised repair leaked slightly, but Phil soon had all that he cared to transport at one load, and set out for the beach. A cheer greeted him as the bow grated on the sand, and they all fell ravenously on the food that he had brought.

After their appetites had been satisfied, they all piled into the boat except Bimbo, who was detailed to carry the supplies to the cave. Once on board the Fleeting they set about salvaging everything that they could. They found the diving apparatus undamaged, and to their surprise and unbounded delight they discovered that the radio outfit had not been destroyed, although of course it was soaked and required much drying out before it would be serviceable again. Fortunately the batteries had been located in a rack quite high up on the wall, and the vessel had settled in such shallow water that the sea had not reached them.

They carried the diving apparatus and radio set on deck, and loaded it into the dory. This made a pretty heavy load for the damaged boat, and they were unable to carry anything else on that trip. But on succeeding journeys they took ashore food, clothing, and other much needed supplies, until by nightfall their cave was stocked with enough provisions to last them a month if necessary.

The possession of the radio set filled them with delight, for with it they knew that they could get in touch with civilization and summon help should they need it. They carried the outfit to the cave, where Bimbo had prepared a supper worthy of the appetites they brought to it. After supper they set themselves to drying out the induction coils, variometers, and other parts of the apparatus before the fire. When they reflected what a change for the better the last twenty four hours had wrought, they felt encouraged and hopeful of the future.

“To-morrow we’ll spend getting off the rest of the stores,” proposed Benton, “and then we can turn our attention to locating the treasure. We’ll caulk the dory and make it perfectly tight and then we’ll try to rig up the diving apparatus in it, although I’m afraid it will be rather small.”

“I’ve been thinking about that,” said Phil. “And I’m pretty sure that we’ll never be able to carry on diving operations from the dory. It seems to me we’d do better to build a big raft, and mount the apparatus on that. We could tow it out through the passage in the reef easily enough.”

“That sounds like a crackerjack idea to me,” said Dick, enthusiastically, and the others agreed with him. So it was decided to try out this plan as soon as they got all the supplies off the Fleeting that they would be likely to require.

The construction of the raft was a difficult operation, but at last they had it finished, and Phil and Benton embarked in the dory to go on a hunt for the wreck, while the others attended to mounting the windlass on the raft.