Chapter 11

THE SMUGGLERS' FLIGHT

The boys were all on edge as they awaited further developments.

"Six years ago," resumed Mr. Lee, "an old sailor, named Tom Bixby, who had sailed on the same ship with me in the old days, drifted down this way, and hearing that I had charge of the lighthouse came over to see me. Tom was always a decent sort of fellow, and I was glad to see him and talk over the old times when we had sailed the seas together.

"He stayed here a couple of days and one night he told me a strange story.

"It seems that his last trip had been on a four-master sailing out of Halifax. She had been rather short-handed, and the skipper had been worrying about where he could get enough sailors to work his craft.

"While he was casting around, he was surprised and glad one day to have half a dozen burly fellows come aboard and offer to sign articles for the voyage. They told a story of just having finished a trip on a tramp from Liverpool, and as they were all messmates they were anxious to get a berth together on the same ship.

"The captain didn't ask any question--no captain ever does when he happens to be short-handed--and he signed the men on at once. That very night the ship hove her anchor and put out to sea.

"They were to go around Cape Horn, and it would be at least two years and maybe more before they would see home again.

"Tom said that the men were good, smart sailors and no mistake. But there was something queer about them. They didn't mix much with the others of the crew. They would gather together in a little knot when they were off duty and talk in whispers. It seemed as though some secret held them together.

"The man who seemed to be most influential among them was a big Portuguese named Manuel. The others seemed to stand in fear of him. He didn't seem like a common sailor, but acted as if he were used to giving orders instead of obeying them.

"Tom said that at last he got rather chummy with one of them, named Dick, and used to have long talks with him. From what the man let slip, Tom learned that he had passed most of his life in the coastwise trade, and though he didn't say right out that he had been a smuggler, Tom guessed as much.

"One night Dick, while reefing sails in a blow, had a bad fall from aloft. He was a very sick man for a while, and the skipper didn't know whether he'd pull through or not. The captain detailed Tom to look after him, and in that way they got more confidential than ever.

"One day Dick had a turn for the worse and thought he was going to die. He was dreadfully scared and after a good deal of beating around the bush, told Tom that he wanted to get something off his mind. He didn't want to die, he said, without having made a clean breast of it.

"Then he went on to say that he had been a seaman on board a coastwise trader called the _Ranger_ that hailed from some Canadian port not far from Halifax. She did a good deal of legitimate trading, but mixed in with this a considerable amount of smuggling.

"Her captain was a man named Ramsay----"

"That's the very name Ross gave us," broke in Teddy excitedly.

"He was a hard man, but, outside the smuggling, a straight one," resumed Mr. Lee, "and the people along the coast had confidence in him.

"One day a man, whose name Dick didn't remember, came aboard for a trip to the New England coast. He had considerable luggage, and among other things there was a heavy box that it took two men to handle. The man had them put the box in his cabin, although some other things he permitted to be placed in the hold.

"They had only been a day or two out, when Ramsay was killed by a tackle block that fell from aloft while he was walking the deck. The mate, Manuel, who Dick explained was the big Portuguese, took command and the captain was buried at sea.

"The passenger seemed to grow nervous after the captain's death, and kept pretty closely to his room. But he couldn't stay there always, and one day when he entered it he found Manuel there trying to open the chest. There was a fight right away, and in the struggle the man was badly hurt by a blow from a hatchet that Manuel had in his hand.

"The whole crew had been drawn to the spot by the struggle, and Dick says they were all scared, even Manuel himself, at the outcome of the fight. Manuel would have robbed, but neither he nor the others would have gone so far as to murder.

"But they had got into the scrape now, and felt that they might as well be hung for sheep as for lambs. They had passed Bartanet Shoals a few hours before the fight took place----"

"That's why Mr. Montgomery kept harping on that, I suppose," said Lester. "It was one of his last conscious thoughts."

"That must have been it," said his father. "They opened the box and got the surprise of their lives. Dick said that there was nothing but gold pieces, and it shone so that it dazzled their eyes."

"Did he say how much there was?" asked Bill.

"Dick said he didn't know, but it must have been a great many thousands of dollars. Dick was an ignorant fellow and he said he didn't know that there was as much money as that in the world.

"At any rate, there was more money than any one of them could ever hope to earn at the beggarly wages they were getting. They took an oath then and there that they would divide the gold evenly among them, and all swore to take the life of any one who betrayed the others.

"They didn't dare keep on their voyage to the port where they were going. There would have been too much explaining to do. So they made for a cove on the coast----"

"Where was it? What was its name? How far from here?" came in a chorus from the boys.

