Читать книгу The Radio Boys Under the Sea: or, The Hunt for Sunken Treasure - Duffield J. W. - Страница 5

There were many separate papers in the package that Benton spread out before the fascinated eyes of the boys. Only one or two larger sheets seemed like a consecutive narrative. Others were mere scraps of paper that looked as though they had been picked up in lieu of something better for the writer to put his thoughts upon.

Bitter thoughts most of them were, thoughts of vengeance, imprecations upon the authors of alleged wrongs from which the writer had suffered, chants of hate that seemed as though they might have blistered the paper on which they were written. As the boys handled carefully those yellowed sheets of paper, so brittle from time that they were almost falling apart, so yellowed that in many cases the writing was almost illegible, the years rolled away and before them rose up the picture of that solitary figure on an island in the Caribbean eating his heart out with rage and hate and finding his only solace in setting down from day to day his prayers for vengeance on the souls of those who had brought him to that pass.

Benton had arranged them as nearly as might be in chronological order and kept up a running series of comments and explanations as he went along.

“You can see,” he said, “that the writing isn’t merely a scrawl. It was the work of a man with considerable education. I’ve gathered from the story as I went through it that he was the son of a well to do family in one of the colonies that bordered on the Caribbean Sea about two centuries ago. Those were wild and reckless days in that quarter of the world, with the buccaneers roaming up and down the Spanish Main, sinking ships and once in a while attacking the towns on the coast and robbing them of their treasures. This fellow was probably the black sheep of some respectable family who went to the bad and ran away and joined the pirates. Probably he was just as bad as any of the rest of them, though to read his story you’d think that he was a poor persecuted man and that all the wrong was on the side of his shipmates.

“You know that in those days the pirates had a code of laws of their own. They were some of the vilest wretches that ever went unhung and flouted all the laws of the civilized nations of the world. They were Ishmaels, their hands against every man’s and every man’s hands against them. But even they had to have some laws of their own, or the Brotherhood, as they called their choice collection of scoundrels, would have gone to pieces.

“Now one of the laws that they laid most store by was that whenever a ship or a town was looted, none of the pirates should hold out any particular bit of treasure that he might come across. Everything was to be brought and placed in a great pile at the foot of the mast on the pirate ship and then a division was made, so much to the captain, so much to the mates, so much to each member of the crew.

“The punishment for any member of the crew who was caught violating this law was that he should be marooned. That meant that he was to be taken to some one of the many little desolate islands that stud the Caribbean, put ashore with about enough provisions to last him a month and then left to shift for himself.

“In most cases that amounted to a sentence of death. Either the man would starve after his provisions were exhausted, or even if he succeeded for a time in dragging out a miserable existence he would go mad from loneliness and hopelessness. It was one of the punishments most dreaded by the pirates of the Brotherhood.

“Well, marooning was what happened to Santos, the pirate whose writing is on these papers. Likely enough he deserved it, though he says he didn’t. You can see what he says here.”

Benton picked up one of the sheets and read:

“I swear by the Holy Virgin that at the taking of the galleon Ciudad de Rodrigo I rendered to the common mass every doubloon and jewel that I had taken from the passengers before they were made to walk the plank. But Cerillos the captain – may his soul be accursed – hated me because he feared that I might some day supplant him, and brought it about that a crucifix with gems upon it was found in my sea chest. But I swear that I knew it not.”

“You see,” resumed Benton, as he laid down the paper, “he claims that he was the victim of what in these days we would call a ‘frame-up.’ Maybe he was and maybe he wasn’t. You know that most criminals when they go to the electric chair proclaim that they are innocent.

“However that may be, they seemed to have the goods on the old boy, and he was taken to this island, where he was put ashore and left to live or die as fate might decree.

“Where that island was is a most important matter, and on that we haven’t any too much information. There are scores, probably hundreds of them in the Caribbean. Some of them are mere rocks a few acres in extent. Others cover a good many square miles. This one where Santos was marooned was one of the larger ones, and there was enough in the way of fruits and cocoanuts together with what fish he could catch to keep him alive.

“Now the only clue we have,” Benton continued, picking up a frayed piece of paper, “to the location of the island is this rough sketch that Santos drew. You can see for yourself that it’s like a rough quadrangle in shape.”

The boys bent over and scanned with eyes shining with excitement the rude outline. There were wavy lines to indicate the water, and a blacker mass which was evidently intended for the island itself. On this were peaks rising to a considerable height, and the effect of the skyline was something like the teeth of a saw. There were figures on the map almost illegible, but by the aid of a magnifying glass which Phil took from a drawer they could make out what seemed to be the figures “14” and “81.”

“That’s probably the latitude and longitude,” exclaimed Dick, while Phil made a dive for an atlas.

“So I figured it,” replied Benton. “Probably the old boy made more or less of a guess at it, but in a rough way it’s likely to be correct. It isn’t probable that he had any instruments with him, but if what he says of the captain’s jealousy is correct it indicates that he was an important figure in the crew and probably had some knowledge of navigation. If he had had any ambition to supplant the captain, he’d have to know something about latitude and longitude.”

By this time Phil had found the page in the atlas referring to the West Indies, and was running his finger down it.

“Latitude 14, longitude 81,” he repeated. “Here it is in the Caribbean somewhere on a line between Jamaica and Honduras.”

“That’s correct,” assented Benton. “And there’s one very important point connected with that special location. You know that the Caribbean varies greatly in depth. In places it’s thousands of feet deep. In others there are hundreds of miles where the water is very shallow, where what seem to be great plateaus rise from the bed of the sea to within a hundred or two hundred feet of the surface. Now one of these shallow basins is that which lies between Jamaica and Honduras. Then too, the old pirate mentions in one part of this diary of his that when the vessel from which he was marooned was approaching the island, soundings were taken by the captain. That was because he knew he was in shallow waters and feared he might run aground.

“Now bear this fact in mind,” Benton adjured them impressively, “for on it hangs the whole story.”