CHAPTER XII

“DEAD MEN’S INLET”

Both the Carreaus were very much interested in our plans for making a real business of the orange grove, and shipping to the States as often as we could arrange for vessels to stop and load a cargo at the Island.

During their ownership of Sunset Island, they had been content to sell the fruit at Martinique, and occasionally make a shipment to Cuba or Jamaica, when opportunity offered. Their market hadn’t been big, and neither had their profits, but they had had few real expenses, and until the death of Raoul, which had taken the heart out of them both, they had evidently been satisfied to drift along getting what they could for their crops.

But Uncle Joe and Uncle Charles were planning to ship on a really big scale. Uncle Joe had brought back a little group of workers with him--all hands who had been used to the work in Florida groves--and the first labor he had set them at was building a row of neat little cabins down at the other end of the garden, to serve as quarters.

Monsieur Carreau, in spite of his rather indolent management of the grove originally, possessed a good deal of valuable knowledge of orange-growing, and spurred on by our enthusiasm, he offered his services as advisor and instructor, and pretty soon had worked out a number of very helpful plans that Uncle Joe and Uncle Charles immediately acted on.

The Carreaus had been living on the Island about two weeks, and the _Myra_ was preparing to sail north again (she had been chartered months beforehand to carry lumber from Savannah to Boston at this time), when Madame Carreau came to Andy and me with a new proposition.

“I am so amazed and delighted, children, with all this businesslike activity on the Island,” she began in her pretty, fluttering voice. “But thinking it over--oh, so very hard--it has occurred to me that you two _enfants_ and your good Aunt, and I might organize ourselves as business women, and build up what your _oncle_ would call a--I have it! a little _side line_ business.”

“Let’s go down to the beach and talk it over,” I suggested eagerly, for when Madame proposed anything, we had learned already it was only after much careful consideration, and would be sure to be interesting.

So we each took a big sunshade and started down the Planter’s Road. The sun had dropped behind the Sugar Loaf plateau, and there was a nice long strip of shade at our favorite end of the lagoon beach. Andy and I had brought several pillows for us all to tuck ourselves up on cosily, while we discussed plans.

From a deep pocket in her grey linen dress--I guess Madame’s the one woman left today who has that kind of pockets in her gowns--she drew a little book, about the size of Rosemary’s diary, and bound like it, in yellowish-white silk.

“You missed this, Andrée, when you found the diary in Rosemary’s chest,” she said, smiling at our exclamations. “This was Rosemary’s cook book, and each housekeeper of each succeeding generation of the Carreaus, has added new recipes. There are several of my own in it.” She laid it on Andy’s lap, and leaning over, I helped her turn the yellowed, neatly written pages, curiously.

“I was sure it had been packed away in the old chest before we left the Island, so this morning I made a search, and fortunately it was still there.” She took the little book back, and turning over the leaves hurriedly, found what she was looking for.

It was headed, in the same old-fashioned, curly-cue lettering of the diary: “Candied Orange Peel _à la Josephine_,” and there were two closely written pages of explicit directions that it would take too long to set down here. Besides, as Madame reminded me, it’s our business secret now, so we can’t give it away for outsiders to read.

“It is supposed, by family tradition,” Madame informed us, “to have been a sweet of which Josephine--afterward Empress of the French--was inordinately fond. It has come down in our family through all the generations since. This afternoon, if you agree, _chéries_, we will gather some suitable oranges, and prepare everything to commence the preserving and candying tomorrow morning. Ah--but wait only, until you have tasted this delicious confection!”

“I love candied peel,” I sighed, my mouth watering. “I suppose though, this is something specially wonderful.”

She laughed, and made a little face expressive of just _how_ wonderful it was going to be.

“Wait until you taste--that is all,” she said very impressively. “Then we hold, perhaps, a family council--just the feminine members--and decide whether we might not build up our own little business for shipping sweets, _à la_ Empress Josephine, to your big New York and Chicago and Philadelphia. We must make charming little boxes to hold the sweets, and imagine some pretty sentiment for a--what do you call it--trade mark, _n’est-ce pas_? We shall become immensely wealthy--oh, but immediately!”

