  Once the anchor was dropped and the sails furled, and everything made ship-shape for an indefinite stay, the chums lost no time in tumbling into their dinghy and rowing the several hundred yards to shore. They wanted to inspect the small inlet opposite which they had anchored, and, before the light faded, to get an idea of what sort of a place lay beneath those three sentinels standing their silent guard over the treasure buried so long ago. The mouth of the inlet was dark and gloomy when they reached it and Tom, using the oars, let them trail in the water until the snub-nosed boat lost way. “It looks pretty spooky in there,” he said. “Oh, pshaw!” exclaimed Nicky, “pull, Tom. There aren’t any spooks!” “But there are snakes—and plenty of them,” Cliff came to the rescue of the oarsman. “Mr. Neale warned us, and it’s getting close to sunset. We might not see them—the snakes!” Nicky gave in and they drifted close in to the narrow waterway. The shore was heavily matted with a jungle of undergrowth, above which the larger growth, some small mahogany, mangrove and other trees towered. “This may be just a lagoon, not an inlet. If it’s a—er—like a strait, you know,” Nicky urged, “then’s there may be water enough on the far side to make this a key. In that case—we’ve got the very place mentioned in the message!” “We’d better wait till morning to make sure,” Cliff said, and after many speculations as to which side of the trees the treasure lay under—the message had not said—they rowed back to the sloop. “There’s another boat—I think it’s making for the Treasure Belle,” said Cliff. Looking across the small distance, the others saw a rowboat coming from around a point, making at leisurely speed for the spot they had their bow pointed toward. “I wonder who they are?” Nicky speculated. “I guess they wonder that about us,” Tom hinted. They were aboard when the other small craft slipped alongside. In the rowboat was a tall, rangy, and very thin and hawk-faced white man and a plumb, grinning darkey of the true southern type, ready to break into a guffaw at the slightest joke; he was quite a contrast to the Jamaican, Sam. Although Sam had a pleasant smile, his face never broke out, as Nicky put it, “like the sun bu’sting through a cloud,” as did that of the darkey whom his white companion called “Pomp’” to shorten his real name, which was Pompey. “Howdy, strangers,” greeted the white man as their boat grated and came to rest at the side of the sloop. “Right pretty name your boat’s got—Treasure Belle. Reckon maybe you named her that a-purpose. Reckon maybe you come here-’bouts to make her live up to hit!” “Come aboard, won’t you?” Mr. Neale responded. “We’re glad to have company and get acquainted.” The white man clambered to the cockpit and produced a corncob pipe, filling it languidly as he lay sprawled on a long cushion at the side of the engine. “I’m Nelse Carford,” he explained and introductions were exchanged. “I got me a right nice little piece of ground up beyond the point. You-all mus’ come to visit me. Here for the night—or on special business?” It struck Nicky and his comrades that he eyed them all closely as he asked the question. “Thank you—we would be glad to visit you soon, if we remain.” Mr. Neale took it upon himself to be the spokesman. “We are just sailing around among the bays and the keys, giving the boys a bit of fun—an epidemic of ‘flu’ closed their school this December.” “I see,” nodded Nelse, apparently better pleased than before. “I thought it mought—” his word for “might”—“mought be you was after some treasure, seeing what the craft is named.” Nicky opened his mouth, but Cliff kicked his shin gently and Nicky subsided. But Nelse had caught his expression. “I reckon it mought be your aim to git some if it was right handy though, hey?” he grinned. Pompey, in the rowboat, holding to a rail alongside the cockpit, guffawed, “Sho’ nuff!” he chuckled. “White boys sho’ nuff do dat!” “Would you blame us?” Cliff demanded with a grin. “’Course not,” Nelse answered. “Hits right natural. And you’re ’most what mought be said to be in the pirates’ an’ wreckers’ haunts, too. Not fur away to what they call Black Caesar’s Creek—they do say that old pirate was a terror. An’ all around—just beyond, is a regular ships’ graveyard—why you kin right near see ribs and rudder posts, an’ bits of keel sticking up, from here. Not quite, but you near-’bout kin see ’em. They’s just away yonder.” He gestured in the general direction of the lower neck of Biscayne Bay and the Fowney Rocks light. “Tell us,” said Nicky, before Cliff could warn him again, “is that called Crocodile Key?” He indicated the land at their bow. Nelse started. He almost dropped his pipe. Then he straightened. Nicky felt eyes that were suddenly very piercing, boring at him in the deepening twilight. “How come you ast that?” demanded Nelse. Mr. Neale took things in hand before Nicky could commit himself further. “Somebody told them there was such a place nearby, and I had a notion I’d try for a croc’ if that is so,” he declared. Nelse sat up straight and bent forward while Pomp’ in his boat subdued a cackle of laughter and became very serious, an expression that made his plump face look ludicrously like a monkey’s. “Listen!” ordered Nelse, sharply, “for your own sakes, keep away f’om that place yonder—’specially at nights!” “Why?” said Tom, his voice beginning to get weak. “Because!” declared Nelse, “they say that Black Caesar buried some treasure there one time. And——” “All the more reason—” began Nicky. Nelse silenced him with a curt shake of the head. “And—” he took up his talk, “Black Caesar was the meanest and most brutal pirate that ever lived! They say, if anybody comes to try to git his treasure, him and his mates appears—ghos’s, you know! An’ woe betide them what they puts their spell on!” Sam had retired, shuddering and groaning, to the cabin. Pomp’ began to look over his shoulder. “Mas’ Nelse,” he quavered, “come on, suh—don’ talk no moah ’bout dat! Le’s git on home—please!” Nelse nodded. “You see, I reckon,” he said. “Ever’body here-’bouts believes hit.” “Have you ever seen the pirates—are they real or spooks?” asked Nicky. “Comin’ home, late, one night, bein’ becalmed in a sail boat—I see ’em. Loading chests o’ treasure in the moonlight! Bet you I never want to see ’em no more! No, suh!” Pomp’ gasped. “And,” added Nelse to his servant’s tale, “next day after Pomp’ told me—he was near-’bout scared out o’ his clo’es—I took me a rifle an’ went onto that land ’side o’ the inlet, there—where you see that bit o’ rock under the mangrove—an’—an’—they had been some man there, it looked like he had been tryin’ to locate somethin’ and started to dig for it—but—he—won’t—never—dig—no mo’!” The three chums shuddered in spite of themselves. “Hurt?” asked Mr. Neale. “Beyond hurtin’—” said Nelse solemnly. He refused an invitation to stay for supper, complied with Pomp’s pleading and tumbled into his boat. “If I was you,” he said in farewell, “an’ had any idea o’ tryin’ for what I reckon may be hid on that strip o’ land—I’d up sail an’ away quick’s the wind ’ud take me!” “Yes, sar!” mumbled Sam in the cabin. “But whatever you do,” called Nelse, “if there is any spooks—doan’ try for to bother ’em none—they’s more to them ha’nts—” his word for ghosts “—than most folks knows, I reckon!” “Well, you won’t get me there,” declared Tom. The slow, idle evening gave them plenty of time to recount their feelings and to argue to and fro about ghosts, spooks, ha’nts, and buccaneers’ apparitions in particular. Sam, refusing to come forth even to cook supper, took no part. He crouched in a corner, muttering some charm or spell of protection taught him by Ma’am Sib, no doubt, till Cliff called, “Oh, Sam—shut up!” “All that talks doesn’t scare me,” Nicky declared, “nor Sam, either, even with his witch-charms. I’d sort of like to see——” That very second he had his wish! |
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