“I’ll eat ‘em without sass, by ginger!” exploded the mariner. “Boys, if them ain’t ‘gems of purest ray serene,’ as the poet says, you may call me a double, doll-goshed, Sauerkrauter!”
“Rather than call you any such names,” laughed Mr. Chadwick, “we’ll assume that they are veritable diamonds. Tom, congratulations; you’re a millionaire.”
“You mean we’re millionaires—or at any rate thousandaires,” retorted Tom. “You don’t suppose I’m going to hog them all, do you?”
“Vell, for my pardt, if I can findt idt a Megatherium, I vouldn’t exchange him for a bucketful of diamonts,” declared the professor.
“Well, at any rate, the stones will do us no good till we can return to civilization,” said Mr. Chadwick, decisively. “They’re of not so much good here as a tin of corned beef. And so, gentlemen, if you are ready we may as well be pressing on.”
“Suits me,” declared the captain, “but I’d suggest that one of us takes care of them gems. Mr. Chadwick, you take ‘em. If that boy keeps ‘em, he’ll be giving ‘em to an anaconda or something before we get through.”
“I guess you can take better care of them than I can at that, uncle,” said Tom, willingly handing over the bag to Mr. Chadwick, “although I don’t think there’s any chance of my getting mixed up with any more big snakes. I’ll keep too bright a lookout in future for that to happen.”
Mr. Chadwick placed the gems in a pocketed belt that he wore under his other garments and which he used for the safekeeping of his money and other valuables.
As the flying auto shot up from the ground and continued on its westerly course, there arose above the steady drone of the engine an odd, screaming sort of sound. At first the boys thought it proceeded from some defective bit of machinery or some part of the motor that was out of order. It was Dick’s sharp ears that traced the sound to its true source.
“It’s the wind rushing into old Billikin’s mouth,” he exclaimed.