For answer, Andy could only touch the agitated man sympathetically on his knee and turn away. It seemed to satisfy the colored man, and from that moment, ashamed of his idle curiosity, Andy said no more.
But as he watched the stolid face of the black Hercules, his imagination carried him far from Goat Creek. The ignorant negro became the center of a wild romance. What did it mean? A fugitive from justice carried away from Nassau by an Englishman; kept in his service for a time and then sent with two others to steal a big pink pearl; two of the men disappear, one of them sees the fetich jewel big as a man’s thumb and pink “like a conch,” a priceless treasure; then the cruel wounds that must have meant death to any but a man like Ba.
Little wonder that Andy had small thought for anything else that morning. Landing at his uncle’s place, he sent Ba to the grove for the fruit, then sat a long time trying to compose himself. Try as he might, to put the weird tale out of his mind, he could not. Finally he entered the house and feverishly sought through the bookshelves until he found an atlas.
After a long search he closed the book with a sigh of relief. He could not find Timbado Key.
“I’m glad of it,” he admitted to himself. “It may be only a crazy tale of Ba’s, but I’ve had enough. Back to the aeroplane for me.”
The real thing that had brought Andy to his uncle’s place that day was to examine a gasoline barrel which stood behind the shop. The oil used in all their flights so far had been secured in Melbourne, Captain Anderson having ordered it by telephone before consulting the boy.
Andy was overjoyed to find the barrel at least half full. There were no vessels suitable for carrying any of it back, but there were wood-encased tins at Captain Anderson’s, and, satisfied with his discovery, the boy made ready to depart. Before he did so, he made a careful and significant examination of the open space on the gentle incline in front of the house, nodded his head approvingly, and, locking the house again, entered the boat.
On the way home the boy was moodily silent, a strange caprice for him. But he had suddenly reached a point where he was disturbed by doubts. He had been in Florida two weeks, but seemed to have lived months in his unexpected and sudden experience, and he was now debating whether it was to end as suddenly in nothing but a boyish fancy or to be the turning point in his young life.
He was positive that never again might such a glorious opportunity present itself to him to make a name for himself. His few days with Roy Osborne had fired him with an ambition to achieve something out of the ordinary. The question was—should he give his parents the opportunity to crush his ambitions (and he knew he would never disobey their instructions), or should he win their later approval by carrying out his secret plan without their knowledge?
With scarcely a word to Ba, Andy lay in the stern of the boat and thought. But the more he thought, the further away seemed the solution of his problem. Still lost in doubt, the Red Bird touched Captain Anderson’s pier.