CHAPTER XX

THE EARTHQUAKE

For a moment they lay stunned by the force with which they had been flung from their feet. Then slowly, one after another they got to their feet, staring stupidly about them.

What had happened? Had a meteor struck the island? Was this the beginning of wholesale destruction? Then came the answer to their confused minds. An earthquake!

The earth was still shaking and quivering beneath them. At any moment might come another quake that would destroy the island and them with it. A deadly nausea was creeping over them. They felt shaken, sick.

Phil was the first to get to his feet. The earth slithered and slid under him and he reeled like a drunken man. There came a second shock, less severe than the first but sufficient to throw him from his balance again.

As Phil struck the ground for the second time, he became suddenly mad clean through. A sort of rage possessed him and he rose to his feet again, shaking his fist at the elements as if they were some tangible enemy that he must conquer. Afterward he could laugh at his fury but it was not funny at the time.

He looked about him and saw the damage wrought by the earthquake. The tremendous roar that had greeted the first shock had been caused by the wholesale uprooting of trees. Great fissures had opened in the earth and into these some of the fallen trees had precipitated themselves.

The ground beneath his feet was quiet now and, bringing his eyes back from the ruin about him he saw that the other boys had risen and were standing shakily beside him.

“Gee, what happened?” said Tom, gingerly feeling of a bump on the back of his head. “I thought it was the end of the world that time for sure.”

“That’s what it was, pretty near, for us,” said Phil, quietly. “Look!” and he pointed toward the mountain lifting its threatening bulk against the sky. A thin, curling line of smoke was hovering above it, a line that thickened even while they looked.

There was a gasp of dismay from the boys as they realized what that sinister film meant. To their suddenly cleared minds it could mean only one thing. The mountain was on the verge of eruption!

“Looks as if they’d got us comin’ or goin’” said Steve, trying to speak lightly, without in the least disguising his true state of mind. “If the earth doesn’t open and swallow us up, the volcano will erupt and bury us. Fine prospect, I should call it!”

It took them a long time to get back to the cave, retarded as they were by the piled-up trunks of uprooted trees and the yawning fissures in the earth.

And all the way they kept a wary eye on that film of smoke above the mountain that grew in volume with every minute. There was no doubt about it, the volcano was getting ready for action.

When they came near the cave they saw that Benton and Bimbo were looking for them anxiously, and when they appeared Jack looked as though a thousand ton weight had fallen from his shoulders and the faithful Bimbo almost wept in his joy.

“I sho did think yo’ was a goner that time, Marse Phil,” he kept repeating over and over, pawing over Phil as though he could not satisfy himself that his young master was really alive and unhurt. “Dat earthquake done make so much noise, I done thought you’d gone clean to de bottom of it.”

“What—the earthquake?” asked Phil, with a shaky laugh. “Never as bad as that, Bimbo. Trust this old penny to turn up every time.”

Then they talked things over and decided that the only wise thing to do was to recover the chests from the pirate ship as soon as possible and desert their perilous position on the island.

“That’s all very well,” said Steve at the end of their “pow-wow.” “But how are we going to do anything, I’d like to know, as long as this storm keeps up.”

“It can’t keep up forever,” said Phil, beginning to recover his cheerful outlook, “and if we’re not wrecked by earthquake or buried by lava for a week, we ought to be able to get off with the treasure and our lives as well. And then for the good old U. S. A. where they don’t have earthquakes.”

The boys brightened at this but still were inclined to be gloomy.

“Get away,” repeated Dick. “What will we get away in, I’d like to know?”

“We’ve got our radio outfit,” said Phil a bit uneasily, for he was thinking again of that curling film of smoke against the sky. “If worst comes to worst we can always radio for help. And,” he added confidently, “the worst isn’t going to come.”

And how could he know what was in store for them?

Just before they turned in that night there came another quake, slight, but just enough to revive the seasick feeling of the afternoon.

Poor Bimbo’s panic and dread of the island were steadily growing worse and in the darkness the boys could hear him muttering words that sounded as if he were praying.

“Poor Bimbo,” thought Phil as he yielded to the drowsiness that was stealing over him. “He sure is having a rotten time. We’ll have to see that he gets a—good part—of the—treasure——” And the next he knew he was opening his eyes to see the sun blazing merrily outside the cave. It was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

It didn’t take him long to get the fellows awake and stirring. It seemed as if the sunshine had some magic in it. Gone were the gloomy forebodings of the night before and as they got into their clothes sniffing hungrily at the breakfast Bimbo was getting for them they sang and bandied jokes as if they hadn’t a care in the world.

And, except for that patch of smoke that made a dark smudge against the brightness of the sky, they hadn’t. How many fellows, they asked themselves joyfully, would give their eyes to be in their shoes now. A treasure of untold riches waiting for them at the bottom of the sea and to-day—_to-day_—they would claim it. Lucky? Well, they’d tell the world!

And yet as, ready for the great adventure, they stepped outside the cave and their eyes fell on that heavy, lowering cloud of smoke hanging low above the mountain, they felt again uneasy and apprehensive.

It would be just as well to hurry the thing through. Bimbo was right. The island was a rather unhealthy place to linger in.

And so they worked feverishly, anxious to salvage the treasure without further delay. Everything went well with them, seemed to conspire to help them.

Once more Phil was lowered to the ocean bed but this time he carried a strong cable, the other end of which was held tightly by the boys some hundred and fifty feet above him.

This time there was no stumbling hesitation in his progress. He had been there before. He knew the way!

Straight for the hold he made, careful to keep both the line and cable free of the wreckage. It can’t be said that, as he passed through the cabin where he had first stumbled over the skeleton of the long dead pirate, he did not experience an uncanny thrill. He did but, as he told himself with an uneasy laugh, he was getting used to it by this time. Pretty soon he would be able to walk through a whole sea of dead men without turning a hair!

Just the same, the chest to which he fastened the cable was not the one against which leaned the second pirate’s skeleton. Phil had a weird feeling that to disturb it would be to invite disaster upon himself.

Of course when all the other chests had been hauled to the surface, he would be forced to disturb that awful, reclining figure. But, not yet!

He gave the signal agreed upon that all was in readiness and slowly the heavy chest left its fellows and moved along the littered floor. Phil went with it, sometimes before it, sometimes behind, moving objects out of its way pushing, hauling.

Then came the moment when he stood upon the scarred and mutilated deck of the schooner and watched the chest rise above his head, higher, higher, till he could no longer follow its ascent.

A wild thrill shot through him. By that one act they had conquered the deep. At last the treasure was within their grasp!