CHAPTER XVI

WAVE-TOSSED

A tremendous concussion, a muffled explosion that seemed to shake the bowels of the earth—then a spout of water shooting high into the air, a sight to inspire an awed and fearful wonder.

Removed as they were from the danger zone, the boys were yet near enough to feel some of the effects of the explosion. The tremendous incoming wave caught them on its crest and flung them high and dry upon the shore, then broke over them, rumbling onward.

Instinctively they dug their fingers and toes into the yielding sand, waiting for the outward rush of the water to pull them with it out into the turbulent sea.

It came, in tugging sucking volume, striving to break their hold—a smothering whirl of water. With all their might they fought to retain their hold upon the shifting sand—and won. Retiring with a defeated roar the great wave swung outward.

Gasping the boys rose to their feet and made for the higher ground while a second wave, lesser than the first tagged at their heels.

“The boat,” gasped Phil. “The raft—”

“Safe, Marse Phil,” chattered the voice of Bimbo in his ear. “The wave done took ’em an’ half buried ’em in de sand. Reckon we’ll have to tug to get ’em out, yessir.”

Phil followed the shaking black finger and there, sure enough, fifty feet away were the boat and the raft, half buried in wet sand. Miraculous as it seemed, the craft had been so deeply buried they had even resisted the tremendous tug of the outrushing waters.

“That’s a stroke of luck,” muttered Phil thankfully, then looked for his companions.

They were there, looking kind of white and shaken and staring as though fascinated out to sea. One wave had followed another, each smaller than the last, finally settling into a froth of white capped combers, a seething whirlpool of writhing waters.

“Say,” remarked Steve with a shadow of his famous grin, “if you ask this old boy I’ll say we sure stirred things up some. Who’d have guessed that that much dynamite would have made all that fuss?”

“It was a mighty pretty sight,” said Tom, waxing enthusiastic now that the danger was passed. “A magnificent sight.”

“And we ought to thank our stars we lived to see it,” said Dick dryly. “Say boys, what’s become of the boats?”

Phil pointed them out and they went over to examine their contents and see how much loss there was—if any. They found that a couple of batteries had been swept overboard, but as they had more safe in the cave, this was not an important loss.

The diver’s suit which Phil had removed before setting off the charge, had been thrown clear off the raft but it was so heavy that it had dug a hole for itself and lay there, distorted and grotesque like some monster thrown up from the sea.

“Lucky for us we didn’t lose that,” said Phil softly. “We’d have had a pretty time trying to get hold of the treasure without.”

As though the word itself had some magic power the minds of the boys immediately returned to the hunt. As though moved by a single impulse, they turned and looked out to sea.

The tumultuous waters had quieted until now only a slight eddy and swirl marked the spot of the explosion.

“Safe enough now, I imagine,” said Benton, answering the unspoken question of them all. “What do you say we put out again?”

“Aye, aye,” cried Steve joyfully. “Can’t be too soon to suit me. What are you doing, Phil.”

“Trying to get into this suit again,” replied Phil, his hands fumbling with his undersea armor. “This rig is about as comfortable as a hair shirt.”

“Mighty handy when the sharks come snooping around, just the same,” laughed Jack Benton as he and Tom helped to adjust the clumsy suit.

“Oh I don’t know,” Phil’s voice came muffled to them from inside the hideous head gear. “I’d just about as soon play around with a shark as this thing.”

And how could he know that soon he would remember those words and under circumstances that would live with him in the form of nightmare for many years to come? Perhaps it was just as well that he didn’t know!

Once more they put off from shore, Phil remaining on the raft eagerly impatient to descend once more to the ocean bed, to probe at last into the mysteries of the treasure ship. What would the dynamite-torn hulk reveal to him? He had hard work to keep his teeth from chattering with excitement.

“Steady now, Phil, old man,” he heard Steve yell to him as he slipped over the side of the raft and felt the water gurgle up about him.

“Be sure you don’t come up without a fistful of gold,” added Tom, and by way of response Phil shook a claw at them.

Slowly the water crept up to his lips, to his eyes, and then he knew that he was fully submerged, moving downward, ever downward toward the open hatch.

That the hatch would be open he had not the slightest doubt. No hatch, however stout, could hope to withstand a force that had created a small tidal wave so many feet above it. The way would be open—for him to explore.

The descent seemed torturingly slow to his impatience. Once more bright-colored fish swam and swirled about him, bewildered, and yet attracted by the light from his lamps. Once more he felt as though this marvelous experience were a dream from which he must presently awake to find himself once more in the humdrum world of commonplaces.

And then at last, the touch of sand to his feet. The rope slackened. He was at the bottom.

This time they had judged the location better. He recognized the now familiar formation of the coral rock that lay near the wreck and with ever-increasing excitement he made for the ship.

His progress was a rather gruesome affair, hampered as it was by the bodies of dead fish, floating bellies up in a grotesquely helpless attitude.

The sharks and larger fish had suffered also and Phil was conscious of a creepy sensation at the roots of his hair as a dead shark bumped against his legs.

“I don’t like ’em alive,” he muttered, evidently referring to the sharks. “But I don’t like ’em even when they’re dead.”

Then he was stopped by an unusually unpleasant thought. What—beside possible treasure would he be likely to find within the shattered hulk of the old Sea Rover. The thought was enough to give anyone pause.

“If I hate dead fish,” Phil communed with himself, “how much more will I hate dead—” he paused at the word and then went resolutely on again.

According to the old pirate the good ship had gone down with all hands on board and the pirate ships were always well manned. “Bricks and stones and dead men’s bones—” Phil tried to laugh but he didn’t get very far with it.

At that moment the hulk of the sunken ship loomed before him, but in spite of his eagerness for the treasure Phil’s feet lagged. If only he could find the gold first—then, calling himself all sorts of names he started forward again, making the best speed he could toward the wreck.

“Don’t be a fool,” he said, briskly. “The fellows on the Sea Rover have been dead long enough not to mind my company. Their stolen money isn’t doing anyone any good here at the bottom of the sea.”

As he clambered to the slanting deck of the vessel it seemed to him that the oxygen in the tank was becoming exhausted but he soon discovered that it was only his excitement that caused his labored breathing.

As he stood balancing on the slippery deck he took in with a quick glance the work that the dynamite had done. No need to worry about the hatch now! The whole upper deck had been torn to shreds and the interior of the vessel yawned toward him, a dark gaping hole.

With a feeling of one who is venturing into the unknown, Phil strove to pierce the gloom in the depths of that strange vessel. What did the blackness hide from him?