  Things happened so fast and so thick that no one could have told a story of all that went on. Cliff, landing on all fours, beside Nicky, was up on his knees in an instant, tugging his knife from his pocket, ripping open its blade. He slashed at Nicky’s rope, and loosened it; again he slashed and then, at a warning cry from Tom, he looked over his shoulder, but too late. Nicky, frantically tugging to loosen the cut rope, saw Tew coming but was as helpless as Tom. Cliff dropped his knife and tried to get up, to turn, to ward off the blow. Tew, his face working in a rage, his whole, muscular frame behind his stout arm, drove a fist at Cliff’s head. Cliff instinctively threw up his arm. The fist crashed against it, flung him by its force against the cockpit thwart, and Cliff felt sick and faint, struggled to rise, saw the world turn black, big and little pinwheels whirl before his eyes, and sank in a heap. Tew turned, and raced back to his engine. Nicky, his whole being burning with a fire of fury, tore at his rope and began to loosen it. On the Senorita, the man atop her cabin was firing at Sam and Jack but they, under the shelter of the cabin, were crouched low, scampering up the deck, loading their pistols. The men forward with the hose, taken by surprise, without their weapons in their hands, scattered, several leaping into the water and making for the islet close at hand. Jim had already leaped into the forward cabin of the Libertad, and with his pistol aimed toward the deck of the vessel just above, was warning off those who wanted to leap down. They stopped, not daring to leap. Nicky got his arms free, threw the rope impatiently off and bent over Cliff. His chum lay inert, stunned by the shock as his head had struck the wood in his fall. Nicky turned, to look for the knife, to free Tom. On the cabin top the man on watch gave over firing and shouted a hoarse warning! “The cutter!” he roared, “she’s coming!” Full speed up the channel came Lieutenant Sommerlee’s craft, with Brownie, the lieutenant and the two sailors forward, Mr. Neale at the tiller, aft. The men on the Senorita leaped to the water, Jack and Sam coming from concealment, standing erect, ordering them to surrender and firing at their heads as they scrambled for the islet and cover on the farther shore. In the cabin of the Libertad the two men, Mr. Coleson and Don Ortiga, called to Senor Ortiga, who was on the deck of the Senorita, and at the same time a rifle ball, from the man on the cabin, aimed quickly at Jim, cut into the flesh of the colored man’s arm and he dropped his weapon. Without an instant’s hesitation, Senor Ortiga leaped upon him, landed in the cabin, bent double, knocking Jim aside, and began to reach for the wheel, as Tew, leaping for the spark lever, advanced the spark, and at the same time threw the gear lever out of mesh with the bilge pump and into the gear with the engine propeller shaft. As the engine took the spark and began to roar, Mr. Coleson, his face white, leaped past Tew to get to the cabin windows and thus to jump out into the channel and take his chance on swimming clear. Nicky made a lunge past Tew, to stop Mr. Coleson, but his foot caught on the hose, still connected loosely to the bilge pump, and tore it free. There came the gurgle of the gas still in it, as it flowed over the floor in a trickling, spreading pool. Nicky missed his catch, and saw Mr. Coleson leap free and plunge overside into the channel. From the cutter came hails and shots. On the Senorita Sam and Jack had captured one man, and were firing at the islet. Nicky felt himself caught by the nape of the neck as he tried to recover his balance. With his face white with rage, Don Ortiga brought Nicky upright and sent him, with the full force of his strong arms, toward the forward cabin. Then, as Nicky sprawled in a heap, Don Ortiga turned on his brother, just arising to face him. “This is your fault!” he grated. “If you hadn’t come in and left your boat to be discovered——” “Be still!” cried his brother. “Where is the gold—we must get it away—some of it!” “It is safe!” growled Don Ortiga. “Then let’s go away from this spot!” “I shall go. You shall stay. Here and now we settle an old score,” cried Don Ortiga. Nicky saw him unsheathe a knife, and at the same instant Senor Ortiga, seeing his danger, leaped to grip the arm holding the knife. Nicky, rushing past Tew, who was steering the craft, its momentum increasing with every turn of the propeller, tried to trip Don Ortiga, but the other man leaped aside, thrust at him with a foot, and at that instant Senor Ortiga caught the wrist of his hand holding the knife and a battle ensued that made Nicky gasp. Amid the shouts and the shots from the cutter, amid the cries of men being caught or being fired at in the water, with the craft making steady way under Tew’s guidance, those two brothers strove and strained, fighting wordlessly for the possession of that knife. Nicky was held spellbound for an instant. Then, with a cruel trick, Don Ortiga lifted a knee and caught the brother he hated in a vital spot and Senor Ortiga, with a groan, relaxed his hold on the knife. Don Ortiga stepped back, his face a mask of hate and fury. His brother began to recover, for the blow had not been delivered with enough force to be permanently damaging. “And now, as I said, we settle old scores!” hissed Don Ortiga. With a hand that shook he extracted a cigarette from a case in his pocket, staring in meditation on his evil plan while his brother, groaning and white, gained his balance. Don Ortiga scraped a match