Dave Fearless and the Cave of Mystery: or, Adrift on the Pacific

With a kind of cheer Dave lifted himself over the side of the little yawl. It was flimsy, dirty, and old. The prow was splintered, one of the seats was broken out, but Dave sank down into the craft with a luxurious sense of relief and delight.

There were no oars, but Dave did not think much of that. He had something under him to sustain him. That was the main thing for the present.

"I can make rude oars of some of the driftwood and the front seat," he calculated. "If it rains I shall have water, and there are clouds coming up fast in the west now. I may catch some fish. What's in there, I wonder," and Dave pulled open the door of the little locker.

"Hurrah!" he shouted this time, utterly unable to control his intense satisfaction. Lying in the locker was a rudely made reed basket. In this were two bottles. Dave speedily assured himself that they held water, warm and brackish, but far from unwelcome to the taste.

About twenty hardtack cakes and a chunk of cheese completed the contents of the basket.

"I never ate such a meal before," jubilated Dave, having satisfied his hunger and carefully repacked the supplies. He paused to read a part of a label pasted across the front of one of the bottles of water. "This came from the Raven."

Dave had a right to think this. At one time the bottle had held some kind of table sauce. Written under the label were the words "Captain's table, Raven."

"The boat, too, must have belonged to the Raven" said Dave, "although I don't know that surely. It looks as if some one of Captain Nesik's crew had put to sea in this yawl, and was probably lost in the storms of the last week."

A great rain came up about an hour later. There was not much wind. Following the rain a dense mist shut out sea and sky.

Dave could only drift at the will of the waves. He had it in mind to construct some kind of oars, but he did not know the distance or even the direction of land.

The day grew well on into the afternoon. Dave had removed the door of the locker. He had also gathered into the boat the longest pieces of driftwood he could find. Fortunately he had discovered in the locker several pieces of fine tarred rope, which would prove a great help in making the oars. He was laying out his work when a curious flapping noise made him look up. He sprang to his feet. Pouncing down upon him were four immense birds. They were not eagles, but fully twice as large as any eagle he had ever seen.

They attacked Dave in unison. One clawed into his left arm while another gave him a severe blow with one of its wings, swooped down upon the exposed reed basket, seized it, and flew away with it. Dave snatched up a piece of driftwood.

He shouted to frighten the birds, swinging his weapon among them vigorously. One he disabled and it fell into the water and floated out of sight, the other two he finally beat off.

The loss of the provision basket troubled Dave severely. He sank breathless into the boat, his face and hands badly scratched and bleeding.

The next instant, to the infinite surprise of Dave Fearless, a gruff voice sounded through the mist:

"Ahoy there! What's the rumpus?"

CHAPTER XIV

STRANGE COMPANIONS

Dave knew at once that his shouts at the large birds must have attracted the attention of the person who was now hailing him.

"Ahoy, yourself!" he cried, starting to his feet and peering expectantly through the mist in the direction from which the challenge had come.

In a few moments the outline of a yawl somewhat larger than the one Dave was in loomed up in the near distance. A man was seated in its bow, while two others rowed the boat.

They came alongside. All three looked haggard and worn out. In the bottom of their boat lay a broken demijohn. They reminded Dave of sailors he had often seen on shipboard getting over a debauch.

"Why," said the man in the bow, staring in amazement at Dave, "if it isn't young Fearless, the diver!"

"I remember you, Mr. Daley," responded Dave, recognizing the speaker as one of the crew of the Raven. Dave had a dim memory, too, of having seen Daley's two companions with Captain Nesik's crew.

Daley drew the two yawls close together with a boathook, and he and Dave were face to face.

"Young Fearless of the Swallow," he kept saying, in a marveling tone. "And in this fix. Why, where did you ever come from?"

"Where did you, Mr. Daley?" inquired Dave directly. "Mine is a pretty long story-suppose you tell yours first?"

"Huh, that won't take much time," muttered Daley, with a savage kick at the fragments of the demijohn. "We stole all that gold from you. Little good did it do us. Captain Nesik and the Hankers, after they marooned you fellows, made a landing and divided up the gold into boxes. They put them on the Swallow. Well, when the Swallow parted from the Raven in a cyclone, she went down-gold, men aboard, and all."

