“Oh ho! Oh ho!” he cackled; “what you want wid zee Belle of New Orleans, eh? What you want weez her?”
Ben hesitated, and before he could reply the other burst into another weird cackling laugh, and held up a small object.
“You want zee pearl, zee gold, hey? Zey all gone! See, I have one. Zee men who come here two day ago give it me for help zem. Adieu!”
Before anybody on the Sea Eagle could utter a word the fellow gave a deft stroke of his paddle and his canoe shot off into the trackless paths of the swamps.
“Well, what under the sun!” burst out Frank, while Pudge weakly ejaculated:
“Centipedes and spongecakes!”
“It’s all clear enough,” exclaimed Ben bitterly. “Those ruffians got ahead of us. That ’Cadian took them to the scene of the wreck and they’ve rifled it.”
“That was undoubtedly a black pearl he held up,” said Dr. Perkins in a faint voice. “I suppose they gave him that for guiding them here.”
The sudden shriek of a high-crested kingfisher made them look up suddenly. The bird was darting from tree to tree on an island at a little distance. Suddenly something that lay at the foot of a tree caught Ben’s sharp eyes.
“What’s that? That glittering thing yonder?” he exclaimed, pointing.