We laughed, but Andy and I were at once as fired with enthusiasm for the new project as she was. And I couldn’t see any reason either, if the recipe was really as wonderful as Madame declared, why we shouldn’t find a market for it.

It was pretty to see how pleased she was because we were pleased. She insisted on reading the recipe over to us, and explaining with great care and detail every stage of the candying process, although as I’m not much of a cook myself, it didn’t all make as much sense to me as she thought it did. I can’t speak for Andy.

We decided not to tell the rest of the family what we were planning; we just told them we were candying some orange peel by an old recipe of Madame’s and everyone’s mouths watered in anticipation, just as mine had--we’re a family with an awfully sweet tooth, all of us.

Later that day, when it grew cooler, Madame, Andy and I went down to the grove, and Madame selected the oranges herself, to be used for the experiment, so there shouldn’t be any chances of a slip the next morning.

There’s a sort of large alcove to the kitchen at Planter’s House--almost a second kitchen in itself, for it has a big table, cabinets, and everything complete except a stove. So we took possession of this, and made it our work shop.

Here on the big center table, Madame spread the oranges, after first carefully washing them, and drying them with a soft, clean towel. Then all the ingredients for the recipe were checked up, and measured out in cups and jars and set out on the table--covered of course--all ready for us to start work the first thing in the morning.

I’d watched candied peel made before, but I certainly had never seen so many spices and different kinds of sugar, and other fruits included in the recipe. But it sounded _scr-r-rumptious_, I can tell you! I went to bed that night so excited, and anxious for the morning to come, that it seemed as if the night would never be over.

However, I did fall asleep at last, and then the next thing I knew was Madame knocking on my door, and whispering that it was time to get up. I tumbled out of bed, snatched a towel, and pulled on my Annette in a hurry--for of course we weren’t going to miss our morning dip because we were starting in business that day.

Andy had been waked too, and was just coming out of her room in her bathing suit and kimono, and we all stole down the stairs softly, letting ourselves out into the beautiful early morning. Every day was beautiful on Sunset Island at this season, but most beautiful at this hour of the day, and later, at sunset.

We didn’t linger over our swim; just took several plunges, swam a hundred yards or so, and then hurried back to the house to dress. We were out in the kitchen within half an hour from the time Madame had waked us, and had the great work started before anyone else in the family had thought of getting up.

Madame showed me just how the rind must be cut, and after a few clumsy attempts I caught the idea, and got under way fairly fast, while Andy and she mixed spices, and measured and weighed. My land! it was a complicated performance, that candying, yet Madame went at it so easily and as if she knew each motion by heart--as she undoubtedly did--that after a while I began to look on it too, as simply part of a familiar routine.

After about three-quarters of an hour, Aunt Mollie came into the kitchen to start the breakfast, and was astonished not only to find us already at work, but that we had the breakfast half cooked as well.

It took three days--of course working only a few hours at a time--to complete the job, but the results, when we tasted them, certainly justified _any_ amount of time it might have required. Don’t ask me to describe the taste; it’s beyond me. But if you want to try it for yourselves, go into almost any big candy shop or fancy grocery in the larger cities and ask for “Orange Peel _à la_ Josephine.”

The only thing I can think of to compare it with is that spicy little Island breeze I love. The Orange Peel tastes, to me, exactly the way that smells. If you have any imagination you’ll get an idea of it; and if you haven’t, then no words will help you anyhow.

The boys were wild about it, and that first batch we’d made didn’t last long. The evening the last crumb of it disappeared, Madame called the whole family to a council, in the big hall by the fountain, and in her pretty half-French English, laid our plan before them and asked for volunteers to help us see it through.

Well, when she finished, it seemed as if everybody present had something to say--all of them excited and pleased and anxious to do anything they could. Syd suggested that Dan and he should make the boxes, just as we’d hoped they would, and they went off in a corner and had a sort of council-within-a-council about the materials they meant to use--what would prove most durable and air-tight.

Finally they came back, very enthusiastic, with broad grins on their faces, and announced that they had a real inspiration. To keep the peel fresh for the long trip, they said it ought to be packed in air-tight tins first, and for this they could use small round baking powder boxes--we had an enormous supply of these in the house, and when the _Myra_ went north again she could order us as many empty tins as we’d need, of course.

