“Two bells,” exclaimed Hal. “Why, it’s long after dinner time! Come on, fellows; something calls me!”
So they tumbled back into the Corsair and returned to the island for their last dinner there. By three o’clock everything was bundled aboard the sloop or the launch and they said good-bye to Nobody’s Island.
“We had a mighty good time there,” reflected Bee. “It wasn’t what you’d call a fancy treasure island, but it was a good plain treasure island. Something sort of tells me I’ll be back there some day, fellows.”
“If you are I’ll see that you don’t have a shovel with you!” muttered Hal as he emptied the last drop of oil in the oil-can where it would do the least possible good. Then the breeze caught the patched, gray mainsail of the Crystal Spring and the three boats rounded The Clinker and Nobody’s Island was lost to sight.
Three weeks later, almost to an hour, the boys again sat in the cockpit of the Crystal Spring. But what a different Crystal Spring it was! Amidship, an engine, gay in black enamel and brass, hummed and purred and clicked. The mast had been freshly scraped and varnished, the deck looked like new, the hull glistened like a raven’s wing and an immaculate white mainsail lay furled along the boom under a creamy canvas cover. No, you’d hardly have recognized the old sloop. There was even a new pump, and instead of having to operate it by hand Jack need merely uncouple the propeller shaft by the move of a lever, start the engine and the pump would throw such a stream as would fill a tank in almost no time!
Bee was returning home on the morrow and this meeting was in the nature of a farewell gathering, although Jack was to accompany the boys back to dinner later. The Crystal Spring, lazing along at three or four miles an hour, was passing the entrance of the canal at the end of the harbor when Jack suddenly moved the helm over and, reaching forward, pulled the throttle wider.
“What is it?” asked Hal.
Jack pointed to where, a mile away, the snub-nosed lighthouse tender was just moving into sight around the end of the breakwater.