  The two boys approached the strangers with rifles loosely slung under their arms, as if they had just come from hunting. The men about the fire showed no signs of surprise. They did not leap to their feet nor attempt to glide away. They merely turned their heads at the sound of footsteps, then sat there watching as the boys approached. Pant took the lead. He had lived among men of many climes, and would doubtless be better able to understand these strangers. Reaching the edge of the circle he sat down by the fire, motioning Johnny to do the same. For several moments the little group sat in silence. Out of the corner of his eyes, Johnny studied the strangers. There were five heavily-built, raw-boned fellows with dark skins and thick lips. They were dressed merely in breech-clouts. There were two small brown boys with the squint eyes of Orientals. “Couple of Japs and their serfs,” was his mental comment. Presently one of the Orientals dug from the ashes of the fire two roasted sweet potatoes. These he offered to the guests. After that he supplied each member of his own group in the same manner. Johnny noticed that there was a little pile of these potatoes on the beach, also two brown hempen sacks full of some commodity. These sacks were tied tightly at the top. They ate the potatoes with great relish. After that they were given water to drink. When they at last attempted to engage the strangers in conversation, they found them quite incapable of understanding English. Finally Pant, growing tired of the effort, rose and strode down to the beach where the brown sacks were lying. He thumped one of the sacks, then lifted it from the ground. “About a hundred pounds,” he muttered. Then, turning, he walked back to the group by the fire. He had taken one hand from his pocket. In its palm reposed a shiny ten dollar gold piece. He pointed to the sack he had lifted, then offered the gold to the smaller of the two brown boys. The boy reached out his hand and took it. The act was repeated in reference to a second gold piece and the remaining sack. This offer was also accepted. “They know the value of gold all right,” he smiled. “I have bought two hundred pounds of rice. Let’s get it on our backs. I think if we cut right across beneath the palms here we will about strike our camp.” With the sacks of rice on their shoulders, they trudged on for a time in silence. At last Johnny spoke: “What do we want of all this rice?” “Three people can live a long time on two hundred pounds of rice.” As he stepped out again into the moonlight he gazed about him for a time, then in a musing tone said: “I wonder where we’ll be to-morrow night. It’s going to work all right. The only question is, how many miles do you get out of a hundred pounds of rice?” The next morning, after they had taken their bearings, Pant said, “Far as I can make out, we’re something like a hundred and fifty miles from the wreck. Question is, will our fuel carry us that far?” “Our fuel? What fuel?” his two friends echoed. “Yes,” smiled Pant, “we have some fuel—two hundred pounds of it.” “The rice!” exclaimed Johnny. “I hadn’t thought of using it for that.” “Well, perhaps we’d better not,” said Pant, wrinkling his brow. “It’s all that stands between us and starvation. Our brown friends left the island last night. What’s more,” he went on, “I don’t know how much carbon there is in rice. Do either of you?” They both answered in the negative. “Well, there you are,” said Pant. “You see, if we can’t tell that, there is no way of guessing how far two hundred pounds of rice will carry us. It may let us down after we’ve gone fifty miles and clump us right into the ocean. And the next time we may not be as fortunate as we were this time in finding a safe harbor. Then again, we might land safely in the lee of another of these islands, only to find ourselves without a single mouthful of food. So you see there’s something of a hazard in it.” The Professor rose and began to pace back and forth. He was very plainly agitated. For fully five minutes he did not speak. Then he turned to face the boys. “The need of haste,” he said slowly, “is great. Nothing in the world, it seems to me, could be much more important. But you have risked your lives for the cause; I will not press you to do so again. You must decide for yourselves whether we shall take the venture or not. As for me, I am ready to go.” Pant and Johnny looked at one another. Pant read Johnny’s answer in his eyes. “Fair enough.” He sprang to his feet. “We go.” A half-hour’s time was consumed in grinding a quantity of the rice, then they were away. The remaining rice might be ground and fed to the engines as they traveled. Pant was again at the wheel. On his face there was the strained look of one who constantly listens for some dread sound. They were flying low. Now and again his gaze swept the sea. Twice he dropped to an even lower level, as he fancied he caught the rush of waters upon an unseen shore. Each time he climbed back to their old level and they sped steadily onward. Fifty miles were recorded, then seventy-five. A hundred stretched to a hundred and twenty-five. Suddenly Pant’s brow cleared. He climbed to a higher level. The engines stopped all at once. But this was because he had thrown back the lever. As they glided silently down, there came to them the old welcome sound of breakers. Johnny Thompson, leaning far out of the cabin, swept the sea with a pair of binoculars. “Over to the right,” he exclaimed. “Land?” asked the Professor. “An island; ours, I think. A rocky promontory to the south, flat to the north, just as the sailors described it.” “Thank God! We have made it!” The Professor brushed cold perspiration from his brow. “I was afraid—afraid of many things.” The motors were again started, only to be shut off five minutes later. Then they began the delightful circling journey which was to bring them to a safe harbor and their goal. This time there was no trying uncertainty; there was still fuel in their tank and they knew something of the place to which they were coming. “I hope we don’t have to.” “We’ll go back and try for some sweet potatoes in the morning. I think perhaps I’ll find another use for the rice.” “What?” Pant did not answer. “Funny bunch, those brown boys,” he mused. “Don’t savvy English, but they know Uncle Sam’s money, all right. It’s