"So the smugglers adopted a bold plan. They sent a message in cipher, by the ship's wireless, when two or three days outside of Boston, to their confederates, to have a boat waiting for them off this coast. That was done, and one dark night the smugglers tossed overboard the box with the diamonds concealed in the false bottom. It was fixed in a cork arrangement, so it would float. This box was picked up, but before the confederates could make away with it something happened. There was a quarrel among the smugglers, I believe, and one gang hurried off and buried the box here in the sand.
"You girls came along just as that had been done, and though some of the men wished to come back and take away the booty, others would not permit this, thinking no chance comer would find it."
"Those were the men we saw leaving in the boat," said Mollie.
"Yes," assented Will.
"And we did find the diamonds!" cried Grace.
"Yes, and that made all the trouble—for the smugglers," went on Will. "Of course they soon learned that the box was gone, and they guessed you girls had taken it. Then they tried to get it back."
"Those men in the cellar?" asked Betty.
"Were part of the gang," declared Will. "And I learned that they found the diamonds were in the cellar because a tramp hanging around for food overheard us taking about them. He wasn't in with the smugglers then, but later he joined them, giving this information.
"But the plan to get the diamonds from the cellar failed, and they had to do something else. That old woman and her fisherman husband were delegated to capture one or more of you girls, and force you either to tell where the diamonds were, or else they were going to hold you as a ransom for them."
"How terrible!" cried Grace.