CHAPTER XIII

ALONG MORGAN’S TRAIL

When we got to the house, instead of finding the family worried by our long absence as I’d been afraid would be the case, they hadn’t missed us at all--evidently taking it for granted we’d both slipped off to bed. They were still gathered in the big hall, discussing our candied-peel scheme, and judging by some of the remarks I overheard as I entered, they had been advancing suggestions, and thrashing out ways and means at a great rate.

So suddenly the idea came to me that I wouldn’t blurt out my discovery of the inlet--Reddy of course had guessed nothing of what it meant--but would take only Syd into the secret, and we’d explore a bit further by ourselves, before springing the surprise on the family.

I beckoned him over to a corner of the hall, and as the family were used to our having a hundred secrets together, no one commented on this either. Well, when I told him what we’d been doing that evening since Reddy and I left the house, and what a gorgeous find we’d literally tumbled into, he gave me one astonished look, and then pursed up his lips in a long whistle.

“I’ll hand it to you, Sis, for luck!” he ejaculated enviously. “Gosh, why wasn’t I with you tonight? Say, let’s keep mum about this till we’ve hunted about a bit. If we take the whole bunch along there’ll be an awful lot of time wasted.”

“That’s just what I thought,” I agreed. “It will be ever so much more exciting if we can have a real discovery to report, won’t it?”

“What d’you say we start early tomorrow morning?” Syd suggested eagerly. “We’ll tell mums we’re going out in the canoe before breakfast, and she’ll put us up a snack to take with us. She won’t ask questions.”

She wouldn’t, I knew. That was one of the dear things about Aunt Mollie. She just trusted us to have our little plans and secrets, and to tell her about them when we got ready. I suppose--having been used to us children for a good many years--she probably “smelled a rat,” as the saying goes, when we suggested the picnic breakfast, but she only pulled Syd’s hair teasingly, and rubbed her cheek against mine when she kissed us goodnight.

“If you’re going in the canoe,” she added casually, “you might take your fishing tackle, and see if you can bring us home something good for supper.”

I was almost sure then that she guessed our expedition had something to do with the treasure hunt, her eyes were twinkling so. Besides, the excuse she’d provided us with would keep the rest of the family from suspecting anything out of the ordinary. That was Aunt Mollie all over again. I just hugged her hard, for goodnight, I was so relieved we needn’t try to make up excuses.

As a rule, the boys are awful sleepy-heads about getting up early, but that next morning I didn’t have to pound on Syd’s door more than once. We met downstairs by the side door, Syd armed with the machete, and I with a heavy cane that would be good either for climbing, or for killing snakes--supposing we met any. Aunt Mollie had put some sandwiches, hard boiled eggs and a thermos bottle of cold milk in our smallest picnic basket the night before, and we found that and Syd slung it over his shoulder by the carrying strap.

Then we let ourselves out the door, and raced each other down the Planter’s Road to the lagoon and the canoe. Stowing our provisions and weapons (we always called them that on our picnics just for the “desert-island” sound of it!) under one of the seats, we pushed the green canoe down to the water’s edge, and I climbed aboard.

Syd gave it another strong push, and handed me my paddle, wading out into the lagoon a few feet before he followed me into the canoe.

“You’ve got to be guide on this expedition, Sis,” he reminded me when we were safely afloat and paddling north along the shore-line. “Sure you remember your land marks from last night?”

It hadn’t occurred to me to doubt before, but now at his question I began to wonder uneasily if I really did recall my directions as clearly as I’d like to be certain of doing. I had drifted with the current the evening before, not paying much attention to where it was taking us, and when I’d finally landed on the shore the moon was under the clouds, and I hadn’t had a good look at my surroundings.

So in rather a meek voice for me, I suggested that we paddle north, keeping a look-out for signs of where the canoe had grounded last evening. I knew high tide would have washed away the marks near the water, but I had dragged the canoe clear across the sand bar, and there were bound to be some traces left of _that_, that must be visible from the lagoon if we kept in close.

Syd assented to this, and we paddled steadily, not doing much talking, but using our eyes as busily as our hands. Finally, just as I was beginning to fear we’d overshot our mark, Syd--whose eyes are like a hawk’s for keenness--pointed excitedly with his dripping paddle.

“In we go, Sis! There are the marks on the sand--No, farther in--where you dragged the canoe. Steady now, girl! Don’t dump us and spoil the breakfast, just when we’ve found our landing place.”

A long sweep of his paddle sent the canoe gliding shoreward, and with several energetic thrusts with my own to help, we soon had the bow pushed up on the sand, and were over the side.

“Sure this is a sand bar?” Syd asked doubtfully, looking about with a critical eye. “Looks to me just like the rest of the beach.”

The sun had risen above the distant horizon-line now, and was pouring a gorgeous path of gold and red and bright orange across the sea toward us. It even jumped the barrier reef, and made a smaller, fainter glow across the lagoon, right to our feet.

In its light, the place looked a whole lot different from last night by moonlight, of course, but I recognized certain land marks never-the-less--much to Syd’s relief when I pointed them out.