"And the Raven?" inquired Dave.

"She drove on the rocks and has been disabled ever since. It would take a big steamer to pull her into service again," explained Daley. "After she got into that fix Nesik decided to desert her. They made a camp on land on the west island of those you know about."

"What about the natives?" inquired Dave.

"They seemed to have all gone back to the main island except a few. These hung around and spied on us; most of them Nesik shot. He landed lots of provender and rum from the Raven. For a week Nesik let the men have their fill. He and the Hankers and that pawnbroker fellow-"

"Gerstein?" suggested Dave.

"Yes, Gerstein," nodded Daley. "Well, those four took the longboat which was saved from the wreck and went scouting, they called it. They went away and returned for several days. One day they came back on foot without the longboat, and said that it and Gerstein had gone down in a quicksand. The men began to grow restive after another week. They couldn't understand what Nesik was lying idle for. They wondered what made him and Cal Vixen the diver and the Hankers so contented to just squat down and loaf. The men got cross when Nesik cut down grub rations. A deputation waited on him."

"What was the result?" inquired Dave, with great interest.

"Nesik told them to do what they liked and go where they liked. Said he was going to take his chances, waiting for a ship to come along. Result was, one by one the small craft of the Raven were stolen. We nabbed this boat one night and put to sea. We were bound to make some kind of a try to get away from those islands."

"Have you any idea where we are now?" inquired Dave.

"Sure, I have," answered Daley. "We're in one of those tidal channels that run around the Windjammers' Island so freely. That's a queer thing about these diggings. A fellow can row miles and drift back to the islands. Those channels are regular whirlpools in a storm."

"And what are you thinking of doing now?" asked Dave.

"Getting back to land of course. We wouldn't run across a ship in a hundred years on this out-of-the-way route. We can never hope to row thousands of miles to a continent coast. No-provender being gone, and especially the rum, we don't feel quite as bold as we did when we started out," confessed Daley, with a dejected air.

"No," put in one of his companions lazily, "we'll go back and take pot-luck with what's left of the Raven crowd."

"If they'll have us," put in his companion. "Looked to me all along as if for some purpose or other Nesik wanted to get rid of us."

"You're right there, mate," declared Daley. "I've thought that, too, many a time. Maybe he and his cronies calculated there would be more grub around with fewer mouths to feed."

Dave thought over all the men had said. He fancied that he guessed out the reason why Nesik was so willing to have his men leave him. He knew that he would be asked to give information in return for what he had received. Dave tried to decide how far he dared to trust the three castaways.

"Now then," just as he expected, Daley spoke, "we've told you our story. How about yours? That's a Raven boat there you're in. How did you get it?"

"I found it drifting loose a few hours ago," said Dave.

"That's likely enough," said Daley suspiciously, "but where was you waiting for such things to drift around loose?"

"I was floating on a piece of driftwood," explained Dave. "You know you people marooned us on the island."

"I didn't," declared Daley; "that was Nesik's work."

"You helped," said Dave, "and you've had nothing but bad luck since. Now, Mr. Daley, I'm going to tell you something. You think the Swallow was lost in the cyclone."

"Know it. Men, gold, and all."

"No," said Dave, watching his man closely to note the effect of his disclosures. "The Swallow was not lost at all."

Daley stared hard and incredulously at Dave.

"How do you know?" he asked.

"Because I was aboard of her not twenty-four hours since. The truth is, in that cyclone she was driven ashore on the west island you speak about. There Captain Broadbeam and the rest of us discovered her. We found Mr. Drake, the boatswain; Bob Adams, the engineer, and Mike Conners, the cook, prisoners on board."

"That's right," nodded Daley; "those fellows wouldn't come in with us, and Nesik put them in irons. Go on."

"We also found some labeled boxes in the hold."

"The treasure!" cried Daley excitedly. "Alas, yes, it was all divided and made into portions, so much for the Hankers, so much for Nesik, so much for the crew. Why, we saw the Hankers divide it with our own eyes, didn't we, mates?"

"That we did," declared his two companions in unison.

