“Cheer up, Ben,” he said heartily, “and by the way you might just cast your eye over this and see if it looks familiar.”
As he spoke he dipped a hand into his breast pocket and produced a folded paper. Ben, with a mystified expression, took it and opened the thing up. The next instant it almost fell from his hands.
“Why!—why, by the glittering Pole Star!” he choked out, “it’s the plan itself!”
“Not exactly,” laughed Harry, “but I think it’s a pretty good copy. You see I always liked drawing and that sort of thing, so when you showed me that plan I memorized it, and when I got a chance I sketched out this copy in case anything happened to the original. I think it’s good enough to take a chance on.”
“Good enough!” roared Ben, “why, lad, it’s the plan itself. Now, then, if we don’t beat Master Duval to the Belle of New Orleans call me a double-decked, lee-scuppered sea cook!”
CHAPTER XV.—WHAT HAPPENED ASHORE.
As Ben had surmised, Duval had waited till the boys and their friends were sound asleep, and had then, in accordance with a plan he had thought of the instant he set eyes on his kind-hearted friend, sneaked out of his bunk and, tip-toeing softly to Ben’s clothes, located the wallet and with small trouble or loss of time abstracted the plan of the lost wreck. During the evening the ingrate had heard a description of the island given to Mr. Sterrett by Dr. Perkins, so that after taking the plan he left the hut and made for the beach by the path through the woods.
Shoving off the skiff, he had taken up the oars and started rowing as fast as he could for the mainland. But what with the darkness and his unfamiliarity with that part of the coast, he had failed to land in the cove adjoining the fisher village of Motthaven, and had beached his craft a considerable distance to the south of the place. It was just growing light when the bow of the skiff grated on the sand, and Duval hastily scrambled out and started off. His object was to find a railroad station and travel as far as his scant supply of money would take him from the vicinity of Brig Island.
After that his plans were still vague; but he had an indefinite idea of getting to New York or some large town, and interesting anybody with capital to finance an expedition for the recovery of the gold dust chest and the bag of black pearls that lay at the bottom of the Black Bayou amid the moldering timbers of the lost steamer. The utter depravity and black-heartedness of this plan, and his base ingratitude to the man who had aided him in every way, did not strike him. Instead, there was but one over-mastering thought in his mind, and that was to secure whatever treasure might be in the wreck as quickly as possible, and then vanish from America for some foreign country with his ill-gotten wealth.
Busy with such thoughts as these, he hastened up the beach in the gray of the dawn, and finding a rough sort of path leading up the low cliff that overhung the beach, he started to ascend it. He had not gone more than a few paces, however, before he saw, buried back in some trees, a rough-looking hut.