It was almost half an hour later that Cliff, Tom and Nicky, seated in the tender, with a few days’ supply of canned foods in her bottom, saw the anchor of El Libertad come up, heard the pulsing throb of her single, four-cylinder speed motor, and watched her swing in a graceful curve into the wide waters of the Gulf and lay a course Southward.
“There she goes,” said Cliff morosely. “Now we’d better lay to, on some island for the night, and then start rowing for civilization.”
“I half wonder if they found the treasure, after all,” said Tom, “and just acted the way they did to ‘steer us off’ and wait till we get away.”
“No,” said Nicky.
“No?——”
“No. At least, if they did, I’ll bet the treasure was moved up to a new place.”
“What do you mean?” demanded Cliff sharply.
“You see,” said Nicky, “I did tell the truth—the whole thing and nothing else except the truth. But——”
He grinned at his chums in the dull light. “I saw your signals, even though I would have done what I did without them.”
If they had suddenly been touched by a “live” electric wire the other two could not have jumped more, or assumed more interested and amazed expressions.