The old darky revived before he was fairly drawn up, and the fact that he was no longer in any danger caused him to forget his injuries in the joyful knowledge.
“How did you get here so soon?” Jenkins asked, after the captain had welcomed the boys.
“We fell in with a trading schooner, and came directly back, for somehow I had an idea that you might be in trouble. But where are the rest of the party?”
Gil told in the fewest words possible of what had happened, and showed the diamonds in proof, Jenkins adding to the story:
“They’re hangin’ ’round here somewhere, an’ all I ask is the chance to have it out with them before we leave.”
“You shall have the opportunity, if we fall in with them; but I don’t propose to stay here any longer than is absolutely necessary. After you have had something to eat we’ll go on board the schooner, and read the remainder of the story.”
Gil insisted on releasing the prisoners before starting for the beach, and the poor wretches manifested the greatest surprise at being allowed to go free when they had fully expected to be killed. They stopped not on the order of their going; but rushed through the tunnel regardless of the smoke, and a few seconds later their outcries told that they had fallen into the underground chamber for the second time.
“Let them alone,” Jenkins said, with a laugh. “I’ll guarantee they manage to get out after we leave, an’ it won’t do ’em any harm to flounder ’round a little while.”
Captain Mansfield was in too much of a hurry to allow the rescued party to linger very long near the scene of their misadventures; but hurried them away after the broken casket had been brought from the shaft, much to the delight of Andy, who said, gleefully, as he clutched firmly the mysterious “something” beneath his shirt:
“De cham hab done gone worked hissef out at las’ jes’ as I knowed it would; but dem debbils don’ ketch dis yere nigger ergin, kase I’se gwine ter stick mighty clus to de vessel arter dis.”