“I see,” nodded Nelse, apparently better pleased than before. “I thought it mought—” his word for “might”—“mought be you was after some treasure, seeing what the craft is named.”
Nicky opened his mouth, but Cliff kicked his shin gently and Nicky subsided. But Nelse had caught his expression.
“I reckon it mought be your aim to git some if it was right handy though, hey?” he grinned. Pompey, in the rowboat, holding to a rail alongside the cockpit, guffawed, “Sho’ nuff!” he chuckled. “White boys sho’ nuff do dat!”
“Would you blame us?” Cliff demanded with a grin.
“’Course not,” Nelse answered. “Hits right natural. And you’re ’most what mought be said to be in the pirates’ an’ wreckers’ haunts, too. Not fur away to what they call Black Caesar’s Creek—they do say that old pirate was a terror. An’ all around—just beyond, is a regular ships’ graveyard—why you kin right near see ribs and rudder posts, an’ bits of keel sticking up, from here. Not quite, but you near-’bout kin see ’em. They’s just away yonder.” He gestured in the general direction of the lower neck of Biscayne Bay and the Fowney Rocks light.
“Tell us,” said Nicky, before Cliff could warn him again, “is that called Crocodile Key?” He indicated the land at their bow.
Nelse started. He almost dropped his pipe. Then he straightened. Nicky felt eyes that were suddenly very piercing, boring at him in the deepening twilight.
“How come you ast that?” demanded Nelse.
Mr. Neale took things in hand before Nicky could commit himself further.
“Somebody told them there was such a place nearby, and I had a notion I’d try for a croc’ if that is so,” he declared.