  Seated around the supper table in the plantation house, the chums could hardly contain their impatience while the colored servant removed the dishes. The abrupt twilight had passed into deep, dark night. A kerosene lamp on the table threw weird shadows on the wall and left uncanny mysteries in the dusky corners. The table, moved near the window to get the cooler evening breeze during the meal, was finally cleared. “Do you feel funny?” asked Tom, looking around the room. “Maybe it’s on account of that voodoo stuff this morning, but for some reason I feel kinda nervous.” “It’s just your mind—your imagination,” laughed Cliff. Mr. Gray quietly told Clarence Neale why the boys had decided to act on his advice, to initiate the young collector into their mystic order. They had half of a cipher, he explained, and there was reason to believe that Sam had the other half. Then, in order to carry on a search, if they agreed that it was advisable, the young fellows would require a cool, older head to guide them, and perhaps a stout arm to help them. “I can carry on your work here, Clarence,” Mr. Gray finished his explanation. “If you want to try your hand at a different sort of digging.” “If it’s a choice between potsherds”—he referred to the bits of pottery which were thus named—“or treasure, count me in for adventure every time!” Using a watch charm of Cliff’s which his father had made from an ancient Egyptian scarab, or sacred beetle, suitably mounted, Nicky gave Clarence Neale the oath of allegiance, which also served as their motto. Clarence Neale with his face serious and with a sincere manner, took the vow. “I see what it means,” he added. “Seeing All—that you show me—I see nothing that I let others know I see; Knowing All—all of your plans—I know nothing, if anybody asks me; Telling All—that is, letting you know everything I know—I tell nothing, of our plans or mysteries, to any outsider.” “That’s it exactly,” Nicky exclaimed. “I knew you would be the right sort. Now, we will postpone the initiations and secret signs until tomorrow when we have more time. Now we want to tell you about our map.” He drew out his copy and the drawing of Sam’s half which Cliff had made from memory. They all bent over them on the table. “I am very glad that you have taken me into your councils,” Clarence Neale declared. “I know something about this section. It is very easy to see that it is some part of the Florida coral archipelago, what we used to call Ten Thousand Islands, stretching up along the Gulf coast from down toward Cape Sable. I used to fish in those waters.” The chums were delighted. Here was a real mate and a fine aide. “Just how did this half come into your family’s possession?” asked the young man. “Well,” Nicky explained, “you see, Captain William Kidd was supposed to be a mighty pirate and a fearful one. History and story books don’t agree, there. I’ve studied a lot about him because I am pretty much a ‘bug’ about him, on account of this map.” “Well,” smiled Mr. Neale, “I don’t blame you. I know a bit of the old fellow’s true history too. He was in the regular trade for quite a while, and ran from these Islands to New York with his ship, and he was as honest as any, I guess. That must be the time that he made friends with the Jamaica governor.” “Yes,” Nicky took up the talk. “He traded with the West Indies during King William’s War, and it was after that time that the citizens of Antigua gave him a bark of the same name. And in 1690 he got a commission from the English—what do you guess for?” “To despoil and break up pirate bands,” exclaimed Cliff. “You’ve told us, Nicky—but go ahead. Tell us again. It’s interesting, and especially right now.” “Why, you could imagine we were in the cabin of a ship, right now,” broke in Tom, “all except the windows. Look at the heavy timbers of the room, and the oil lamp and—s-sh-h-h! What’s that?” They all stared at him. Tom’s eyes had become round with fear. He was usually of a very level headed type, and not likely to get himself upset; but the voodoo had preyed upon his imagination and this, with the excitement of the treasure map’s discovery, had made him more sensitive to excitement than usual. He stared through the open window. They all turned their eyes that way. “What is it, Tom?” demanded Nicky in a hoarse whisper. “I thought I saw a face—in the shadows—outside the window,” Tom said shakily. Nicky was up and out of the room like a flash. Cliff, losing no time, raced in the other direction. They went scuttling around the house, from front and back, meeting under the dining room window. “Nobody here—not a sign!” called Cliff reassuringly. “Nobody in sight,” Nicky agreed. “Tom, who was it—what did the face look like?” “I don’t know,” quavered Tom. “It looked like—it was white—it was like a—ghost!” “Pull yourself together,” said Mr. Gray quietly. “There aren’t any ghosts. Your imagination is keyed up. Perhaps you saw some bird fly past with the light on its wings and your excitement made you see the rest.” “Come in, boys,” called Clarence Neale, “I am sure there was