And this was the story he had told: Following his escape from the Navy Yard at Boston after the Cape May affair he had shipped aboard a coastwise trader bound that same day for Rio Janeiro. Going down the coast he had ingratiated himself in the favor of members of the crew by rescuing one of their number who had gone overboard in a terrific midsummer storm. The crew, most of them Latin-Americans, had acclaimed Weddigen their hero, and he at once assumed leadership among them. One night he had confided to some of them the story of the Dominion and the gold bullion that still remained to be taken from her hold. In awe and in envy they had listened to the story. Their own greed aroused, they had proved willing converts to a plan to fit out an expedition and go after the treasure.
On the day that the Brazilian merchantman had touched at Vera Cruz for fresh supplies the little band under Weddigen deserted their ship and took refuge in the Mexican city. From there they had worked their way into the Tampico oil field region and one night stole the handsome new twin-screw auxiliary Monterey, the property of a wealthy American oil magnate. Joined by other confederates whom they had recruited among Mexican refugees and bandits, the little party of adventurers had worked their way out of the Tampico River into the Gulf of Mexico, and thence up the Atlantic coast to the little cove where the Dominion had run aground, and where Weddigen had seen enough while employed by the Bridgeford Salvage Company to satisfy him that the desperate effort in quest of the hidden treasure would be well worth the effort, provided he was successful. From a point near the scene of operations the crafty skipper of the Monterey had sent several of his crew ashore in a powerful launch to bargain in a New England seafaring town for a diver's modern outfit.
Uninterrupted in their quiet retreat, the German and his Latin-American crew had worked steadily in the reclamation of the gold bullion in the hulk of the Dominion. Weddigen had found among his crew one who had had experience as a diver in the West Indies, and they had worked in relays. Just when they had completed their enormous haul, on the very evening that the Jules Verne had arrived, the pirates had completed rifling the treasure ship. They had expected to sail the following morning early for a South American port, there to make away with their loot and dispose of their stolen ship. Weddigen had seen the Jules Verne from his vantage point within the cove long before Captain Austin and his men knew of the presence of another craft at the old anchorage. But he had decided to wait until after midnight and make a run for it in the darkness. He had refused to answer the challenge of Captain Austin, although he recognized the voice of that official, hoping against hope he might get away unrecognized.
Finally, when pressed for an explanation as to why he had foolishly gone aboard the Jules Verne in the early morning hours and thus risked his chances of getting away at all by putting himself in the way of capture, Weddigen brazenly admitted he carried a powerful bomb with which he hoped to sink the salvage ship and her crew before they could sound an alarm. But in this he had been thwarted just as he was ready to set the bomb and leave the Jules Verne. Loudly the pirate chief had cursed the war dog Fismes and the two Brighton youths who, he said, had been his nemeses from the very first day he had met them.
"Luckily for the United States Government and all parties concerned with the ownership of this gold bullion, there are such brave youths as Mr. Thacker and Mr. Monaghan," the revenue cutter captain told him.
Thus had been accomplished the undoing of Carl Weddigen. Now he was headed for prison and a trial where he would have to answer for all his crimes. The gold bullion from the Dominion had been transferred from the Monterey to the Jules Verne. Taking the Monterey in tow, the Marblehead left on the afternoon of the second day for Boston, while the Jules Verne put back to Bridgeford.
On the deck of the latter, as the Marblehead drew away from the cove in Martha's Vineyard, stood two stalwart youths who had played a stirring part in the drama that had been staged. By their side sat a lean hound with silken ears well set up and a silver-plated collar that reflected the afternoon sun with brilliant shafts of light.
"Well, how do you like Treasure Cove, old pal?" asked Dick of his chum. Treasure Cove was the name they had dubbed the inlet and bar where the Dominion had gone ashore during war days.
"Fine, indeed," laughed Jay. "Even though I nearly lost my life here earlier in the summer."