CHAPTER XI.

POOLE PLAYS A NEW CARD.

Down in the ocean depths, Poole and his men had been at work digging out the supposed mighty treasure of the Isle of Mona.

Every skeleton was unearthed and the sand around it closely sifted. Thus the coins were recovered.

Also further excavations were made in the cavern, but without success.

However, believing the coins to be gold, the villain was fairly well satisfied. He piled them into the chest and had it hoisted aboard the schooner.

“Ha,” he muttered, “I was just in time to foil those dogs. They were sure of beating me, but Hardy Poole has staked too much upon this game to lose. Curse them, I will some day have a chance to settle the score with them.”

With this venomous decision he removed his diving-suit and had begun to examine his treasure when an incident occurred.

One of the men who had been in the shrouds cried:

“Sail ho!”

“What?” cried Poole, with a sudden start. “Bearing our way?”

“Yes.”

“What does she look like?”

“She looks like a fast craft, sir. Most likely a coast guard vessel,” was the reply.

“Change course. Bear nor’-nor’-west!” ordered the villain. “We don’t want to fall in with any Cuban cruiser just now.”

The schooner lay about on the new course. She was a fairly fast sailer and cut the water rapidly.

But in a few moments the man aloft again shouted:

“Ahoy, the chase!”

“Eh?” roared Poole. “Is she giving us a chase?”

“That she is, sir, and she is gaining on us. She has steam up and can sail two knots to our one.”

“A steam vessel!” gasped Poole. “Then she is certainly a Cuban cruiser. She takes us for a filibuster. If she overtakes us nothing will convince her that we are not and our jig is up! Ho, there, all aloft and crowd on sail! We must make a run for it! If she overhauls us——”

“Well?” asked one of the men.

Poole’s grim face hardened.

“We will fight for it!” he said, “for they will never take the treasure from us while we live.”

The crew cheered at this bold declaration and then scampered aloft. Meanwhile Poole watched the distant steamer with varied sensations.

“Just our luck,” he muttered. “By the gods, I believe I am cursed by fate! Let them overhaul us, curse them! We will give them all the fight they want.”

Then he went back to the cabin and began to gloat over the treasure. He picked up one of the coins and scraped away the rust and mold. Then he snapped his eyes.

How was this?

It was white metal instead of yellow—silver instead of gold!

If all that bulk of coin was silver, its value was but small; if of gold, it would be immense. Quite a difference. He dropped the coin with a grunt.

He picked up another and scratched its surface. It was also silver.

Another and another. Then a sickening sensation came over him, and he smiled in a ghastly way.

“Silver!” he hissed. “Can all of them be such? Is there no gold?”

He kept at his work. It soon became apparent to him that this was a terrible fact. He sank in a chair, with distorted features and bursting veins.

For a moment he was apoplectic. Then great curses rolled from his lips. He struck the table with his clenched hand.

“They have beaten me!” he hissed; “they have taken the gold and left me the silver! Curse them! they have beaten me, but the end is not yet!”

He was too unreasonable to consider the situation logically. He could accept but one conclusion, and this was that the submarine voyagers had taken the gold and outwitted him.

“Why did I allow them to escape me?” he gritted. “I should have killed them all! They were in my power! Fool! Fool!”

He raved like a maniac in his impotent wrath, frothed at the mouth, and might have really yielded to apoplexy or some other fit had not an interruption come.

The distant boom of a gun was heard. Poole turned a ghastly pallor.

He knew what that meant.

“They are overhauling us!” he gritted. “We are to lose even this pittance of silver! But I will have the gold if I have to follow Frank Reade, Jr., to the end of the earth!”

He hastened upon deck.

The cruiser had come up within gunshot and had sent a summons to heave-to. There was no alternative but to obey or fight or go to the bottom.

For a moment Poole considered seriously the question of a fight. He would gladly have accepted it had the conditions been anywhere near equal.

But the cruiser had heavier guns and more men. There was no other course but to heave-to.

So the schooner came up to the wind, her mainsail slacked, and the two vessels drifted within speaking distance.

“Ahoy, the schooner!” came the hail in Spanish. The Cuban flag was seen to be flying at the yard of the cruiser.

“Ahoy!” replied Poole.

“What craft is that?”

“The Meta; pleasure yacht, under the United States flag,” replied Poole.

For a time there seemed to be a consultation held aboard the cruiser. Then another hail came:

“Captain of the Meta, we are going to send our lieutenant aboard you!”

“What is that?” shouted Poole. “We are under the protection of the United States flag. I warn you not to trouble us!”

A jeering laugh came back.

“Lower your gangway,” was the reply.

Then a boat slid down from the Santa Maria’s davits and six men entered it. One in the uniform of a lieutenant entered and stood in the bow.