no occasion for fright.” The two searchers returned. “Brace up, Tom,” said Cliff, not unkindly. “Nobody was running away and nobody was in sight. You don’t want us to think that you really believe in ghosts!” “No,” said Tom, sheepishly, “I don’t. I said it looked like one.” “Well,” laughed Mr. Neale, “we have ‘sort of interrupted’ Captain Kidd, haven’t we?” “Maybe it was his ghost!” grinned Nicky. “I hadn’t thought of that.” Mr. Neale and Cliff’s father gave warning shakes of their heads and Nicky apologized for joking at Tom’s expense. “The poor old fellow wasn’t so bad—there’s no reason for his ghost to walk, even if there was such a chance,” Mr. Neale said. “You know he sailed off in the Adventure Galley to execute his commission, but pirates were few and far between, and he sailed around the Cape of Good Hope. You know, that real and terrible pirate, Thomas Tew, was one of those he was sent to capture or to punish—but he never found him. His crew became mutinous because there was so little to do and it was during a fight that Kidd struck his gunner, William Moore, and killed him. It was really for that act that the man was captured when he finally returned to America, and he was sent eventually to England to be tried for the killing of Moore, rather than for piracy, although he did do a little ‘pirating’ on his voyages.” “It was while he was in prison,” Nicky took up the story, “he sent for one of my ancestors, a New York merchant, and told him about the treasure. He said—it’s all preserved in writing in my family—he said that while cruising in the Gulf, during his trading and before he got his commission from England as a privateersman, he was blown by a heavy wind quite near what we call the Florida Keys. When the weather calmed there was a signal flying from a coral rock and the Captain took off onto his ship several castaways from a wreck. They told him they had been on a Spanish treasure ship, transporting gold and silver bars from the Spanish settlements in Central America when the hurricane wrecked their ship. Captain Kidd said he had looked for the treasure but there was no sign of any, and so he thought they were telling falsehoods.” “Then why did he draw a map—if that was what the map was about!” Cliff interrupted. “The man he had saved—one of the survivors—gave him the map when he was injured by a sabre wound and was dying. He said the men had managed to swim ashore to some of the smaller Keys when the ship ran onto some needle-like coral and began to break up. But they got a couple of boats overside too, and when it was calmer, and the ship was breaking apart and falling away into the water, they got many chests of the treasure into the boats and rowed along into the keys and hid the chests on an island that was in the map.” “I see,” said Mr. Neale. “Probably, by that time, some of the other members of the crew had gone back and found the chests.” “Maybe,” Nicky said. “You see, when the ancestor was given the map, he took a passage on a ship to come and find the Jamaica governor, but his ship was besieged by pirates and he was taken by them—and it was years before he got off their ship and back to civilization—that’s a story by itself, but I can’t stop to tell it to you now. Anyhow, he got back, but he had no more taste for the sea and when he died he passed on his map and the story, but nobody else ever tried until my uncle got the paper. He made a trip down here and found out just what Sam told us—that the governor’s paper had been stolen. So, of course, he gave it up.” “Now, what do you propose to do?” asked Clarence Neale. “Mr. Gray thinks we ought to talk to Sam and offer to share with him fairly for the use of his part of the map. He’s on his way here, or ought to be. I left word with Ma’am Sib to tell him to come.” “Perhaps he hasn’t returned to get the message,” Mr. Gray said. “Or,” said Nicky, unable to resist a little malicious prod at Tom’s fears, “or maybe the ghost got him!” Before Tom could make a reply they heard the patter of swift feet racing along the path to the house; a voice cried out, shrill and excited, “Help—masters—help! De ghost——!” With a common impulse they all leaped to their feet. In their excitement not one of them stopped to catch up the map. They moved closer together, Tom clutching Nicky’s arm and staring wide-eyed at the door. Into their midst scampered the ten-year-old colored boy of the morning experience. His face was ashy colored under his dusky skin, and his eyes rolled wildly. “Masters—masters!” he panted. “Save me—” He lifted a finger, and pointed it shakingly toward the doorway. They all stared in that direction, and even Cliff felt the hair prickling on his head. “There—there! It’s chased me—it’s coming—” the boy gasped. Clarence Neale leaped past the frightened child, and on a sudden impulse Nicky, feeling a strange hunch, swung part way around toward the table. He meant to reach for the map, forgotten in the instant of excitement. In his turn he gave a gasping cry. Their map was gone! |
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