roughly against its box, lit his cigarette and then, flicking his match carelessly, loosed it. Nicky cried out shrilly. “The gas!” yelled Nicky. “Get away! The gas!” Senor Ortiga sensed the danger, and so did his brother. Both acted; the Don leaped back to the cockpit and began to scramble to its side, his brother trying to crawl out of the window. It all happened in a fraction of a second—the match was in the air, the men were escaping, Nicky was leaping back toward Tew for he saw what was coming. Tew, as the match landed, yelled in terror and began to climb from the cabin to the forward deck and there leaped into the water. As he did so there was a flash, a roar and a seething, boiling pool of flaming gasoline covered the cabin floor around the engine! Nicky, whose first instinctive impulse had been self-preservation, instantly thought of his chums in the cockpit—of Tom, bound—of Cliff, perhaps still insensible. The men were being rounded up, by shouting navy men and those who helped. But of this, of the effort of Mr. Coleson to escape, of his capture, of the capture of the Don and of his brother, Nicky knew nothing. His whole mind was fixed on one purpose. He must get through a lake of seething flame to his chums! The cockpit was a bare few inches above the floor level of the engine compartment, and so the gasoline had not spread; but the flame was licking the sides of the cabin, flaring through the windows, and, fanned by the speed of the vessel’s movement, bellied out aft over the boys. Nicky was almost thrown off his feet as the Libertad thrust her nose, unguided by human hand, against the side of the coral, and with a jolt stopped. Nicky gained his equilibrium and leaped for the foredeck; there he climbed swiftly atop the low cabin and began to run along its length. As he ran he shouted wildly to Lieutenant Sommerlee and Mr. Neale. They heard him and the cutter swung her nose toward the beached vessel with its cabin blazing. Nicky saw flames leap up through the windows and lick at the roof and blow over it in the light breeze. It was hot to his feet, still he went on, a handkerchief over his face, crouching low as he ran. He stopped, at the after end, for a sheet of flame was bellying out. But it subsided, and taking what might be his last chance, he leaped onto all-fours beside Tom. Cliff was moaning, stirring. Nicky shouted again to those in the cutter and Mr. Neale leaned far over the bow, to reach the white stern at the very first instant. With seething flame behind him, threatening to belch out over him at any instant, with the cockpit edge beginning to burst into flame, Nicky found Cliff’s knife and sawed Tom’s bonds. Then, cutting down the ropes between his legs so he could stand and work, Nicky let Tom help his own final escape while he tugged and worked to get Cliff in his arms. “Be still,” urged Nicky. “It’s all right!” Sam and Jack had seen the fire occur; with a common impulse they had leaped into the Senorita’s cabin to get the patent fire extinguishers always kept in an engine room. With these they leaped back to the deck and alongside the flaming cabin as Nicky crossed it. Turning the extinguishers upside down to break their containers and allow the chemicals to fuse and mix and create pressure and a spouting flow of watery gas, they turned the short nozzles onto the cockpit and cabin. There was the roar and hiss of chemicals meeting their flaring enemy. There came a great puff of smoke and flame, but Nicky, just in time, on the edge of the cockpit, with Cliff in his arms, leaped! He struck the water, and began to swim, holding Cliff’s head up! Tom, freeing himself at the same time, sprang into the water and paddled to his chums. The cutter came alongside and they were drawn from the water. And then, with a violent roar as the fire found the gas line and fresh fuel, the fire blazed up again. “The tank—the aft tank!” cried Jim, leaping from the cabin floor where he had, with his hurt arm, been trying to get the Libertad’s extinguisher into play. “The tank! Get away!” He leaped into the water and swam off, and at the same time, with a glorious feeling that some High Power had held back the end until all were safely away, Nicky, in the cutter, saw El Libertad’s stern burst into a mass of fire, sparks and rending wooden splinters. Her stern, literally blown to bits, sank, blazing and hissing, into the channel, leaving her still blazing with her nose on the coral. There was nothing to do about it. “But the treasure—” gasped Cliff, who had come to himself somewhat, with a good sized bruise on his temple. “It will all be melted.” “Let it melt!” cried Nicky. “As long as you and Tom are safe!” And, with no further word than a tight grip of Cliff’s hand, Nicky watched wordlessly the blazing pyre of all their seeking. “The gold won’t burn,” Lieutenant Sommerlee consoled the boys. “And there is more in the coral ‘safe,’” said Mr. Neale. They laid off all that day, watched the embers sink down to the water’s edge, saw the last spark die, and then plumbed the wreckage for the treasure, hoping that in a state of molten yellow blocks it would be brought up. But no golden bars were there, nor could a single glint of melted metal be discovered, though Sam, Jim and Brownie dived with a will and almost tore the charred insides out of the Libertad. “Where can it be?” mused Mr. Neale. They questioned their captives, but all were silent. With a fierce grimace of hate Don Ortiga told them they would never find it. But Nicky held on firmly to hope! |
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