Another boat followed this, with a dozen armed marines. Matters began to look serious.

The wrath and alarm felt by Poole was of the most intense description. He was utterly powerless, though.

How he would have liked to turn his gun upon the oncoming boats and sink them! But he did not dare to do this.

He stood savagely by the gangway, therefore, as they came on. The first boat touched the Meta’s side, and the natty Spanish lieutenant sprung upon deck.

“Buenas, Senor Capitan,” he said, touching his gold-laced cap, with much politeness. “I am Carriero, lieutenant of His Majesty’s navy. I salute you in the name of the king of Spain.”

Poole could talk Spanish fairly well, so he said:

“Well, what can I do for you, sir?”

His manner was so brusque that the dapper little Spaniard straightened up. With an affectation of dignity, he said:

“We must search your vessel, senor!”

Then he motioned to the marines. In a moment they were over the rail and ranged upon the deck.

The Meta was in the power of the Spanish. Poole turned black in the face.

“What!” he roared, “you dare to board a vessel flying the United States flag? This is an outrage and you will pay dearly for it, I promise you.”

Carriero smiled suavely in reply.

“What do you think we are?” cried Poole in desperation. “We are not filibusters.”

Again the lieutenant smiled and bowed. Then he spoke sharp orders to his men.

A midshipman, with two marines, invaded the forecastle. Two more went into the forward cabin. Then the lieutenant himself, with two guards, entered the main cabin.

Poole followed, expostulating, but it was of no use.

The vessel was thoroughly searched. Of course, the silver coins were discovered, and also the fact made clear that the vessel carried arms.

By Carriero’s orders every gun was seized and brought out on deck. Then the chest of treasure was also taken.

A boat was sent back to the Santa Maria, and the captain, Don Azata, was brought off. He was a fiery, bewhiskered little fellow.

Without waste of time a court of inquiry was inaugurated on the Meta’s deck. The decision, based upon the evidence, was quickly rendered.

The Meta had been captured in Cuban waters carrying an armament. Certainly this was suspicious and warranted her in being condemned as a filibustering craft.

In vain Poole protested.

The Spanish officers only smiled and discredited his statements. He kept getting madder and madder.

Finally he yelled:

“Get off the deck of my schooner, the whole parcel of you! If you don’t I’ll kill you!”

Grabbing an iron bar he knocked the nearest marine senseless. Don Azata shouted fiery orders and Poole was quickly overpowered.

The little Spanish captain’s face blazed. A rope was brought. It was decided to hang the captain of the Meta at his own yard-arm.

But at this critical moment the captain’s eyes fell upon the chest of coins. At once he became interested. He fell to examining them.

Then he catechised Poole. The latter answered ungraciously at first.

To his surprise the Spanish captain ordered his bonds cut, and, thrusting his eager face forward into his, said:

“It is buried treasure; you have dug it out of the ground; tell me, senor capitan, where you found it, and I will spare your life.”

“What good will that do you?” asked Poole. “There is no more to be found there.”

“Do you think so, senor? There must be gold where this was found. This is but silver.”

A sudden swift thought flashed across Poole’s brain. He had abandoned all hopes of the treasure, but he thirsted for revenge.

And here seemed a chance offered him. He accepted it.

A few moments later he was closeted in the cabin with Don Azata. He told him the whole story of the Isle of Mona.

The Spanish captain listened.

“Perdita!” he exclaimed, “that is wonderful! But the treasure was found upon Spanish soil, and I claim it in the name of the King of Spain. This Captain Reade, you say, has the gold?”

“Yes,” cried Poole, “and curse him, he robbed me of it! Follow him and wrest it from him. I will ask of you no greater favor.”

“But where shall we look for him?” asked the little captain; “in what direction shall we sail?”

“He will be found in the neighborhood of Cape Catoche.”

“You believe that?”

“Yes,” replied Poole, “but you will never catch them if you are not shrewd.”

“Ah, senor?”

“You see, his boat is a submarine craft, and he can sink out of sight and reach in a moment.”

“Perdita! Senor shall tell me what to do?”

“Use a subterfuge; trick him!” cried Poole, fiendishly. “When you sight him lure him toward you! Fly a signal of distress; when he gets within range give him a shot that will cripple him, or he will get away.”

Don Azata’s eyes glittered.

“That would be an assault upon the American flag,” he began.

“Hang the American flag! Who will ever know the story? Sink the accursed submarine boat with every man on board! The secret will be well kept. All we want is the gold.”

The two rascals looked at each other for fully a minute. Then Don Azata said, softly:

“Senor, you are wise; I shall do as you say. It is true that we must have the gold. May le diable aid us!”