They were going to paint the tins green outside, and then use strips of palmetto to weave cunning basket-work around them. They even offered to make several samples so we could choose the most effective design, and promised to begin work at once.

On the _Myra’s_ return from New York, she had brought us, along with the new supplies, a lovely birch-bark canoe, painted a dull green, which the boys had been crazy to have for fishing in the lagoon.

I had been out in it several times with both Syd and Uncle Joe but I had never paddled it alone. It takes quite a lot of skill to propel and steer a canoe with one paddle, and though I’d been wanting to try it, so far the opportunity hadn’t happened to come. That night, when our exciting conference about the candied-peel business was over, I ran down the Planter’s Road to the lagoon beach for a last breath of sea air, to cool off before turning in.

I didn’t think to stop and tell anyone where I was bound, as I’d done this, either alone or with the others, so often before. But I had no sooner reached the beach on that particular evening, and seen the green canoe pulled up above high tide mark on the sand, with the big, tropical golden moon shining down enticingly on it, than I was seized with a perfectly irresistible temptation to launch it, and paddle about the lagoon alone for ten minutes or so before going back to the house.

Even if I didn’t manage specially brilliantly at paddling by myself, I couldn’t come to harm in the quiet, reef-enclosed lagoon, I argued with an exasperating little doubt that pricked me. Why, even if I contrived to upset myself, which wasn’t likely, I could swim across the lagoon and back several times without tiring--I’d done it too, in my morning swims.

And if I were going to make a joke of myself upsetting, I’d much rather have no witnesses about to jeer at me afterwards.

The canoe was quite deeply bedded in the sand, but I’m a pretty strong girl, and after a lot of heaving and pulling, I got it down to the edge of the water and was just about to climb aboard when somebody called me and I nearly jumped out of my skin, with the start I gave. But it was only little Reddy, who had evidently seen me slip out of the house and followed me.

As he was there, there wasn’t anything to do but take him along. He was so excited when I told him he could come, that I felt selfish at having tried to steal such a gorgeous night all for myself.

We kept the paddles in the canoe, since there was no chance of thieves on the Island, but foolishly I tossed the second one back on the sand as I got in and then, seating myself on the stern seat, and with Reddy on the floor facing me, we pushed off.

It gave me a real thrill of adventure being out there in the bright moonlight, with the black shadows making the shore look unfamiliar and sort of dangerous. I hadn’t seen the Island from the lagoon before at night, except from the _Myra’s_ deck, which was quite different again.

It was so lovely and cool, with that spicy little land breeze I loved, blowing across my hot face, and filling my nose with its delicious tang of spices and moist warm earth, and tropical gardens, and all the rest of it.

Reddy sat on the canoe floor as quiet as a little mouse, letting one fat hand trail over the side in the warm water.

For a few minutes we just drifted lazily. I dipped the paddle in a little half stroke that kept the canoe barely moving, and after a while I noticed that we had got into the current that sets seaward through the opening in the reef. However, it was always such a gentle little current, except in storms, that that didn’t worry me.

Swimming in the lagoon as much as we did, we’d discovered that there were quite a number of little cross currents always moving the water--sometimes seaward, sometimes north or south along the inner line of the reef. This one that had caught Reddy and me was the strongest, but I knew it wouldn’t mean exerting hardly any effort when I got as near the reef-opening as I wished, to paddle across the current, and so back to shore outside its influence. I’d seen the boys do it hundreds of times.

At last I decided that it was time to turn back, and dipped my paddle deeper, putting more strength into my strokes. Just as I’d expected, I won free of the current’s pull easily enough, but to my surprise, beyond it, the bow of the canoe was snatched sharply round by a new current, much, much stronger than the old one. The suddenness of it jerked the paddle from my fingers, and before I could reach for it, it was swirling away, tantalizingly, just ahead of us, bound northward at a sort of right angle to the reef, inside the shadow of the shore-line. And close after it, bobbing gaily in its wake, went the canoe with Reddy and me as helpless and astonished passengers.

