Chapter 9 THE LAST VISIT TO THE WRECK

The next day, as agreed upon, they went to the old wreck on the rocks to get more of the treasure in the hold, and to satisfy the captain's curiosity about the place.

It had gotten around among the boys that Jack and Dick had found a sunken treasure, and there were stories of fabulous wealth afloat in a short time, all the boys, with a few exceptions, wishing to visit the place and gaze upon the buried gold with their own eyes.

"We cannot have all those boys visiting the place and getting in our way," sputtered Percival when it was suggested by Harry that he and one or two others go with the party.

"But we would not be in the way," said young Dickson, "and we might be of assistance."

"How did you find it out anyhow?" asked Percival. "We did not say anything about it."

"I don't know, but, at any rate, it is all around, and everybody knows about it. I heard Herring talking about it. He seems to think it is a big hoax, and that you did not find anything."

"Well, we did, all the same, but we don't want a lot of fellows with us, and, besides, it is dangerous. Never mind, Hal. You are in with us on the most of our adventures, but I don't think you had better go this time. We have promised to take young Jesse W. with us, as he was there the first time, but not the second, and he has never seen the cabin with its strange lights, the swash of water outside, the chest of gold and all that."

"H'm! you make me want to go with you all the more," said Harry, half laughing, half impatient. "You should not appeal to a boy's imagination like that, Dick. I want to go with you now the worst way."

"Well, I suppose you do, but you'll have to be satisfied with what I tell you about it. I'll write a composition about it, and you will think you are reading Jules Verne and the Arabian Nights all over again."

"You be smothered!" sputtered Harry, half cross and half good natured. "As if that would satisfy me."

"It will have to, Hal," laughed Percival. "Never mind, I'll give you a ten-dollar gold piece to hang on your watch chain as a charm. You can say it was one that Captain Kidd had."

"Yes, and they were not made at that time, two hundred years ago," said Harry in disgust. "Well, never mind. Billy Manners and I will find a buried treasure, and never let you have a smell of it"

"All right, Harry," and Dick went away to get Jack, young Smith and the captain, and start on their visit to the point.

The captain had a rope and an axe, and Jack took his pocket flash along with him, having found it very useful on the second visit to the submerged vessel.

They climbed up the rocks, and found the place where they had gone down, but now the opening was so small, more rocks having fallen in, apparently, since their last visit, that they doubted if they could get down.

"I am afraid we shall have to give it up," said Jack in some disappointment. "The last time Dick and I were here we had to squeeze through to get out, but now it seems worse than before."

"Let me try, Jack," said young Smith eagerly. "I am only a little fellow, and can get through where big fellows like you and Dick could not. Don't you remember how you put me through the little window at the Academy, that time of the rebellion in the school? Well, you can use me now in the same way. I want to see that place down there. You know I did not see it the last time, and I want to see it very much. Try, Jack. I am not so big, and can squeeze through almost anywhere."

Jack found a place where it would be quite possible for Jesse W. to get down, but not for himself or Percival, and, of course, out of the question for the captain, who was nearly as big as both of the latter combined, and he said:

"Here is a place, J.W., which, I think, will fit. It does seem too bad that you should not see the place, having been with us on our first trip, and we will give you a chance."

"I can bring away a bagful of the gold, anyhow, Jack, and perhaps go for another one after that. I should like to see the place, anyhow."

"All right, you shall do so, old man, but don't load yourself down with gold. That has drowned many a man before now. Get the rope, Dick. We will lower him into the place. Take a light, Jesse W., for you will need it. You know just how to find everything?"

"Yes, I go into the hole in the bow of the vessel which we saw, follow along till I come to a door, and then go along a passage till I come to another door and there I am, right in the cabin with a light overhead, shining through the water."

"That's it. Don't stay too long, and don't load yourself down with bags of gold. I'd rather not have it than have you take any risks."

"But you don't think there is any danger, Jack?" asked the younger boy, as they prepared to lower him.

"No, if I did I would not let you go."

The boy got down safely enough, and called to Jack and Dick when he had reached the bottom that he was all right, and then threw off the rope, which had been put around him under his arms.

He called to them from time to time, his voice growing fainter every time he called, and at last they could not hear him at all.

