Chapter 29

TREASURE COVE

With a finger that he vainly tried to keep steady, Teddy pointed to a rough tracing on the wall at the left side of the forecastle.

It took a moment to accustom their eyes to the dim light of the place, then their vision cleared and the boys could make out the details of a map similar to the one which the old sailor had described to Ross.

There were two clumps, one consisting of two and the other of three trees, at a little distance in from the beach. To the right was a huge rock that rose like some giant sentinel and seemed to mark the entrance to a bay or cove. A series of waving lines appeared to indicate the water, and a more heavily shaded part was evidently meant to denote the land. There was no artistic element in the drawing, but just then the boys would not have exchanged the rough scrawl of that knife blade for a painting by Titian or Raphael.

"Glory, hallelujah!" shouted Teddy, who had by this time recovered his power of speech.

"Eureka!" cried Lester.

"We've found it," translated Fred.

"Joy!" exulted Bill, his habitual caution swept away in the flood of his excitement.

Ross alone said nothing, though his trembling hands and moistened eyes betrayed the depth of his emotion. To the Rally Hall boys this meant a tremendous step forward, they hoped, toward the achievement of their ambition. It meant all that, too, to Ross, but it meant much more. He was on the spot where his father had been foully assaulted and brought to his death. Somewhere in this ship there had been the scuffling of feet and the thud of a deadly weapon, as his father had fought for his property and his life.

The other boys were quick to recognize his feeling, and with the true courtesy that marked them, they strove to restrain their exultation for a time, and to talk among themselves until Ross should have had time to get a grip on himself.

Bill, as usual, was the first to put a brake on their optimism and subdue their enthusiasm by questioning cautiously the real value of their discovery.

"It's splendid, of course," he ventured to suggest, "but, after all, what does it give us that we didn't already know? To be sure, it shows that the sailor was telling the truth. But there doesn't seem to be anything in the map that he hadn't already described."

"That's so," admitted Teddy, his enthusiasm a little dampened.

"Don't be too sure that there's nothing else," said Fred. "It's so dark in here that we can't see anything but the rough outlines. Who has some matches?"

"Here you are," replied Lester, producing an oilskin pouch from an inside pocket.

Fred struck one, and as it flared up, five eager pairs of eyes scanned the wall in front.

But while it brought into greater distinctness the main features that they had already seen, the map seemed to reveal nothing more and there was a general sigh of disappointment.

"Why didn't that fellow go a little further while he was about it?" groaned Teddy.

"If he had only told us not only what it looked like, but where it was," mourned Lester.

"It's maddening to get so close and yet miss the one thing that would clear it all up," complained Bill.

"I can understand now how Tom Bixby felt, when Dick was just on the point of telling him where the gold was hidden," said Lester.

"I'm not giving it up yet," declared Fred with determination, "and I'll not, until I have used up every match we have with us. Even after that, I'll get a torch somewhere and keep on looking."

But several more matches struck in quick succession were of no more value than the first, and the boys' hearts went down.

Just as the fifth match was burning low, Bill gave utterance to a sharp exclamation.

"I saw something down in the corner that time," he declared. "It looked like figures of some kind."

The boys had a deep belief in Bill's sharp eyes, and it was with renewed hope that Fred struck another of the precious matches and held it with fingers that trembled.

"I was right!" exulted Bill. "See there," and he pointed to some scarcely legible marks in the lower right-hand corner.

"They're figures, all right," he confirmed. "I can make out a 'four' and a 'seven' and, yes, a 'six.' But they're very faint and I can't make sense of them."

"Try again, Bill," begged Teddy.

"Wait a minute," cried Ross. "I've got a small magnifying glass in the cabin of the _Sleuth_. I'll get it in a second."

"That's the stuff!" gloated Fred. "Now, we'll make it out, sure."

It was less than two minutes, but it seemed a long time to the impatient boys before Ross dropped into the forecastle, holding a small but powerful convex glass.

Bill snatched it eagerly and held it in front of the faintly outlined figures.

"All over but the shouting!" he jubilated. "Take them down, you fellows, while I read them aloud to you."

Three pencils were all the boys could muster, but these fairly leaped from their pockets.

"I don't know what they mean," was Bill's prelude, "but here they are. Forty-four, then a space, then thirty-two. That's what's on the first line. Then under that is another lot, sixty-seven, then a space, then forty-one."

"Hurrah!" yelled Lester, jumping up and clicking his heels together. "Latitude! Longitude! We'll find it now!"

"Do you think that's what the figures mean?" inquired Bill, his caution still in evidence.

"I don't think at all, I _know_," jubilated Lester. "It means longitude sixty-seven degrees forty-one minutes, and latitude forty-four degrees and thirty-two minutes. Look again and see if there's anything about seconds."

But further search failed to reveal anything more than had already been detected.

"Never mind, that's near enough," concluded Lester. "That will give it to us within a few miles, and it's up to us to find the exact spot."

"Have you got the instruments to take the observations with and find out just where the spot is?" asked Teddy.

"Sure I have," was the answer. "I've a sextant stowed away in a locker on board the _Ariel_ and father has shown me how to use it."

"I have one, too," put in Ross.

"So much the better. We can take independent observations and then compare them. But come along, boys. We're on the right trail at last."

They all hastened out of the forecastle, wildly excited by this latest and most important clue.

It was the work of only a moment to throw off the lines, and the boats were off at the fastest speed of which they were capable. Teddy had gone aboard the _Sleuth_, so as to run the boat while Ross took his observations, and the other boys took the _Ariel_ off Lester's hands for the same purpose.

In a few minutes this had been done, and the boats ran alongside each other, so that the skippers could compare notes.

"It's somewhere within five miles from here," declared Lester, at the end of the conference. "Now, fellows, keep your eyes peeled for the first big rock you see standing at the right of any opening and we'll put in there so quick it will make your heads swim."

"Trust us to keep a close watch," said Fred emphatically. "We won't let any guilty rock escape."

"You bet we won't!" echoed Bill.

Their excitement chased away from the boys' minds any idea of getting a regular meal, and they contented themselves with hasty bites of whatever was found at hand, while they kept their eyes glued to the irregular coast line.

It was late in the afternoon when a shout came from Bill.

"There's a big rock, the biggest that we've seen," he cried, pointing to the right.

Both boats turned in the direction indicated. Ross, in his eagerness, made his engine hum and came first in sight of a cove that opened out beyond the rock, and a shout went up that thrilled the hearts of those in the _Ariel_ ploughing on behind.

"Here it is!" yelled Teddy exultingly. "Three trees standing together and two more a hundred feet away. Now for the chest of gold!"