that way all over the world.” The island was very narrow. They soon found themselves on the beach facing the bay where the “Dust Eater,” as they called the seaplane, was anchored. It was decided that they should take turns at the watch, three hours to the watch. This would give each of them six hours of sleep and fit them for whatever of fortune or misfortune lay in their immediate future. The Professor took the first watch, Pant the second. Pant had hardly begun to pace the beach on his watch when there sounded across the waters the quick pop-pop-pop of a motor. His first thought was of the “Dust Eater,” but immediately he laughed at his fears; the popping was made by a much less powerful motor than those belonging to their seaplane. The sound came from toward the south end of the island. Racing down the beach, tripping over sand-brush and bits of drift here and there, he managed to arrive in time to see the tail-light of a motorboat fast disappearing out on the sea. “The Orientals and their men!” he exclaimed disgustedly. “It was stupid of us not to keep track of them. They might have given us a lift to the very island we’re bound for. We were too played out to think clearly, though, and now they’re gone.” He walked slowly back toward their camp. “Since that’s settled,” he thought to himself, “it’s time I was trying something else. I’ll get at it at once.” Arrived at camp, he cut open one of the large sacks of rice and poured a quart of it in an aluminum kettle. Placing the kettle in the bottom of the canvas boat, he shoved off and was soon at the door of the cabin on the “Dust Eater.” For a moment he paused to gaze about him. He had never seen anything quite like the night that lay spread out before him. The moon, a great, yellow ball, hung high in the heavens; the sea, now calm, lay sparkling in the moonlight, while the palms shot skyward, a blue-black fringe on the garment of night. He had little time for such reveries, however. There was work to be done. Once inside the cabin, he took up a trapdoor in its floor and, from the space beneath, drew out a strange circular arrangement. To this he attached wires running from a line of batteries hung securely against the walls. He next poured his quart of rice into a small hopper at the top of the circular mechanism. There came a snap-snap as he threw in a switch. A whirling grinding sound followed. Presently, from a small tube, there began to pour forth a white powder, finer than the finest flour. This he caught in the kettle. “Ought to work,” he mumbled, as the white pile in the bottom of the kettle grew to a sizable cone. When the machine gave forth a strange new sound, as of a feed-mill running empty, he snapped off the switch. “Now we’ll see,” he murmured. Taking up the kettleful of white dust, he walked back to the fuel tank of the plane, and, with the aid of a funnel, poured in the powder. After screwing on the top, he went back to his old place at the wheel. He pressed a button here, threw a lever forward there, and at once there came the thunder of a motor. Quickly he threw back the lever. “Don’t want to wake them.” He stood up and peered shoreward. Satisfied that his companions had not been disturbed, he returned to the cabin and put things to rights. “Wreck’s to the southeast,” said Johnny. “I can see it plainly. Look’s queer, though; all white, as if there had been a recent snow.” A moment later, as they circled lower, he laughed and exclaimed: “Sea-gulls!” It was true. The ship, but recently a staunch sea-craft, had become a roost for sea-gulls. Literally thousands of them rose screaming into the air as the “Dust Eater” gracefully glided into the waters of the sheltered bay. There is no mystery in all the world greater than a deserted wreck. An old house, an abandoned mill, a cabin in the forest, all these have their charm of mystery, but the wreck of a ship, laden with who knows what treasure, and abandoned by her master, a wreck so remote from inhabited lands that it has not been visited since the night of its disaster, here was mystery indeed. So eager were they to board the craft that they could scarcely wait until the plane had been made fast and the canvas boat lowered. One question troubled Johnny: The seamen, taken from the wreck, had reported no native inhabitants of the island, yet some might have been hiding out in the rocky portion of the place, for this island was some three times the size of the island they had just left. As he climbed up the rope ladder which still dangled from her side, and sprang upon her deck, slippery with guano deposited by the gulls, he kept a sharp watch for any signs of depredation done to the ship since she was deserted. He found none, and no signs of life on the main deck, but as he went down the hatch, he fancied he discovered the faint mark of a bare foot on one step. Their first thought was of the four chests. “Was your brother’s berth on the main deck or below?” Johnny asked. “That I cannot tell,” said the Professor. “Probably main deck,” said Johnny, “but you can’t be sure. You take the larboard side of the main deck, and, Pant, you take the starboard. I’ll go below and see what I can find. Some of the staterooms will be locked. We can search the open ones first, and pry the others open later if necessary.” As he sprang down the hatchway, he fancied he heard a sound from below. For a moment he was tempted to turn back. Then with “Probably only a sea-gull,” he dropped on down and began making his way along a dark companionway. He had not gone ten paces when he heard a soft pat-pat of footsteps. The next moment a sharp exclamation escaped his lips. From the door of a stateroom had appeared a brown head, then another and another. Suddenly some object whizzed past his head, to strike with a sickening spat in the wall behind him. He did not need to be told it was a knife. The door of a stateroom stood open beside him. Instinctively he sprang inside and slammed it shut. He was not an instant too soon, for a second knife struck the door. Such force had been used in its throwing, so keen a blade it had, that the point of it struck through the wood the length of Johnny’s little finger. “Well, now what?” he murmured. And then he thought of his companions. How was he to warn them before it was too late? |
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