“There’s that hanging vine, with the big trumpet flower at the end that tickled my face when I landed,” I exclaimed. “And here are my footprints, where I walked round the canoe, and here--oh, Syd, _look_! Here’s where I walked off the other side into the inlet. Try it yourself, if you’re not convinced. Maybe a cold bath will prove to you I know what I’m talking about.”

First pulling the canoe safely up on the sand bar, Syd walked over to stand beside me, pushing aside the hanging vines that formed a regular curtain-screen across the inlet mouth. There, sure enough, as I’d known it would be, lay a broad, dark-looking stream stretching between the side walls of jungle undergrowth, backward into the thicker jungle behind.

Syd whistled again, and I heard him mutter something under his breath. Then, as if we’d both had the impulse at the same moment, we turned and grabbing the painter, dragged the canoe across the bar, and launched it in the stream on the other side.

Syd held the stern while I got in, and a moment later we were off. My land! If I live to be a hundred, it doesn’t seem as if I could ever forget the thrill of that moment when we pushed up that jungle-enclosed stream, and began paddling into unknown country on the trail--or so we believed--of old Morgan’s lost treasure.

I twisted cautiously about to glance over my shoulder at Syd, and his face looked exactly as excited and sort of _breathless_ as I felt inside.

The stream ran straight ahead for several yards, and then swung about a bend, under another hanging curtain of tropical vines. Being in the bow, it was my place to push these aside with my paddle as best I could, while Syd propelled us through. The vines grew pretty solidly for about twenty feet, and going was difficult. We got scratches across our faces from the whipping ends, but at length we were through, and into clear water again.

The stream was narrower here, and the banks ran straighter up and down, and with every yard we paddled they grew steeper and higher. Then came a third unexpected turn, and before we realized it, we were heading into the black mouth of a low cave, out of which the stream flowed.

Syd called to me hurriedly to back water, and we both put all our strength into swinging the canoe’s head about, out of the full force of the current that ran stronger here--particularly where we were, in the middle of the stream.

“We’d better not go on, don’t you think, Sissy?” Syd asked, his voice all mixed up between regret and a kind of hopeful expectancy. He knew I wouldn’t agree with any such safe and sane policy as that, but I guess he didn’t want to take the responsibility on his own shoulders where I was concerned.

“_I’m_ going on--right to the end of the stream--or I guess maybe it’s really the beginning I mean,” I retorted. “You can get out and wait for me here, if you want to.” That was mean of me, only I knew he was dying to keep on, and I wanted his conscience to be clear about doing it. Because, of course, if I went on, he’d have to go along to take care of me.

I chuckled to myself over the sigh of relief he gave, even while he was trying to frown disapprovingly at me.

“I’m not sure we ought to, until we’ve got Father or Uncle Joe with us,” he added as a last feeble protest, but I noticed that he already had his paddle dipped in the water again, ready to start.

“If the pirates went this way, why can’t we?” I argued, splashing my own paddle in vigorously, and pushing us out into midstream once more. “What are you afraid could happen to us, Syd? There isn’t current enough to be dangerous--and besides, what there is sets away from the cave, so we can’t be sucked down any rapids, if you’re thinking of _that_.”

“That’s true. You’re a bright child, Sis,” he said approvingly. “I guess I was picturing us being drawn over waterfalls, and things like that, into all kinds of horrible dark regions. Shows what reading adventure stories can do to your common sense. Paddle ahead--_faster_--we’re going to follow this trail to the end now, and if anything we don’t like crops up, we’ll only have to let go and drift out the way we came.”

Yet for all our brave words, I guess we both felt a wee little sinking of the heart as we slipped from the daylight outside, into the dusk of the cave.

At first it was just a grey twilight inside, that grew deeper and deeper as we proceeded. The rippling of the current made a soft, gurgling noise against the bow of the canoe and our dipped paddles, that sounded cool and pleasant. The water was clearer, and we could see down to the sandy bottom of the cave floor until we got so far from the mouth that it was too dim to distinguish anything except vague outlines.

The stream had spread out too, inside the cave, until it looked like a small, underground pond, with dark walls on either hand, and a rock roof that seemed to dip down lower, and nearer the water, the farther in we paddled.

The water kept getting shallower and shallower, and after a while it was hard to paddle without danger of striking the blade and breaking it on the rock beneath us. Just at that point we ran aground, grating horribly in a way that set our teeth on edge, and made us sure the whole bottom of the canoe was being ripped out under us.

We had come to the end of navigable water at any rate, that was certain. And unless the contour, of the cave had changed drastically since Morgan’s time--a thing that wasn’t probable--if the pirates had also come by our route, their trail must have ended right here.

Syd was explaining this to me--quite unnecessarily--as he sprang over the side of the canoe and into the water, with me at his heels as fast as I could steady myself out of the wobbly little craft.

“But of course, they may have carried the treasure farther, on foot,” I was beginning to argue, when my own foot slipped and I found myself stumbling helplessly down the sloping side of the cave floor, on something that didn’t feel like rock bottom, but softer, and slimier--a half-rotted wooden cask of huge proportions, laid sidewise on the bottom of the stream, was the only simile that occurred to my astonished brain.