I knew I could have gone overboard and swum to the paddle, but while I was doing that the canoe might be hurried on by the current beyond my swimming speed--which is slow. And I daren’t risk that with Reddy in it. I’ll confess I was a tiny bit scared, just for a minute; then I decided, as long as this new current appeared to be carrying us shoreward anyway, my best course was to sit tight and see what would happen.

This north end of the lagoon we seemed bound for, was the part we hadn’t really explored from the shore, for the jungle grew very close to the water here, and was impenetrable without machetes. The time we’d all made the circuit of the Island on our three-days’ walking trip of exploration, we had skirted the water’s edge at this part of the journey. The tide had happened to be low too, so we’d had no trouble passing over this stretch.

For that reason I wasn’t over-keen about landing at this end of the lagoon, unless I could find the paddle somewhere along the edge of the water when we grounded, and paddle back. But just as I was thinking this might be possible, the moon that was lighting the way so splendidly went under a big black cloud, and instantly everything--lagoon, shore, and the dark outline of Sugar Loaf above me, all melted into a solid wall of inky blackness. At the same moment I felt a little grating jar under me, and knew the canoe had run its nose aground on the beach.

Reddy, who--after one anxious glance at me when the paddle went overboard--had sat perfectly still, offering no comments or advice, now burst into a relieved little crow of delight.

“There’s the beach, Gay,” he shouted triumphantly. “Let’s get out an’ see if we can find the ol’ paddle.”

I thought that might be good advice, and got to my feet, carefully feeling my way forward, and climbed over the bow down on the wet sand. A long ripple, like a miniature wave, washed up over my feet, wetting my white canvas pumps and splashing up my legs. But a wetting was the least of my worries just then, and clutching the painter with one hand firmly, cautioning Reddy to sit tight, I continued to walk up the shelving beach, dragging the canoe and its small passenger after me.

A hanging vine, with a long, scented flower at the end, swished across my face after I’d gone five steps, so I knew I was approaching the jungle. Instinctively I swerved to the right, still pulling the canoe, and found the way clearer before me. I took five more steps, and at the fifth plunged into water up to my waist.

It surprised me so that I lost my balance, and as I went under I heard a frightened little squeak from Reddy when he saw me disappear; I had no trouble picking myself up, spluttering and drenched from head to toes. I remember my first amazed realization was that the water I wiped from my face and my lips was _fresh_--or at most had a faintly brackish taste instead of the salt water of the lagoon.

And then, just when I needed it most, the moon came out from the clouds, and flooded down through the interlaced branches of the jungle that made a sort of open-work roof above us. By its light I saw that what I’d thought was the beach was a narrow sand bar across the mouth of what looked like a small stream, flowing out from the blackness of the jungle, toward us.

But in the darkness, and with the responsibility of Reddy on my hands, this was emphatically no time for exploring. So, holding by the painter, I scrambled back to the sand and pushed the canoe backward into the lagoon. Reddy, who hadn’t been out of it at all, was still perfectly dry, and to my delight, right beside me the lost paddle was drifting on the little ripples. I held the canoe steady, while Reddy leaned over and rescued it, and in another minute we were paddling south along the shore to our familiar landing place.

There hadn’t been any real danger in our little adventure, but even if there had I’m sure I’d have forgotten it in the mad excitement that was filling me at the discovery I’d made that night.

That brackish stream, slipping so quietly out of the jungle, and sinking into the sand of the bar across its mouth, was--_must_ be the “Dead Men’s Inlet” of Morgan’s map, that we’d been so certain wasn’t on our Sunset Island. Not finding the inlet had been the principal proof to Uncle Joe and the rest of them that a mistake had been made by the old buccaneer who copied the map, and that Sunset Island wasn’t really the famous treasure island at all.

It was simple enough to reason out now how the inlet had escaped us, and how even the Carreaus, who had lived on the Island so long before us, had missed it too. The silting up of the sand across the inlet mouth, and the heavy jungle growth on the shore, had proved as effective a screen for his secret as even Morgan himself could have desired.

I paddled with frantic haste, on fire with impatience to get back to Planter’s House and spring my wonderful find on the assembled company, who must by this time be a little uneasy as to our whereabouts.