"So Mr. Drake told us," resumed Dave. "Well, we liberated our friends, got the Swallow in trim, and steamed away from the Windjammers' Island about three weeks ago."

"With all that gold!" cried Daley, with disappointed but covetous eyes. "Oh, my mates, think of it!"

"No," interrupted Dave, "we thought the gold was there. The second home port we reached we opened the boxes to see."

"It must have been a sight," said Daley gloatingly.

"It was," nodded Dave, with a queer little smile-"sand, lead, old junk, every box full of them, and not a gold coin there."

Daley sprang up in the boat with a wild cry. His companions partook of his excitement.

"Then-then-" panted Daley, with blazing eyes.

"Why, the Nesik crowd just deluded you poor foolish fellows. Exactly as he did us," spoke Dave quietly, but with a definite emphasis. "As I say, there was none of the treasure in the boxes. Where was it, then? Easy to guess. It was put in the boxes to delude you fellows and later secretly removed to the Raven. Nesik intended to lose the Swallow some way. The cyclone helped him out."

Daley drew out a long-bladed knife. He began abusing Nesik and the Hankers. He slashed the air in a frantic manner.

"I'll kill them for this, I'll kill them!" he raved. "Men, you'll help me? Why," he exclaimed suddenly, "then the gold must be on the Raven, stuck on the rock, eh?"

"Hardly," answered Dave. "No, Nesik intended losing the Swallow, sailing for South America, getting rid of you fellows cheap, and then he and the Hankers and Gerstein would make a grand division of the spoils. Their plans miscarried. The Raven got wrecked. Don't you see they got you all ashore quick as they could? Without doubt those mysterious days of scouting in the longboat, as you call it, were devoted to getting the gold ashore to some safe and secret hiding-place."

"Then we'll have our share," shouted Daley. "Mates, for shore; for shore, mates, to find those measly robbers, to pounce on them and make them give up what belongs to us. Ha, more," declared Daley. "We'll kill them off; well take it all."

"Why, Mr. Daley," quietly suggested Dave, "it appears to me you are forgetting something."

"What's that?"

"That treasure belongs to my father and myself."

Daley looked sheepish, then surly.

"If you should get hold of it what could you do with it?" pursued Dave. "You can't spend it on the Windjammers' Island. You can never get it away from there except in a stanch vessel, such as may not come along for years. I should think," added Dave, "after all the trouble you have seen grow out of the Hankers stealing what was not their own, you would take a new tack."

"How, a new tack?" demanded Daley, surlily surveying Dave from under his bushy, bent brows.

"Be square and honest. The Raven people have deceived you. I have a proposition to make you. Put this whole matter in my hands, promise to help me work it out as I think best, and I'll guarantee you two things."

"What are they?" demanded Daley.

"First, that I will soon locate the hiding-place of the treasure-which you never may."

"That's so," mumbled one of Daley's companions, "everything has been queered that we tried to do so far."

"Secondly," added Dave, "when that treasure is found, I promise, if you come in with me, to give each of you a liberal share of it."

CHAPTER XV

A PERILOUS CRUISE

The sailor Daley sat down quietly in the bow of the yawl, his face beaming.

"Do you mean that, Fearless?" he said.

"I certainly do," answered Dave.

"You want us to side with you?"

"I have said so, Mr. Daley, haven't I?" asked Dave pleasantly.

"Make it a bargain, Daley," advised one of his companions eagerly. "He's a smart lad, and his talk is square, although we have treated him low and shabby."

"Never mind that," said Dave lightly. "You were in bad company, that's all. Make it business, up and down. My father and I came here to get a fortune which we had rightfully inherited. The Hankers have tried to steal it. We shall get that fortune yet. Isn't it better for you people to be in on the winning side?"

"Fearless," said Daley, "there's my hand. It's a compact, is it?"

"True and faithful," answered Dave, and they shook hands all around. "Now let me tell you that the Swallow is in fine trim, is cruising around these waters somewhere. She is bound, of course, to land on the Windjammers' Island. Get these boats there if you know how to do it, and we'll soon get into some kind of action that is bound to bring us up against Captain Broadbeam and the others, who will be true friends to you if you'll only do the right thing."