“_Syd-d-d-d!_” I stuttered wildly, waving my arms as I tried vainly to stop my rush down-hill, and then my toe caught in a kind of hole or crevice in what I was walking over; and down I went, full length in the shallow water.

The next moment Syd, stepping gingerly over the tricky surface, was beside me, and hauling me to my feet, so excited that he didn’t realize he was almost jerking my arm off.

“Hurt, Sissy?” he demanded anxiously, when I was at last standing upright, dripping water, and choking over the half-gallon or so I’d swallowed in my involuntary dive.

I choked again, shook some of the water out of my eyes, and clutched Sydney in a sudden panic as a sharp pain darted through my left ankle.

“Oh--oh, Syd,” I groaned, “I’m afraid I’ve broken my ankle--sprained it badly anyhow. What--what’ll we do?”

“Hold on to me--_hard_--and don’t let it scare you,” Syd said in his usual, comforting, matter-of-fact voice. I guess inside he was a bit scared too, at the fix we were in, but he didn’t let a sign of it show.

“Take it a step at a time, and we’ll be back at the canoe in half a minute. Then all you’ll have to do is sit tight, while I push off, and we’ll float back to the inlet mouth. It’s all right, Gay. There’s nothing to worry about, but I’m mighty sorry about the ankle,” he added in awkward sympathy.

I gritted my teeth and obeyed, holding on to his arm with both hands, and feeling each painful step with as much care as if I’d been walking on egg-shells. It was really only six or seven steps to the canoe, and Syd helped me over the side, making me sit in the bottom where I could stretch my aching foot out before me.

Once safely settled, my silly panic was gone as quickly as it had seized me, and I was ashamed enough, I can tell you, over having let it show.

“Before you push us off,” I suggested, “why don’t you try and see if you can find out what that thing on the cave floor was I tripped over. It felt like--like----”

“Like the upturned bottom of an old ship’s boat, which is exactly what it _is_,” Syd announced in a triumphant tone. He had been stooping down, feeling about in the water while I spoke. Now he straightened up, and rubbed his wet hands on his equally wet knickers, evidently under the absent-minded conviction that he could dry them that way.

“Sis,” he said quite solemnly--and somehow I knew perfectly well what he was going to tell me next before he added another word--“I believe that--that’s Morgan’s jolly boat--the one that carried the treasure up here. Why should it be here otherwise--I ask you!”

“I’ll bet you anything you like it _is_,” I cried, bouncing up and down in the canoe till it was a wonder I wasn’t back in the water again quicker than I got out of it. “Maybe they overturned the boat here, and buried the treasure somewhere under it. Feel about and see, Syd!”

I groaned again, furious with myself for breaking my wretched old ankle just when I’d never needed it half so much to carry me.

“The water’s quite deep underneath,” Syd declared after a few very tense minutes of investigation, in which he had been lying flat in the water, feeling about and kicking out under the wrecked boat.

“We’re aground on the bottom of the boat,” he announced further, when he rose at last, dripping as hard as I had a moment earlier. “It looks to me as if the floor of the cave had either been hollowed out, or there had been a natural depression here originally--maybe it’s where the spring that feeds this stream rises. Then the boat’s been overturned above it. Shall I try a dive? I don’t think there’s anything down there to hurt me, only I wish there was a bit more light.”

I leaned over the side of the canoe, and seized him firmly by his wet jacket. Something I had read about desert islands long ago, had suddenly popped into my mind, sending a cold chill of terror up my spinal column.

“Sydney, don’t you _dare_ attempt such a thing!” I gasped. “We’re two little fools to come in here alone in the dark, with no one knowing where we’ve gone, and try a stunt like this. How do you know there isn’t some--some dreadful sea animal down in that black pool under the boat? Haven’t you ever read that the giant squid--that’s an octopus, you know--lives at the bottom of deep pools just like this, and--” I stopped, shivering so I couldn’t go on for it seemed to both of us that something had set the quiet water of the pool stirring ever so faintly.

Syd wasted no time in argument, but pushed off the canoe and sprang in. Evidently he was remembering the same desert-island story I was. We’d read it together several years before.

“I guess we’d better get Uncle Joe in on this,” he muttered in agreement, and began to paddle.

The current more than made up for the loss of my rather amateurish attempts at paddling, and we floated down the stream to the inlet mouth in much faster time than we’d made coming up with two of us working.

Syd managed to pull the canoe across the sand bar alone, and then to half carry, half drag me after it. The ankle wasn’t hurting quite so badly now--though perhaps that was due to the excitement taking my thoughts off it--and I had begun to hope it was only a bad wrench, not a sprain after all.

Twenty minutes later saw us running the canoe’s nose ashore at our landing place, at the foot of the Planter’s Road, where I sat down meekly on the sand, as Syd commanded me, while he went to get Uncle Joe or Dan to help him make a chair of their crossed hands, to carry me to the house.