“Pull up the sack!” was all Oscar could gasp, and as the men finished doing this task, to disclose the three prizes the amateur diver had drawn in the lottery, Jack and Ballyhoo shook hands together, while Oscar managed to regain enough breath to add: “And I believe there are more of the same kind still down there in the old hulk, only I don’t want the job of going after them. It was awful being in that slimy place, with all sorts of giant crabs, and strange sea creatures staring at me, and sliding past, wriggling as they went. But still I’m glad I had the experience.”
CHAPTER XV
WHEN MORNING CAME
The setting sun told them that evening was near at hand. Captain Shooks had determined to work through the whole night, using shifts so as to make the labor continuous; and he himself promised to share this duty with the two divers.
The sooner they exhausted the chances of finding more of the treasure the better. With the Dauntless so close at hand their operations might be brought to an abrupt termination at any time. Should Captain Badger become alarmed at not having received a report from his spies, and start out to investigate, of course the result would be the discovery of the float, and a windup of the work.
Jack, for one, was not sorry. He fancied that he had made about all the pictures possible in that particular field, but believed there were other submarine depths waiting to be explored, and made to live in motion pictures, for the education and enjoyment of untold millions of patrons of the “movies.”
This being the case, Jack, as a true artist, eagerly awaited the time when they should start out to seek those new fields of adventure. With him the finding of the long lost treasures of the sea took second place; of far more importance was the discovery of those rare curiosities that had, ever since the world began, been hidden from the eyes of mortal man, but were now about to be revealed in all their startling grandeur.
Oscar and the skipper talked matters over late into the night, when the others had retired to their bunks. The work was still going on, lanterns being used on the float to show the men how to carry on their operations. By the dim light of these the diver was sent down below, and the pump kept laboring steadily so as to give him a plentiful supply of air.
It made a weird scene, and one Oscar would never forget. Indeed so fascinating had it become to the boy that it was midnight before he could tear himself away from the society of the captain, and seek his own bunk. There he dreamed of untold treasures coming up from ocean depths, accompanied by all manner of terrible monsters fashioned after the manner of Chinese dragons, and those gigantic lizards of prehistoric days, such as we see now and then fancifully sketched in publications, or discover arranged in museums of fossil remains.
It had been arranged upon the conclusion of their work in this particular spot at Coco Key, to seek still another Caribbean Sea island, where their map told of a more modern sinking of a vessel believed to carry much specie in its safe. After that they could take their choice of numerous contemplated enterprises, even passing through the Panama Canal, and continuing their search in the blue waters of the Pacific Ocean.
Jack had been a strenuous backer of this last suggestion. Of course he wanted to have a chance to capture a series of pictures dealing with the famous waterway connecting the two oceans, and which would add more or less spice and variety to his work.