CHAPTER VIII

COUNTING THE COST

“The first thing to be done,” continued Benton, as they all gathered about the table, “is to figure on the cost of the expedition. In this, as in everything else, we need the ‘sinews of war.’ We’ve got to lay in supplies, purchase a diving suit, charter a sailing vessel after we reach San Domingo and lots of other things. It can’t be done under five thousand dollars and we’d better figure on ten. How about it?”

“That’s all right,” answered Phil promptly. “We’ve talked it over among ourselves and estimated that it would be somewhere between those two amounts. A year ago it might have stumped us a bit, but the reward we got from the bank for the capture of Muggs Murray and the generous way in which Uncle Sam treated us after we had helped to run down the counterfeiters has put us on Easy Street.”

“Good,” said Benton. “I have a little wad of my own stowed away, and we’ll go in on an even basis. There are five of us—that is, if your friend Elwood comes in with us—and that will make from one to two thousand each that we will have to put up. And of course it is understood that we share alike in all the profits of the expedition.”

“Seems to me that you ought to have a larger share than the rest of us,” objected Phil. “You’re the one that got the papers, without which there wouldn’t be any trip at all.”

“Not a bit of it,” protested Benton. “The papers wouldn’t do me any good unless I had fellows like you to help me realize on them. No, it’s got to be ‘hoss and hoss,’ share and share alike. That is,” he added, with his whimsical smile, “if there’s anything to be shared. We’re counting our chickens before they are hatched.”

“I suppose the first leg of our journey will be from here to some of the West India Islands,” said Dick.

“Yes,” answered Benton. “I figure that we’d better go from here to New York by rail, and then by one of the regular steamers to San Domingo. When we reach there, it will be up to us to charter a small fast sailing vessel in which we can cruise around in the Caribbean while we’re trying to locate the old pirate’s island. We’ll drop down to the neighborhood of latitude 14, longitude 81, keeping our eyes open for any island whose skyline looks like the teeth of a saw.”

“How about navigating the sloop?” asked Phil.

“Leave that to me,” responded Benton. “I thought one time before I joined the marines of going into the merchant service and studied for the position of mate. I got my papers too and can handle a ship with the best of them. But the marine service appealed to me more strongly because of the greater chances of adventure, and so I passed the other up. But I haven’t let myself get rusty, and I’ve had a lot of practical experience. I’m as much at home on a boat as I am in the barracks. But how about you young fellows? Know anything about sailing?”

“Not on the ocean,” replied Phil, “but we’ve done considerable cruising on the Great Lakes, which are the next thing to the sea itself. We know enough about ropes and sails to understand orders and to obey them promptly. If you’ll act as captain, we think we can qualify as crew, especially on as small a boat as we expect to handle.”

“That’s dandy,” replied Benton, “and when we get down to San Domingo we’ll do a lot of cruising just off shore so that you can get thoroughly familiar with your work before cutting loose for the big adventure. That removes a lot of worry from my mind, for I’d hate like thunder to have to ship a crew from the kind of material you find in a West Indian port. They’re smart enough sailors, but as a rule a bad lot to have on any trip, let alone an expedition that’s looking for treasure.

“Now as to supplies. We’ve got to take along guns, revolvers and plenty of ammunition. Then we’ll need dynamite and blasting powder—”

“I don’t see exactly where that comes in,” remarked Tom.

“For use in getting to the treasure,” explained Benton. “Granted that we locate the ship, it’s altogether unlikely that we’d be able to get through the hatches. They’d in all likelihood be crusted with barnacles or covered with silt and sea growths that would make it impossible for the diver to get into the hold unaided. But he could plant a charge of dynamite, and then after he’d been drawn up the charge could be fired by means of an electric spark from a battery in the boat above. That would tear a big hole in the deck and give the diver a chance to get in.

“Speaking of the diver,” Benton went on, “brings us to one of the most important things of all, and that is the diving suit. We can’t afford to get any but the best, for the man that goes down in it literally takes his life in his hands. The work though is less dangerous than it used to be because of the improvements that have been made.

“For instance, in the old-fashioned suits the fresh air was served to the diver from the surface of the water through a tube and the pressure within the suit was increased to equal the pressure outside of it. But the more modern suit that I have in mind eliminates the necessity of the air tube. The diver carries his own oxygen with him in a tank that is fitted into a steel shell that is a part of the suit. Beside the oxygen tank is another tank containing caustic soda which absorbs the carbon dioxide given out by the expelled breath of the diver. A valve operates to deliver a certain amount every hour of oxygen properly mixed with nitrogen.

