“It looks mighty like it,” came the steady and confident reply, “for that object we can glimpse there in the midst of the thick growth has all the earmarks of an old hulk that’s been lying at the bottom of the sea for scores and scores of years!”
CHAPTER IX
THE DIVER AT WORK
Shortly afterwards the captain came along, and they seized upon him. He was looking anything but downcast, and in reply to the flood of eager questions with which the Camera Boys deluged him imparted the information that to the best of his belief they had actually run into the object of their search.
He also told them that it was his intention to stand by the hulk until morning, and then get busy carrying out the plans that had long ago been arranged.
Of course it would not be necessary to remain below during the night, so he was about to give the signal to the engineer and the man at the wheel to rise to the surface; only strict orders were being passed around that the utmost silence must be enforced; all lights, too, were forbidden.
After the skipper had gone on the boys talked it over again.
“Guess he hasn’t forgotten that light on the Key,” remarked Ballyhoo.
“More than likely,” added Jack, “he’s got that sly adventurer, Captain Badger, on his mind. He knows that individual has played many a desperate game, and also how he’s said to be the most tricky subject that ever led an expedition through a blockade.”
“Suppose then that we have come on the old hulk,” Ballyhoo continued, seeking further information, since he was not quite sure in his mind about certain things, “what would be the programme, do you think, Oscar?”
“Oh! that’s all been cut and dried this long while,” he was told. “Of course we would mark the spot where the wreck lies in deep water, so we could find it again, if for any reason we had to cut and run—for instance, if we happened to see that other boat coming along, Oscar.”