Dave felt that he had gained a decided victory in making these men his allies. Without their help he could not reach land. They could guide him to the land camp of Captain Nesik. The four of them could resist attacks of the natives if they ran across them, where one might fail.

Dave reasoned that if the men changed their minds later and attempted any treachery, it would be at a time when he and his friends were prepared to meet and thwart it.

Dave had confidence in the belief that in some way he would find the Swallow or the Swallow would find him.

His previous stirring adventures, among the Windjammers and with the Raven crowd, had brought hardship and endurance that made him now hopeful and courageous and quick to see a way to meet a situation and conquer it.

In fact, Dave's career had made considerable of a man of him. It had taught him self-reliance, and he was pleased to notice how readily the three castaways recognized him as a leader.

They acted like new men under the spur of new hopes. They evidently believed in Dave. It was some time, however, before Daley would consent to forego his thirstings for revenge against Nesik and the Hankers.

"Don't you go for to spoil everything by thinking up a rumpus," advised one of the sailor's companions. "Young Fearless means what he says. Let's rest on that, say I, and follow his orders."

"I have none to give at present," said Dave. "When I do, I am sure we will work in harmony all right. Mr. Daley, you are the pilot. Can we reach the Windjammers' Island in any way?"

"I know the point of the compass all right," asserted Daley. "The course may be a little blind until this mist rises, but-to your oars, men, and strike due west. That way," and Daley indicated the direction. "Get aboard, Fearless. It's most comfortable in the stern."

"Shall we tow the smaller boat?" inquired the young diver.

"What's the use? We don't need it, and it would only hamper us. There you are, neat and tidy."

They cast the smaller boat adrift. Dave settled down comfortably in the stern of the larger yawl.

"My!" he soliloquized, "when I think of my forlorn chances when I went overboard from the Swallow last night and this comfort and security, I'm a very thankful boy."

Dave had not had a wink of sleep for over thirty-six hours. He began to doze. Daley, noticing this, ceased his chatter with his companions. Dave was soon fast asleep.

He roused up with a vivid start some hours later. He had slept so profoundly, owing to a natural weariness and exhaustion after his arduous experiences, that he had not even been disturbed by a howling tempest that had come up.

The mist had dispersed, and it was night. A furious gale was blowing, and the frail yawl was riding on high waves.

Daley had crawled along the boat. He was shaking Dave vigorously by the arm. At the same time, bringing his lips close to Dave's ear, he shouted loudly a word that aroused Dave like an electric shock:

"Land!"

"What-where?" cried Dave, starting up.

"Steady, mate," warned Daley, holding Dave back in the seat. "Get your peepers wide open and all your senses woke up. Drop the oars," he yelled to his companions, "they're only in the way. Let her swing. It's drift or drown now, sure."

Dave sat for a moment grasping the sides of the yawl, and realizing that they were being driven along at a fearful rate of speed. Daley and his companions, too, were holding on for life.

"You said land," Dave shouted, trying to raise his voice above the roar of the tempest.

"Yes," answered Daley. "Now then, when we top a wave, look sharp-there!"

Daley pointed, and Dave fixed his glance steadily in the direction indicated.

"I see nothing," he said as they went up, down, and up again. "What did you mean?"

"A light-there it is."

"I see it," cried Dave.

"It must be a fire alongshore somewhere, probably the Windjammers' Island," declared Daley.

Dave continued to look. He studied the light each time he was afforded an opportunity. This was only when they climbed some mighty wave, and only for a few seconds.

"You are wrong, Mr. Daley," said Dave finally.

"Wrong about what? It's a light, I tell you."

"Yes, but not a shore light."

"You don't know that."

"Yes, I do. It moves as we move, only more steadily. It is some vessel," declared Dave. "I wouldn't wonder if it was the Swallow."

The mere conjecture excited Daley greatly. The men worked at the oars again. This, however, proved lost energy. When it resulted in one of the oars being torn from the grasp of its holder, and cast adrift into the sea, Daley uttered a heart-rending groan.

One of his mates, however, suggested something-this was to use his coat as a kind of sail. He and the other oarsman attempted this.

"We're going in the direction of the light, sure," cried Daley jubilantly.

"We're going down!" shouted the man who had suggested the impromptu sail.

