CHAPTER VII.

  OFF FOR THE BAHAMAS.

  Next morning Matt and Dick were astir at three o'clock. The gasolinetank was filled and a reserve supply of fuel taken aboard. The oilsupply was also looked after, and rations of food and water were stowedin the car. This accomplished, there was a short flight to the gasworks where the bag of the airship was filled to its utmost capacity.

  The twenty-five hundred dollar check was left with a friend to bedeposited, and by six-thirty the Hawk and her crew were again on thebeach with everything in readiness for a record flight.

  Carl's delight, as soon as he learned what was in prospect, reacheda point that made it almost morbid. He was of little use in theoutfitting, and ran circles around the Hawk trying to do somethingwhich either Matt or Dick was already doing. Finally, about sixo'clock, Matt sent Carl to the hotel to get their small amount ofpersonal luggage and to bring a hot breakfast for all hands.

  At a quarter to seven, when Townsend came along the beach, the hurriedmeal had been finished. The owner of the _Grampus_ gave the boys acheery good morning, and began placing in the car a bundle of maps andcharts, and a sextant.

  "I presume," said he, "that we can figure our course all right by deadreckoning, but in case we find any difficulty about that, the sextantwill enable us to determine our exact location. The maps are all of thecoast line, and are so complete that I think we shall be able to tell,just from the look of the country over which we are passing, where weare. I have also a barometer, and, as luck will have it, fair weatheris indicated. There's a compass, too, wrapped up with the maps, andif you lads have looked after the victualling, I think we are fullyequipped for a dash to the Bahamas."

  For Townsend's benefit, Matt enumerated the stores that had been placedaboard.

  "You have missed nothing, Matt," observed Townsend, approvingly, "andI am pleased to see it. If there is nothing else to keep us, we hadbetter cast off and make the start."

  Matt gave Townsend his position aboard. Dick and Carl knew the stationsthey were to occupy, and after they had released the cables and thrownthem into the car, they took up their customary places.

  Matt turned over the engine, which, after a volley of "pops," settleddown into steady running order.

  "South by west, Matt," called Townsend. "That will start us acrossDelaware Bay in the vicinity of Cape May."

  "South by west it is, sir," said Matt, adjusting the ascensional andsteering rudder to carry the Hawk upward and in the direction indicated.

  At a height of five hundred feet the Hawk was brought to an even keel,the racing propeller carrying her through the air at a speed which wasslightly better than thirty miles an hour.

  "Fine!" exclaimed Townsend, taking a look over the rail and watchingAbsecon Island slip away behind them. "We'll eat up the miles, at thispace, and with no stops to make."

  "But the _Grampus_ is also eating up the miles," said Matt, "and willprobably make no more stops than we do. How fast can she run, Mr.Townsend?"

  "She can do fifteen miles submerged, and twenty to twenty-five on thesurface."

  "Her course to the Bahamas will be more direct than ours."

  "True enough, but our speed is so much faster that, in spite of theroundabout course we're taking, we'll be able to reach Turtle Key andbe there to receive the _Grampus_ when she arrives."

  "Durtle Key," put in Carl. "Dot's vere ve vas going, eh?"

  "That's where the iron chest is supposed to be, and, of course, that'swhere the _Grampus_ will make for. The Bahamas are all of coralformation and are underlaid with many caverns. For the most part, theislands are hollow; and it is in a hollow under Turtle Key that the Manfrom Cape Town claimed to have hidden the chest."

  "Iss dere pread fruit und odder dropical t'ings on der island?" askedCarl, who was looking forward to a brief period of romance in an islandparadise.

  "As described on the chart," replied Townsend, "Turtle Key is no morethan a hummock of coral, bare as the palm of your hand, and with asurface measuring less than an acre in extent. There is no water, notrees, and no inhabitants if we except the turtles."

  Carl was visibly disappointed.

  "I vas hoping I could climb some trees und shake down a gouple oofloafs oof pread fruit," he mourned, "und I vas t'inking, meppy, dot Icould catch a monkey und pring him pack, und a barrot vat couldt sayt'ings. Py shiminy, I don'd like dot kind oof a tesert islandt."

