He wanted to know about that wreck. His life was imperiled for a cause, but what cause he did not know. His mission in life, he had found out long ago, was to help others live more happily and profitably. If the cause were a good enough cause, he might cheerfully die for it. “Children,” the man had said, “many children.” Well, that was best of all: to help many children.
“Well,” Johnny grumbled through the tube, “why—don’t—you—tell?”
“Going—to—tell,” came to Johnny through the tube. Then the Professor told his story. There was a pause between every pair of words; the wail of the storm, the thunder of the engines, the roar of the ocean, made it necessary. Even so, he was forced to repeat several sentences over and over before Johnny caught them. It was aggravating, doubly so since any word might be the man’s last; might be the last Johnny ever listened to, as well. There was one word the man repeated ten times or more, and, at that, Johnny did not catch it. It was an important word, too, the most important word, the very keyword, but Johnny gave it up at last.
“Isn’t any use,” he muttered after the tenth time. “Some great treasure, but whether it’s gold or diamonds, or old ivory or frankincense, I’ll never be able to tell, if I ask him a thousand times.”
The stranger, it seemed, was a professor in a medical college; his brother, a medical missionary in one of those border countries that lie between China and Russia. During the war something became very scarce, but just what something Johnny could not make out. He, the Professor, wrote his brother about it. The something came from Russia—only place it could be obtained. There was fighting still in those regions where it was found, between the bolsheviki and their enemies. Children in the United States, it seemed, tens of thousands of them, would benefit if it were brought out from Russia. Johnny could not see how that could be. “Perhaps the mine belongs to an orphanage,” he decided, half in humor, half in earnest.
The Professor had written his missionary brother of the need. He had written that he thought that, for the sake of the children, the thing must be managed. It could be carried out, the treasure could. It would require a considerable investment, perhaps twenty thousand dollars. The Professor had sold his home, had raked and scraped, borrowed and begged. At last the money was sent to the brother.
Months of anxious waiting followed. Finally there came a cable from an obscure Chinese port. The missionary brother had the precious stuff and was boarding the “Men-Cheng,” a tramp steamer, manned half by Chinamen and half by white men. She bore a Chinese name but carried an American flag.
He had not trusted the officers and steward of her overmuch, so, instead of putting his treasure in their hands, he had chartered a two-berth stateroom and had carried it with him in four flat chests. Piling three of them on the lower berth, and sliding the other beneath, he had slept in the berth above.
That cable was the last ever heard from him. The steamer had been caught in a gale and driven upon the shore of a coral island, as Johnny already knew. The missionary brother did not appear with the rescued members of passengers and crew. All these survivors had been questioned, but none knew anything about what became of him. It seemed probable that he had come on deck in the storm and had been washed overboard.
And the treasure was there still. Beyond question, it was in that stateroom where he had stored it, since none but him knew of it.