“You see how much safer the diver is under these conditions. Most of the danger used to lie in accidents to the air tube. It might get entangled, or cut or bitten by a shark and then it was all up with the diver. Now he’s independent of that. He can work longer at a time and with much greater peace of mind.

“Then too he can see under water much better than he did in the old days. The head piece of this suit I’m talking of has four openings which are fitted with heavy glass, so that he can look out in front or on either side without shifting his position. And as the diver goes down, three blazing lights of many hundred candle power each, in glass especially made to resist pressure, are let down with him so that instead of groping around he can work at his ease in a great zone of light that floods the water and the ocean bed for many yards on all sides of him.

“Moreover they’re using manganese bronze nowadays for the trunk and headpiece of the diving suit and that is a good many times stronger than steel. Take it altogether, the work of the diver isn’t nearly as hard and perilous as it used to be.”

“No cinch though under the best of conditions, I should think,” put in Dick.

“That’s true enough,” assented Benton, “but the point is that with all these latter-day advantages it doesn’t take as long to learn the business as it used to. Another thing that adds to his safety and facilitates his work is a telephone wire that is attached to the cable by which he is lowered and pulled up, by means of which he can keep in constant communication with his helpers above.

“Still, although the work has been made so much easier and safer than it used to be, there is still a certain amount of actual experience that one has to have before he can carry it on effectively. If we had to work at great depths, there’d be nothing left for us but to take a diver along. But from what the old pirate said about the soundings and the fact that the _Sea Rover’s_ masts would show above the water after she sank if they had not been snapped off by the hurricane, I figure that the depth won’t be much more if any than about fifty feet.

“Now if we had to take a diver with us, he’d have to know all about the treasure, and that might lead to all sorts of complications. What occurred to me was this. There’s a good deal of dredging being done in the vicinity of San Domingo, and in my off hours I used to watch it being done and got quite chummy with one of the divers. He’s a regular fellow, and I’m sure he’d be glad to do me a favor. When we get down to San Domingo, I’ll hunt him up and ask him to take one of us and give him some practical lessons in the diver’s business. We’ll have to be there several weeks perhaps, while we’re getting our stores and chartering our boat, and in that time it ought to be possible to get enough experience for the work we have to do. We’ll pay him well of course for his trouble, and he probably won’t bother us much with curious questions. If he does, it will be easy enough to evade them.”

“Count me in as a volunteer,” broke in Phil. “The thing has always had a wonderful fascination for me, and it would be a great experience to find one’s self walking on the bottom of the sea.”

“How about me?” asked Tom.

“And me too,” chimed in Dick. “Don’t forget your uncle Dick.” Benton smiled at their enthusiasm.

“I can see that you fellows need the brake rather than the spur,” he said. “You’d all perhaps better have a taste of it, but in the limited time we’ll have it would be better to single out one and let him have the main part of the experience. But that’s a matter of detail and we’ll have plenty of time to settle that later.”

“Of course, we’ll take a radio set along,” suggested Phil.

“That goes without saying,” replied Benton. “We’ll want it on our boat and we’ll want it when we get to the island. There may be times when it’ll be the only thing that’ll stand between us and death. It’ll keep us in constant touch with civilization. If Robinson Crusoe had had a radio set, he wouldn’t have had to stay long on his island. There are always United States naval ships in the waters of the Caribbean, and if we got into trouble they’d come to our help in a jiffy.”

For several hours they discussed their plans, and when at last Benton arose to go they felt that they had overlooked little and had marked out a pretty complete program.

The next few days were busy ones for Benton and the Radio Boys. Each one was assigned a certain part of the work, and they kept the radio busy ordering from different cities the objects necessary for the expedition. Passage was engaged on one of the steamers sailing for San Domingo.

And the reservations were for five instead of four, for as Dick had predicted, Steve’s acceptance of his invitation came by telegraph, to be followed by a letter in which he expressed his delight at the prospective adventure and prophesied in glowing terms the success of the treasure hunt.

“The old boy’s in it with both feet,” grinned Phil as the Radio Boys read the letter together.

“I knew he would be,” chortled Dick. “Just speak to him of adventure and it’s like showing catnip to a cat. He goes crazy over it.”

“He’ll get his fill of it on this trip or I miss my guess,” laughed Tom. “Gee, but it seems a long time to wait before we get to that old pirate’s island. I’d like to start tonight.”

But all things come to him who waits, or as Dick amended it “to him who hustles while he waits,” and finally the day came when all their preparations were complete, when the farewells were said and they set their faces southward toward the sunlit waters of the Caribbean.