“A crazy idea,” answered his host, with a laugh. “Please forget it.”
“I can’t,” said the boy decisively. “If you have the slightest reason to have me stay here awhile, I know it isn’t a crazy idea. Anyway, I won’t consent to taking you away from your business on an hour’s notice and unless it is convenient for you to go.”
The man shrugged his shoulders.
“Coming or going is nothing to me,” he replied. “I am here not because I am needed—my black overseer can be trusted with my business. But there are strange things in these faraway keys. For a time you and your flying machine set me thinking. I’ve dismissed the idea—”
“I haven’t,” interrupted Andy. “Whatever it was, if the Pelican was a part of it, she’s goin’ to stand there until you tell me what you had in mind.”
The white-costumed man looked at the boy with a quizzical smile, appeared to be about to speak, and then only shook his head. He and the boy were yet standing by the ghostly planes of the aeroplane, on which the Englishman’s hand rested as if the machine meant much to him.
“It’s about Timbado Key, isn’t it?” suggested Andy, at last.
“Yes,” retorted Captain Bassett, startled. “But how—Oh, yes, I remember: I told you it had a tragic story. You’re a good guesser,” he concluded, smiling again.
“I’m not guessing now,” went on the boy impulsively, and unable longer to restrain himself. “I know about Timbado and about Cajou.”
The man came toward him, a look of surprise on his face.