CHAPTER XI
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, whohad sailed on the same ship with me in the old days, drifted down thisway, and hearing that I had charge of the lighthouse came over to seeme. Tom was always a decent sort of fellow, and I was glad to see himand 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 strangestory.
"It seems that his last trip had been on a four-master sailing out ofHalifax. She had been rather short-handed, and the skipper had beenworrying about where he could get enough sailors to work his craft.
"While he was casting around, he was surprised and glad one day to havehalf a dozen burly fellows come aboard and offer to sign articles forthe voyage. They told a story of just having finished a trip on a trampfrom Liverpool, and as they were all messmates they were anxious to geta berth together on the same ship.
"The captain didn't ask any question--no captain ever does when hehappens to be short-handed--and he signed the men on at once. That verynight the ship hove her anchor and put out to sea.
"They were to go around Cape Horn, and it would be at least two yearsand maybe more before they would see home again.
"Tom said that the men were good, smart sailors and no mistake. Butthere was something queer about them. They didn't mix much with theothers of the crew. They would gather together in a little knot whenthey were off duty and talk in whispers. It seemed as though some secretheld them together.
"The man who seemed to be most influential among them was a bigPortuguese named Manuel. The others seemed to stand in fear of him. Hedidn't seem like a common sailor, but acted as if he were used to givingorders instead of obeying them.
"Tom said that at last he got rather chummy with one of them, namedDick, 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, Tomguessed as much.
"One night Dick, while reefing sails in a blow, had a bad fall fromaloft. He was a very sick man for a while, and the skipper didn't knowwhether he'd pull through or not. The captain detailed Tom to look afterhim, 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 thebush, told Tom that he wanted to get something off his mind. He didn'twant 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 coastwisetrader called the _Ranger_ that hailed from some Canadian port notfar from Halifax. She did a good deal of legitimate trading, but mixedin 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," resumedMr. 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 tripto the New England coast. He had considerable luggage, and among otherthings there was a heavy box that it took two men to handle. The man hadthem put the box in his cabin, although some other things he permittedto be placed in the hold.
"They had only been a day or two out, when Ramsay was killed by a tackleblock that fell from aloft while he was walking the deck. The mate,Manuel, who Dick explained was the big Portuguese, took command and thecaptain was buried at sea.
"The passenger seemed to grow nervous after the captain's death, andkept pretty closely to his room. But he couldn't stay there always, andone day when he entered it he found Manuel there trying to open thechest. There was a fight right away, and in the struggle the man wasbadly 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 Dicksays they were all scared, even Manuel himself, at the outcome of thefight. Manuel would have robbed, but neither he nor the others wouldhave gone so far as to murder.
"But they had got into the scrape now, and felt that they might as wellbe hung for sheep as for lambs. They had passed Bartanet Shoals a fewhours before the fight took place----"
"That's why Mr. Montgomery kept harping on that, I suppose," saidLester. "It was one of his last conscious thoughts."
"That must have been it," said his father. "They opened the box and gotthe surprise of their lives. Dick said that there was nothing but goldpieces, 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 thousandsof dollars. Dick was an ignorant fellow and he said he didn't know thatthere was as much money as that in the world.
"At any rate, there was more money than any one of them could ever hopeto earn at the beggarly wages they were getting. They took an oath thenand there that they would divide the gold evenly among them, and allswore to take the life of any one who betrayed the others.
"They didn't dare keep on their voyage to the port where they weregoing. There would have been too much explaining to do. So they made fora cove on the coast----"
"Where was it? What was its name? How far from here?" came in a chorusfrom 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 anchoredat a little distance out, and came into the cove in a small boat,carrying the chest of gold and the unconscious passenger. They carriedthe gold ashore and left the passenger in the boat. But in theexcitement, they must have failed to draw the boat far enough up on thesand. 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 todo with the gold. If it had been in small bills that couldn't have beentraced, the matter would have been easy enough. But they feared that ifMr. Montgomery escaped and recovered there would be a regular hue andcry, 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. Ofcourse, professional sharpers would have found some way out, but thesemen were not that, and now that they had taken part in a crime they werein deadly fear of detection.
"They concluded at last that the best thing they could do for thepresent was to leave the gold in its chest carefully concealed in thatlonely place, sail their ship to some harbor where they could sell itfor what it would bring, and then ship together on a long voyage thatwould keep them out of the country until the storm blew over. Thus eachcould watch the others and when they got back they could get the chestand divide the gold among them.
"Tom told me that when Dick got to this point, he couldn't hold in anylonger but asked him point blank where it was that he had buried thetreasure 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 promisedto come back as soon as he could.
"But one duty after another kept him busy, and he wasn't able to go backto Dick for some time. Then he found that a great change had takenplace. Dick's fever had gone down, he had a little appetite, and it wasclear that he was on the mend. Perhaps the relieving of his conscienceby telling of the crime had helped him get better.
"However that might have been, he was a very different Dick from thenight before. His mouth was shut as tight as an oyster, and Tom couldn'tget another word out of him. When he reminded him that he hadn'tfinished his confession of the night before, Dick stared at him coldlyand asked him what confession he was talking about. Tom told him, andDick said that was the first he had heard of anything of the kind. Saidhe must have been out of his mind, if he'd gotten off any nonsense likethat. And he gave Tom a hint that it wouldn't be healthy for hi
m, if hespread the report among the rest of the crew.
"He didn't need to do that, for Tom had no idea of talking. He knew thatif he did, it would be a very easy thing for one of the half dozenconfederates to knock him senseless and heave him overboard some darknight. So he kept a quiet tongue in his head, and neither he nor Dickever 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 thesame line that was on its way back home. Some of her crew had been sweptoverboard in a cyclone, and she was short-handed. Her skipper asked thecaptain 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 theother ship. It was a lucky thing for Tom, because his old ship went downin 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 asmuch as eight years ago, and not a single man of her crew has everturned up anywhere. If any one of them had been picked up by anothership, the matter would have been reported as soon as the ship reachedport. Of course, there's a bare chance that some of them might havereached a desert island and still be alive. But that's so unlikely thatit 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'tseen or heard of him since."
"Is there any chance that he might have gone on a still hunt for thetreasure?"
"Not Tom," laughed Mr. Lee. "He didn't have enough to go on. But hecertainly was sore at the skipper for having called him away from Dickjust when he did. Another minute--yes, another ten seconds--and Dickwould have blurted out just where the treasure was hidden."
"It must have been fearfully exasperating to come so near finding outand yet just to miss it," remarked Bill.
"It is a lucky thing for Ross that he didn't find out," interjectedFred. "Tom didn't know who the rightful owner was, and if he'd found ithe would have kept the gold."
"I'm afraid that he wouldn't have tried to find out very hard," laughedtheir host. "Sailor men have peculiar ideas about hidden treasure. Thegeneral rule they go by is that 'findings is keepings.'"
"I guess there are a good many besides sailors who would go by the samerule," 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, andI've got to look after my work. I've given you all I know about theMontgomery case, and it's up to you now to put your heads together andmake the most of it."