"A cove on the coast," went on Mr. Lee, disregarding the interruption, "where they could think things over and make their plans. They anchored at a little distance out, and came into the cove in a small boat, carrying the chest of gold and the unconscious passenger. They carried the gold ashore and left the passenger in the boat. But in the excitement, they must have failed to draw the boat far enough up on the sand. At all events, it got adrift and floated out into the darkness.

"When they missed it, they were panic-stricken. They didn't know what to do with the gold. If it had been in small bills that couldn't have been traced, the matter would have been easy enough. But they feared that if Mr. Montgomery escaped and recovered there would be a regular hue and cry, and a close watch kept for any one who was spending gold pieces, which is rather an unusual thing to do in these days of paper money. Of course, professional sharpers would have found some way out, but these men were not that, and now that they had taken part in a crime they were in deadly fear of detection.

"They concluded at last that the best thing they could do for the present was to leave the gold in its chest carefully concealed in that lonely place, sail their ship to some harbor where they could sell it for what it would bring, and then ship together on a long voyage that would keep them out of the country until the storm blew over. Thus each could watch the others and when they got back they could get the chest and divide the gold among them.

"Tom told me that when Dick got to this point, he couldn't hold in any longer but asked him point blank where it was that he had buried the treasure chest.

"'We didn't bury it,' Dick answered. 'We hid it in----'

"Just then the skipper called Tom and he had to leave Dick, but promised to come back as soon as he could.

"But one duty after another kept him busy, and he wasn't able to go back to Dick for some time. Then he found that a great change had taken place. Dick's fever had gone down, he had a little appetite, and it was clear that he was on the mend. Perhaps the relieving of his conscience by telling of the crime had helped him get better.

"However that might have been, he was a very different Dick from the night before. His mouth was shut as tight as an oyster, and Tom couldn't get another word out of him. When he reminded him that he hadn't finished his confession of the night before, Dick stared at him coldly and asked him what confession he was talking about. Tom told him, and Dick said that was the first he had heard of anything of the kind. Said he must have been out of his mind, if he'd gotten off any nonsense like that. And he gave Tom a hint that it wouldn't be healthy for him, if he spread the report among the rest of the crew.

"He didn't need to do that, for Tom had no idea of talking. He knew that if he did, it would be a very easy thing for one of the half dozen confederates to knock him senseless and heave him overboard some dark night. So he kept a quiet tongue in his head, and neither he nor Dick ever referred to the matter again as long as Tom was on board.

"As luck would have it, they soon after fell in with another ship of the same line that was on its way back home. Some of her crew had been swept overboard in a cyclone, and she was short-handed. Her skipper asked the captain of Tom's craft to let him have a couple of men and he consented. Tom and one other sailor volunteered, and they were transferred to the other ship. It was a lucky thing for Tom, because his old ship went down in a hurricane off Cape Horn and every soul on board was lost."

"Is that certain?" asked Bill.

"As certain as those things can ever be," was the answer. "That was as much as eight years ago, and not a single man of her crew has ever turned up anywhere. If any one of them had been picked up by another ship, the matter would have been reported as soon as the ship reached port. Of course, there's a bare chance that some of them might have reached a desert island and still be alive. But that's so unlikely that it might as well be put out of mind."

"What's become of Tom Bixby?" asked Teddy.

"He shipped on a Canadian sealer soon after he was here, and I haven't seen or heard of him since."

"Is there any chance that he might have gone on a still hunt for the treasure?"

"Not Tom," laughed Mr. Lee. "He didn't have enough to go on. But he certainly was sore at the skipper for having called him away from Dick just when he did. Another minute--yes, another ten seconds--and Dick would have blurted out just where the treasure was hidden."

"It must have been fearfully exasperating to come so near finding out and yet just to miss it," remarked Bill.

"It is a lucky thing for Ross that he didn't find out," interjected Fred. "Tom didn't know who the rightful owner was, and if he'd found it he would have kept the gold."

"I'm afraid that he wouldn't have tried to find out very hard," laughed their host. "Sailor men have peculiar ideas about hidden treasure. The general rule they go by is that 'findings is keepings.'"

"I guess there are a good many besides sailors who would go by the same rule," said Teddy.

"Human nature is much the same, no matter what a man's calling is," assented Mr. Lee. "But you lads have kept me talking a long while, and I've got to look after my work. I've given you all I know about the Montgomery case, and it's up to you now to put your heads together and make the most of it."