CHAPTER XVIII
THE MASTER CROOK
One thing Perk noticed with more or less satisfaction as they drew closer to the surface of the water was the fact that quite a stiff breeze seemed to be blowing out of the north. The waves were running up along the shore with considerable vigor and noise while the dead leaves hanging from the palmetto trees fringing the bank above the meagre beach kept up a loud rustling, such as would effectually drown any ordinary splash made by the contact of their pontoons with the surface of the lake.
Conditions could hardly have been more favorable for an undetected landing–the time was late, so that it hardly seemed as though any one would be abroad, the moon kept dodging behind successive clumps of dark clouds that had swept up from the southwest and everything seemed to be arranged just as Jack would have wished.
Perk had received instructions from his mate to keep on the watch for certain landmarks that would serve to tell them they were not far distant from their intended location. When in due time he made out the wooded point that jutted out so commandingly from the mainland and had communicated that fact to the pilot, Jack turned the nose of his craft sharply downward, proving that the decisive moment was at hand.
Noted for his ability to carry through a delicate landing, Jack certainly never did a prettier drop into a body of water, fresh or salt, with less disturbance than on this momentous occasion, and they were soon riding like a wild duck, just within sight of the shore.
There were no signs of anything stirring along the waterfront, Perk observed, and yet if his suspicions were correct, there must have been considerable activity around that same spot, with a ship coming in laden with stupefied Chinamen, terrified by making such a trip from Cuba or some Mexican port in a “flying devil” that could soar up among the very clouds and span the widest of angry seas–perhaps on the other hand the incoming aircraft would bring a cargo of precious cases, each almost worth its weight in silver or maybe the skipper would carry a small packet in his pocket that might contain a duke’s ransom in diamonds that would never pay custom duties to the Government.
No wonder then Perk was thrilled to the core with the sense of mystery that brooded over this most peculiar locality–to him it already assumed a condition bordering on some of those miraculous things he could remember once reading in his boyhood’s favorite book “The Arabian Night’s Entertainment,” the glamour of which had never entirely left him.
But already Jack was casting about, as though eager to find some place of concealment where they could stow the ship away and so prevent prying eyes from making a disastrous discovery–disastrous at least to those plans upon which Jack was depending for the successful outcome of his dangerous mission.
“We’ve got to taxi up the shore a mile or so,” he was telling Perk in the softest manner possible, although the noise made by the rolling waves and the clashing dead palmetto leaves dangling from the lofty crowns of the numerous trees would have deadened voices raised even to their natural pitch.