“That was bad,” Nicky declared. “They’d suspect you weren’t very good makers of magic.”
“But wait!” Bill urged, and motioned to Tom.
“It wasn’t anything I did,” Tom demurred. “It was just having forgotten that I fixed Bill’s cigar lighter—and when we needed it we had it. I pulled it out and flicked it and it lit!”
“Magic!” chuckled Jack.
“And did it surprise them?” demanded Bill, knowing that he answered himself.
“They were as excited as babies with new pinwheels,” Tom said. “The chief beckoned to me and I had to go over and light the thing a half a hundred times, and then let him try—and of course he couldn’t!”
“Tom’s stock went up about two million points!” grinned Jack.
“But it did help us,” Tom became serious. “That is—it helped us to learn what we were wondering about—why everybody runs from us on the other islands. But it makes our problem that much harder, too, at the same time!”
“How can that be?” demanded Nicky.
“This way,” Tom explained, despondently. “The chief called a man who speaks some Spanish and had him tell us. Two white men have come here already, a few days ago. I think it was Henry Morgan and Mort Beecher. They said they were great doctors, and they did have some medicines and they put stuff on the Indians and told them they would be cured of their sores and so on in a week.”