CHAPTER XII.
A MENACE OF OLD OCEAN.
"Gone!" exclaimed Joe Hartley, in a hollow voice.
"Ker-ker-ker-clean ger-ger-gone!" stuttered Ding-dong Bell.
"The scoundrels," ground out Captain Akers through clinched teeth.
All had some exclamation of anger or dismay to contribute. Such a completely dumfounded ship's company was never afloat on the Pacific, surely.
"I see it all now," burst out Nat suddenly, "Morello and Dayton could not trust even their own men, so they removed the sapphires from the chest and concealed them elsewhere, all the time leaving the chest in plain view so as to create the impression that all was open and above board. Oh, the rascals! They cannot even be fair and square with their own associates."
The boy stopped short. He was overcome with chagrin at the thought that he had risked liberty and life for the sake of an utterly worthless chest.
For some time they could think or talk of nothing else. It was Captain Akers, who, with his good, solid common sense as usual to the fore, brought them up with a round turn.
"No use crying over what can't be helped, boys," he said briskly. "The question now is—what are we to do?"
"What indeed," repeated Joe, in a sadly puzzled tone.
Nat did not speak. Half crazy with mortification over the way in which he had been fooled he stood gazing out over the trackless void of the sunny Pacific.
"Well, my suggestion is this," said Captain Akers: "Let's take after the rascals."
"Pursue them!"
The exclamation came from Nat, and, although it chimed in well enough with his wishes just then, somehow the blunt way in which the daring proposal had been made had startled him.
"That's the idea," rejoined Captain Akers, "we know where the beggars are bound for. Captain Nelsen and myself are both good navigators. We have plenty of gasolene on board, and, anyhow, if the worst comes to the worst, the 'Nomad' can proceed under sail. Come, what do you say?"
A long discussion followed, for what they were about to consider was not a project to be lightly rushed into. Perhaps if they had not been so wrought up over the discovery that the chest was empty, they would never have entertained the idea for an instant. But, in their then frame of mind, to overtake the rascals of Morello's band and deliver them over to justice was their chief and burning desire. It was Captain Nelsen then who clinched the argument by saying:
"Dere iss a French court of law, undt an American consul, in der Marquesas. Vee needt nodt take der madder into our own handts. Ledt us follow dose no-gooters oop undt ven vee logade dem vee can communicade mit der authorisers. Vee both have haf a lodt to gain. I vant my stolen schooner back. In yust der same vay you vant your sapphiras."
"Yy-y-you are n-n-n-no An-an-an-ananias when you say that," struck in Ding-dong. "We certainly do want our sapphiras."
And so the matter was decided. It was then high noon and the two captains both "shot the sun" with Captain Akers' instruments and then the latter went to the cabin to work out their observations on the chart and lay a course for Odahmi. In the meantime, Sam Hinckley was ordered below to the engines and the "Nomad" was sent ahead on a direct westerly course till a proper one could be laid out.
Before starting, however, the boat, which had played such a prominent part in the escape of Nat and Captain Nelsen, was cut loose and allowed to go adrift. The "Nomad" carried a boat of her own, on davits, besides two collapsible ones, so that the little craft would have been of no use to her company.
With Joe at the wheel, and Ding-dong in the galley cooking up a hasty dinner, the start was made. But neither Nat nor Captain Nelsen heard the "go-ahead" bell ring, for they both, thoroughly exhausted by recent events, were sound asleep on two of the Pullman berths.
Some half an hour later Captain Akers had completed his final calculations and came on deck with instructions for the man at the wheel. As it so turned out, the course on which they had been sailing was not so very much out of the way of the corrected one, so that, after all, they had not lost much headway.
"At this rate, with decent luck, we ought to overhaul that schooner of yours before many days have passed," observed Captain Akers to Captain Nelsen that evening when they were all out on the deck after supper, enjoying the cool breeze that swept toward them from the westward.
"In that case what will we do?" wondered Nat; "board them and give them a fight?"
Captain Akers laughed.
"I'd like to, just as well as you boys would," he said; "but I don't know whether it would be a wise plan. No, my idea, if you don't mind hearing the suggestion of an old sailor, would be to reach the islands first and head the schooner off. In that case we can have a French gunboat—for the islands belong to the French—or, at least, some sort of a government craft on hand to give the rascals the welcome they deserve when they arrive."
"I ker-ker-can suggest a g-g-g-g-good—Phwit!—bit of jewelry for Colonel Morello if you wish to make him a gift when we meet again."
The remark came from Ding-dong whose trick it was at the wheel.
"Well?" asked Joe.
"A p-p-p-p-p-ppair of ster-ster-steel bub-bub-bracelets," rejoined Ding-dong in such a droll voice that they all had to laugh.
"Well, this has been a scorching day and no mistake," observed Captain Akers, when the laugh had subsided; "almost too sultry for these latitudes at this time of year. I hope we are not in for a spell of more bad weather. The last time I looked at the barometer it puzzled me by the way it was acting."
"How do you mean?" inquired Nat.
"Why, from my experience at sea I should say that it betokened the near presence of some remarkable phenomenon, such as frequently occur on the Pacific."
"There is a funny kind of feeling in the air for a fact," said Nat.
It had suddenly fallen a dead flat calm, and the "jiggle" of the "Nomad's" steadily working propeller was the only bit of motion observable on the unrippled ocean.
Captain Nelsen said nothing, but contented himself with gazing over toward the western horizon, where the sun was setting in a blaze of purple and gold magnificence.
"I dond't like der look of dot sunset," he said presently; "it looks to me like——"
"Why, what's that thing away off there?" cried Joe, suddenly pointing toward the sunset.
They all looked in the direction he indicated and could make out plainly enough, against the glowing panorama, a queer, waving pillar of darkness. It looked like a long, thin cloud set on end.
As they gazed at it, it waved tremulously, and beyond the shadow of a doubt it grew larger.
"It looks like one of those dust devils we see at home, only a hundred times as large," said Joe.
Captain Akers, whose face had suddenly grown very grave, spoke up.
"That's just what it is, Joe," he said; "a huge dust devil. That thing yonder is a waterspout. It's coming this way. I hope it does not strike us or——"
He paused ominously.
"Or what?" asked Joe curiously.
"Or we may be in grave danger," concluded Captain Akers.
They all looked somewhat alarmed. Nat had read about waterspouts in the geography books, but he had never been at close quarters with the strange columns of water stretching from sea to sky, and engulfing all that they encounter.
"Look! Look!" cried Joe suddenly. "There are more of them!”
"Good gracious, so there are," exclaimed Captain Akers, gazing anxiously to the westward.
Coming toward them, at a seemingly terrific rate, and spinning and dancing in a sort of gigantic witches' dance, were a dozen or more of the writhing, twisting water pillars.
A moaning sound filled the air, and it began to grow very dark suddenly.
Against the gathering curtain of blackness the ghastly forms of the huge waterspouts stood out menacingly.
If it had not been for their constant sinuous, snaky, undulating movements they might have been mistaken for the immense marble columns upholding the roof of a huge cathedral.
But these columns upheld the canopy of the sky, and found their nether resting place on the Pacific Ocean.
The boys' faces gleamed whitely in the heavy dusk that had fallen as the witches' dance of the waterspouts grew closer. They could now see the waves boiling at their feet as the spouts sucked the water up into the sky. Would they manage to escape the waterspouts, or would the "Nomad" be trapped in their path?
Anxiously as they hung on the answer to the question, it was impossible of solution just then. But one thing was certain, not one of the party on board the motor cruiser had ever been in a situation of graver danger.