CHAPTER XVII

AN UNCANNY EXPERIENCE

Slowly, almost reluctantly, Phil lowered himself through the jagged aperture that had once been the deck of the ship. Without knowing what might be beneath him he let go his hold and dropped.

He landed heavily and, hampered by the suit, stretched himself full length on what he supposed to be the floor of the cabin. Flounderingly he got to his feet, the headlights throwing a weird radiance about him.

He looked about him and found, as he had supposed, that he was in a fairly good-sized cabin, probably that of the captain of the pirate ship. This would hardly be the place to look for the treasure but, deciding to overlook no chances, Phil prepared to make a thorough survey of the place.

It was a gruesome business, feeling about in that dark cabin, not knowing what awful thing the headlights might rest upon. But, on the other hand, suppose they should reveal a chest, containing a fortune of untold riches!

At the thought, Phil’s breath quickened and he searched rapidly about the cabin, feeling with his hands where the headlights did not pierce the gloom.

Then suddenly, it seemed as though something caught at his foot and he went down sprawling. For a moment the fall knocked the breath out of him and he lay there, the hair beginning to creep on his scalp, his blood frozen in his veins. What had clutched at him out of the dark?

Feeling the need for action, he slowly began to flounder to his feet, expecting every moment to feel again that ghastly touch upon him.

But nothing happened and he stood there for a moment, striving to regain his composure. The thing, whatever it was, had grasped him about the knees. It must, then, be somewhere near the floor.

He bent over, trying to throw the light from his lamps upon the spot where he felt the thing to be. Was it a devil fish perhaps, like the one which had attacked Dick so short a time before? No, because the devil fish would not have let go. He would still be in its grip——.

He bent closer and then an exclamation of horror broke from him. The Thing which he had stumbled over, which had seemed to reach out bony arms to grip him, was a skeleton, a horrible thing lying crumpled up on the floor of the cabin.

Phil did not wait to see any more. In his explorations of the cabin he had found the door and toward this he groped his way. Rotted with years under the sea it gave beneath his touch, the rotten wood parting from the rusted hinges.

Driven by something he didn’t name, Phil made his way forward toward where he supposed the hold of the vessel to be. He would enter no more cabins unless he failed to find the treasure anywhere else. He tried to keep from his mind the thought of that huddle of bones which had once been a man.

It was a difficult passage and a slow one through the bowels of the sunken ship. Often Phil encountered wreckage that he supposed had been made by the explosion of the dynamite. Once the debris was so thick that it took him several minutes to clear it away.

“No treasure yet,” he muttered to himself as he made his way forward. “At this rate I’ll have to have another hack at it. Ho—what have we here?”

The exclamation was caused by the sudden revealing of a large cavern-like aperture that opened up before him. This must be the hold of the vessel and the treasure was more likely to be here than in any other part of the ship.

Once more he felt the wild thrill of the hunt and he plunged forward, his one thought to pierce the mysterious darkness and find what—if anything—it hid from him.

He stumbled and with a great effort kept himself from falling headlong. His lights revealed another skeleton propped up in a sitting position against a great brass-bound chest.

A return of the horror which Phil had felt upon discovery of the dead man in the cabin was mixed with a thrill of the purest excitement.

That brass-bound chest—what did it contain? He lunged forward and with the hooks that served him as hands strove to lift the cover. No use! The chest was padlocked and the top held firm.

Mad with excitement by this time he made his way further into the hold. There was another chest but it, like its fellow, was locked.

Impatiently Phil turned away and then—something glittered in the light of his lamps, something that gleamed faintly yellow.

With a hoarse cry Phil stooped and picked up the shining thing. Gold, gold, the magic touch of it! The joy that throbbed through him was almost pain. The thing that, up to this moment had seemed like a glittering dream was now within his grasp. Where there was one coin there must be more——.

He was on his knees now, groping about the floor of the place, eagerly, searchingly. More—there must be more——. Ah! There, just within the radiance of his lights lay a heap of them, shining, golden things, a fortune lying at the bottom of the sea, waiting to be claimed.

For there, standing beside the heap of golden coins stood that which at first made Phil’s heart stand still, then race madly on again.

A chest, rotted and burst open scattered its riches lavishly, carpeting the dingy floor with coins and gems. For there were jewels too, although the gold predominated—a handful of diamonds, an emerald, a ruby—.

Never would Phil forget the joy, the triumph of that moment. This treasure, theirs, for the taking!

There were other chests but they were tight-bound like the rest and Phil could only surmise the nature of their contents. If, as it was reasonable to suppose, they contained treasure similar to that which the open chest disgorged, there was indeed a fortune worthy of a king.

So lost was he in the wonder of his discovery that Phil lost all count of time or place. He was brought rudely to a realization of the present by a sharp tug at the line. There came another tug and another a signal which told Phil that, for some reason or other, his friends thought it best for him to return to the surface.

The fellows! He had almost forgotten them in his excitement. Wait till he had told them what he had found. Just wait!

Hastily he gathered up a few of the coins and a gem or two, slipped them into the small black bag he had brought for the purpose and made his way back through the debris-filled hull, careful to keep the line free.

After two or three attempts he succeeded in swinging himself to the deck—or what was left of it—then dropped to the sand of the ocean bed.

Making sure once more that his line was free he tugged mightily as a signal that he was ready for the ascent.

Once more numberless dead fish surrounded him but now they had no terrors for him. He was madly exultant. He had found the treasure! What were a few dead fish against that fact?

Then he had reached the surface. Through the “eyes” of his suit he saw the anxious faces of his comrades. He exulted when he thought how in a moment their expressions would change——.

They hauled him aboard the raft where he carefully placed the small black bag behind him. He didn’t mean that the fellows should see it till he got ready to let them! Then he started to struggle with his suit.

“Better wait to take it off till we get back to shore, Phil. We hauled you up because there’s a bad storm brewing—looks like the beginning of a hurricane.”

“Did you find anything,” cried Steve, eagerly.

“Wait till we get back to shore and I’ll answer your question,” returned Phil, his voice sounding doubly mysterious, coming as it did from within the suit. “In a few minutes I’ll tell you everything you want to know.”

Something in his tone made them wild with curiosity but they knew Phil well enough to be sure that for the moment they would get no more from him.

They had no sooner reached land and pulled the boats out of harm’s way when the threatened storm broke furiously. They got Phil out of his suit and made a dash for the shelter of the cave.

Once inside they turned and faced him.

“Now—out with it!” they demanded.