"I hope it is all right," murmured Jack when the boy had been gone a few minutes. "I thought it would be when I let him go, but now--"

"It is all right," said the captain. "He is a plucky little fellow, and there isn't anything that can happen to him. The rocks hold the vessel as tight as a vise and there is no chance of her slipping back into the water or anything of that sort."

"Well, I hope so, but somehow I begin to feel nervous, and wish that I had not let him go down."

"Young Smith is all right, Jack," said Percival reassuringly. "He is not afraid of anything, and really I don't believe there is anything to be afraid of. There was not when we went down."

"No, but we are a couple of big boys, and he is only a midget. If anything happened to him I should never forgive-listen, and see if you can hear him coming."

"No, I cannot, but he has had hardly time to get there yet. Give him a chance. He will want to see all there is, boy-like. Let him have a good long look at the wonders of the place. He has never seen anything like it before, and never will again."

Jack was very anxious in spite of Dick's cheering words, and the minutes seemed like hours till at last, holding the rope in his hand he felt a tug at, and then heard:

"Hello! Are you up there?"

"Yes!" shouted Jack. "Are you all right?"

"Sure I am. Wait till I get the rope under my arms. I've got a bag of the stuff, as I said I would, but I don't think--"

"You don't think what?" asked Jack, thinking that he detected something in the tone of the boy's voice that indicated danger of some sort.

"Nothing, wait till I get the rope fast."

"Very good. Take your time."

"All right," the boy called in a few moments. "I have got it. Haul away!"

They saw the light of the electric torch flashing upon them, as the boy came nearer and nearer to them, and at last drew him out of the hole, Jack noticing that he seemed quite pale, and then suddenly noticing that he was wet up to his knees.

"Hello! what is this, Jesse W., how do you happen to be so wet?" he asked. "There was no water in--"

"Yes, some," answered the boy quietly. "It had worked in under the door or at the side somewhere. Maybe they had settled. Anyhow, I got the bag and here it--" and then the boy sank limp and helpless into Jack's arms and fainted away.

"By George! he was a plucky little fellow and no mistake!" exclaimed Jack. "He said that he would get the bag and he did, and standing in water up to his knees, and not knowing at what time he might have the whole Caribbean sea tumbling in upon him. Get some water, Dick!"

The boy presently came around, however, and said faintly, but with a half laugh:

"I told you I'd bring it, didn't I, Jack? Well, I did, and I hope it will be enough to keep you at the Academy for the rest of the course. If it isn't, my father--"

"You are a brave young fellow, Jesse W., but you don't go back for another, I tell you that!"

"You bet he does not!" echoed Percival. "So the water had made its way in, had it? That's the last we will see of the place, then."

"Yes, it had come in somewhere, at the bottom, I guess. Still, it was not coming in all the time nor fast, and I wanted to see the place, and I had promised to fetch a bag of gold to Jack and--"

"And you wanted to keep your word even if you were drowned," sputtered Percival. "Much you could have kept it in that case. You are a young brick, J.W., but don't you do anything like that again."

"Well, I won't, if you say so, Dick," answered the little fellow.

"That's a brave little chap," said the captain. "He said he'd do a thing, and he did it. There's lots who wouldn't."

They returned to the boat, and the captain told Percival to row toward the reefs and as close to the stump of a mast as it was safe to go, as he wanted to observe the wreck again.

Nearing the wreck they noticed that the water was swirling and eddying very violently at a point where they judged the cabin to be, and the captain said, after looking at the boiling waters for a short time:

"The water is making its way in and will run forward as far as its level. She'll break up with all that water in her, and I wouldn't be surprised to see her go any time."

In fact as they lay there watching the boiling waters over the sunken vessel, they saw them become more greatly agitated and Percival pulled away to a safer distance as the agitation increased.

Then of a sudden the stump of a mast sank into the water, there was a still greater agitation and a mass of broken timbers shot up into the air and then fell back, and went floating away on the tide.

"That's about the last of her," said Captain Storms, "or, at any rate, you won't go into the cabin again. You've made your last visit to the wreck, and if any one ever gets that money he'll have to dive for it. You can be thankful that you went there when you did."

"So I am," said Jack. "Come on, Dick, pull away from here."

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