“Do you suppose he’ll keep on after us, or start for the island?” asked Jack.
“Oh! he must be wondering why he didn’t get any report from that gang of spies he left on Coco Key,” explained the captain, grinning amiably, “and so the first thing he’ll be apt to do will be to take a run in there.”
“Then what will happen, sir?” continued Jack.
“Why, when he hears from those late prisoners of ours what took place, and how they’ve been kept aboard our craft while we worked all night long raising some of those grand gold bricks they saw us handling, I reckon nothing will do Badger but that his divers must go down and take a look around. That business will delay him a day or two, during which time we can be making a port, and laying aboard another supply of the stuff necessary for our work.”
“I wonder if that’s the last we’ll be apt to see of the Dauntless?” remarked Ballyhoo Jones, as they looked back over the foamy wake of the submarine, and saw the other craft still heading for the island.
Oscar shook his head in the negative.
“I could wish it might be,” he went on to say, the skipper’s having ducked down to see about something in connection with the engines that did not exactly please him; “but Captain Shooks seemed to figure that we’ll be troubled off and on during our entire cruise by those fellows.”
“Then one thing is plain,” asserted Jack; “they’ve managed to get hold of a duplicate of our itinerary in some way, and know the different places we mean to visit, even if ignorant of the clues we have by which we hope to run onto the wrecks. On this account they are helpless beyond a certain point, and can only expect to catch us at work, and run us off, so as to seize the prize themselves.”
“Well, here’s hoping they’ll have a warm session doing that same,” jeered Ballyhoo. “And if ever it comes to a scrap, believe me, that little beaut of a quick-firer over yonder is ready to give a good account of itself. Captain Shooks has been through the mill too often to knuckle down to such a pirate as that Badger,” and as he pronounced the name he snapped his fingers blithely, as though holding the notorious adventurer in contempt.
Shortly afterwards they saw the steam yacht turn the end of the island, when, for the first time, those aboard doubtless discovered that suggestive float, with their trio of men upon the same. The boys pictured the scene that would follow, and how, inspired by the fairy tales these worthies could spin, of the wonderful ingots they had seen hauled to the surface from the wreck, Badger would hasten to send his divers down, in the hopes of having frightened the others away before the mine was wholly exhausted.