Dave saw that all was over. Whether the use of the sail hastened the situation, or the little craft would have been overturned anyway by the gigantic wind that suddenly struck it, he had no time to conjecture.

In an instant the yawl was raised by a mighty force. It flopped over flat, spilling out all hands.

Dave saw his companions hurled from his sight like disappearing phantoms. His hand was held by the wrist in a rope loop he had clung to for protection since waking up.

Dave went over with the boat, under with it, and was unable to disentangle his wrist. His arm seemed broken. He was whipped about in a frightful manner.

Twice his head struck the keel of the scudding yawl, twice he was submerged, choked and blinded.

A third contact with the yawl landed a hard blow right across the temple, and Dave Fearless lost consciousness.

CHAPTER XVI

LANDED

Dave must have gone through a fearful experience during the next hour. Its details he never knew. Familiar with the chances and accidents of the seafaring situation from childhood, however, when he opened his eyes again he could figure out how kind his natural element had been to him.

He lay on a sandy shore. When his senses first came back a positive thrill permeated his frame.

A joyful cry arose to his lips. It was irrepressible. He was bruised, battered, soaked through, but the realization that he had landed, that he once more rested on firm hard soil, overcame every sensation of discomfort and pain.

"Landed," murmured Dave, in great delight, and that was the only idea he could take into his confused mind for the moment.

He opened his eyes. It was clear starlight. He lay on a sandy beach. The waves lapped him to the knees. Beside him was the yawl, stove in at one side. He was still attached to it by the wrist held firmly in the rope loop.

The yawl had proved a loyal convoy. As the tempest swept it along, Dave must have been held at least a part of the time out of the water. This had saved his life. Perhaps, he thought, he might at times also have lain across the upturned keel of the yawl.

At all events he was saved. There was not a bone in his body that did not ache. His wrist was swollen greatly and the arm was numb to the shoulder.

"I'm badly battered," reflected Dave. "I must get my arm loose some way."

The youth groped in his pocket with his free hand. It was a laborious task getting into the soaked garment. When he got his pocket knife out, Dave had to open it with his teeth.

He managed to cut the rope that imprisoned him, and fell away from the yawl with a feeling of great relief. Then he lay on the ground flat on his back, and for some moments tried to think of nothing but absolute rest and comfort.

Dave struggled to an upright position finally. He was amazed at his weakness and helplessness. Twice his feet refused to hold him up, and he fell down. His injured arm was perfectly numb and flabby at his side.

"This won't do at all," he thought, arousing himself. "I'm awful thirsty, too. Well, I may be able to crawl."

Dave attempted to go up the beach. About a hundred feet away, through breaks in a belt of green trees, he could catch the sparkle of water running over the rocks.

The moon had come up during all these various efforts to get into action. Dave could see his way clearly. He made in the direction of the water.

After slowly and painfully progressing for perhaps a hundred feet Dave found that his blood had begun to circulate. He pulled himself to his feet by means of some high bushes he had reached by this time.

Each moment his control increased over the numbed joints and muscles.

"This is better," said he, with satisfaction, as after some stumbling steps, with the aid of a dead tree branch, he was able to limp upright though slowly.

Dave reached the water, a mere rill gushing down the shore bluff over some rocks. It was clear and sparkling, and he took a deep draught of the life-giving element that invigorated him greatly.

"Hungry," thought Dave next. "Thanks to Stoodles-good!"

Right at his side Dave discovered a bush full of pods. When on the Windjammers' Island with Stoodles, the latter had shown him this very bush. Upon it grew pods full of kernels that tasted like cocoa. Dave ate plentifully, though it was not a very satisfying meal.

"Now then," he spoke. "Oh, how could I have forgotten them!" he cried with sudden self-reproachfulness.

It was quite natural in his forlorn, confused condition that Dave should first of all have thought only of himself. Still, his deep anxiety, poignantly aroused now as he thought of Daley and the others who had been in the yawl with him, showed his heart to be in the right place.

He hurried down to the beach again, in his solicitude for his late companions forgetting how crippled he was, and had several falls.

"It's no use," said Dave sadly, after over an hour's search along the lonely shore. "They must have perished, Daley and the others."