Part 14 (1/2)

The mid-day sun was almost directly overhead, and there was scarcely a breath of air stirring.

When an hour had pa.s.sed, Norris was on nettles again. He had smoked three pipefuls, to calm his nerves. Again and again he made short excursions to the east to antic.i.p.ate the return of Carlos.

Ray had been observing him. ”Say, Norris,” he said, ”there won't be slow music at your funeral.”

Then, finally, Carlos turned up. He beckoned us to follow him. We tramped two more miles, much of it through a heavy bushy growth. And then at last he halted us in a screen of bush, whence we looked out on the waters of a small cove, almost surrounded by palms, whose tall trunks leaned over the white sand beach. Resting in that cove was a schooner--the _Orion_.

”Duran, he go on board,” said Carlos.

We could see the figures of black sailors on the deck; and with binoculars distinguished their white master, Duran.

”Well, and now then?” said Norris.

”Yes, what next, Wayne?” said Ray, ”Norris and I are ready to bust.”

There was only one thing to do. We must have the _Pearl_ ready to follow when the _Orion_ should sail.

”And when do you think she'll sail?” asked Julian.

”Sometime after dark, more than likely,” said Robert.

It was Captain Marat, Robert and Julian, that went for the _Pearl_. They were to bring her to within a few miles of this cove, and pick up the rest of us in a small boat. They had ten miles ahead of them, most of it along the beach, and the going all good, where the sand was hard with moisture.

The hot tropic sun beat down on us in the brush, where we crouched, sweltering, till Carlos found us a less ovenlike lookout, under the palms of a tongue of land to the west of the cove. Our move got us some closer, too, to the object of our interest. And it was but a short run to the opposite side of the point, where we could have an eye on the coming of the _Pearl_.

I took occasion to show Carlos that gold ring I had found in Duran's hiding-place. He showed surprise and some emotion at sight of it.

”That my father's ring,” he declared. ”He have that ring on his finger that day he went away with Duran--an' never come back. My father he tell us he in the city have that ring made of gold he take from hees mine. He was no voodoo, my father, but I do not know why he have thee ring made like the serpent. He was mostly negro--my mother was Carib.”

Carlos refused the ring. He asked that I keep it for him, till he should ask for it. It was when we were all at sea one day, he asked for the ring. I handed it toward him, and he held up a belaying pin, asking me to thrust it on the point. And then with much tapping with a hammer, he blotted out the serpent; and on the broad part, where the head had been, he contrived a cross, using hammer and chisel. This done, he was content to take the ring his father had worn.

”Now thee ring be good luck,” he said. And he placed it on his finger.

There was apparently little activity on board the _Orion_, though once or twice we heard the laugh of a sailor wafted in on the light breeze.

The hot, tedious hours dragged along, one after the other, with tropic la.s.situde; till finally the shadows of the palms had spread over the waters of the cove. And at last, too, Grant Norris came to tell us that the _Pearl_ had come to anchor, about three miles away.

It was then activity began on board Duran's schooner: The binoculars showed us sailors throwing off the gaskets. And then--and this to us was a surprise--up went her sails.

”Surely,” said Ray, ”they can't be going to make a start yet?”

”We'd better hump,” began Norris, ”or they'll be getting away before we get aboard the _Pearl_.”

”Wait,” I said, ”I don't believe they'll sail before dark.”

”Always,” offered Carlos, ”when they sail from the city it is dark.”

”I'm thinking,” said Ray, ”that what that Duran finds to do in daylight wouldn't make a long sermon.”

One thing led to another, and soon we were in the midst of that newly popular discussion of the probable location of the gold mine. ”Well,”

concluded Grant Norris, ”it can't be very far, if Carlos's father made the trip overland, there and back, in five or six days.”