  "Where is it, Mr. Townsend," asked Dick, "on the eastern or westernside of the group?"

  "On the western side, just off Great Bahama Island and well in theFlorida Straits."

  "I sailed all through that group on the old _Billy Ruffian_," wenton Dick, "wherever the channels were deep enough to float us. There'sa good deal of shoal water, and a lot of places where you can go offsoundings at a jump. That submarine, if she takes a straight course,will have to keep on the surface a good share of the time."

  "Jurgens will take to the Florida Straits and then turn in when he getsopposite Turtle Key. That will give him deep water all the way. AfterI left you boys last night," added Townsend, shifting the subject, "Ihad a call from McMillan. He told me that the skipper of the _Crescent_claimed to have had nothing to do with the picking up of Jurgens offthe Heinz pier. Whistler, one of the men on the sailboat, got the threemen comprising the crew on his side, and they overpowered the skipper,tied him hand and foot and laid him on the floor of the cuddy. Anyhow,McMillan says that when he boarded the _Crescent_, the skipper washelpless in the cabin and all the others who had been on the boat haddisappeared. It looks a little 'fishy' but that must have been theway of it. The skipper of the _Crescent_ couldn't afford to harbor afugitive like Jurgens."

  "It was all a brazen piece of work from start to finish," observedMatt. "The capture of the _Grampus_ was second only to the desperateplay Jurgens made when he stole the chart. Jurgens, from what I saw andheard while Holcomb and I were aboard the _Grampus_, knows a good dealabout the submarine, but----"

  "He learned all that while he was working in the shipyard," put inTownsend.

  "But does he know enough to run the craft?" queried Matt.

  "I think not. He and his gang are probably forcing Cassidy, mymachinist, to run the submarine for him. If Cassidy, Burke and Harris,my men in the _Grampus_, succeeded in turning on their captors andrecapturing the boat, we'll be having all our work for nothing--thatis, so far as the _Grampus_ is concerned. In that event, we'll look forthe iron chest."

  "Dot's der talk!" cried Carl. "Ve vill findt der dreasure. It vas somebirate dreasure, I bed you! I vouldt like to findt a chest full mitbieces oof eight und dot odder druck vat birates used to take frompeobles pefore dey made dem valk der blank."

  "Bosh, Carl!" exclaimed Dick, disgustedly. "You're a lubber to takestock in any such yarn. Anyhow, I should think you'd had enough to dowith pirates."

  This reference to the way Carl had butted into the moving picturesbrought grins to the faces of Townsend and Matt. It was a sore spotwith Carl, and he tried at once to get his companions to thinking ofsomething else.

  He picked up the sextant and turned it over and over in his hands.

  "How you findt out vere ve vas mit dis?" he queried.

  "Hand it over, Carl," replied Townsend, "and I'll show you."

  Carl was standing by the rail. Just as he started to hand the sextantto Townsend, a gust of air struck the Hawk and she made a sidewiselurch that jerked the car uncomfortably. Carl let go the sextant andgrabbed with both hands at the rail; and the sextant, flung a littleoutward by the motion of Carl's hand, slipped clear of the rail anddropped downward into space.

  A cry of dismay escaped Townsend and Dick.

  "Himmelblitzen!" growled Carl, very much put out with himself, "Ivas aboudt as graceful as a hibbobotamus. Vat a luck! Vell, MisderDownsend, I puy you anodder."

  "It isn't so easy to buy another, Carl," said Matt, circling the Hawkabout and dropping earthward. "We've got to get that sextant, if wecan. Watch close all of you, and try and see where
it fell."

  At that moment the Hawk had been approaching Stone Harbor, and wasabove the beach. The sextant may have been ruined by the fall, but Mattwas hoping against hope that it would be found in usable condition, andthat they would not have to delay their voyage to land at some seaportand buy another.

 
Stanley R. Matthews's Novels