Of course the few stamps to be had became immensely valuable. I have managed to pick up four of them in my travels. I value them at one thousand dollars."
"Why----" said Dave, with a sudden start, and glanced at Stoodles queerly. Whatever the artist"s story had suggested, however, Dave did not have time to explain. Captain Broadbeam came storming by like a mad lion.
"There"s foul work here," he roared--"foul work all around. First that stupid, drunken pilot runs us afoul of a snag and stove a hole in our bottom. Now that rascally governor sends word asking a small fortune for the timber and truck and men to mend up the _Swallow_. All right.
Pipe the crew, bosun. We"ll have to overhaul the keel ourselves and do the best mending we can. Then I"m out of these lat.i.tudes mighty quick, I can tell you!"
"Don"t he know?" inquired Adair, stepping closer to Dave"s side and speaking confidentially.
"Know what?" inquired Dave, in some surprise.
"Why, that the snag he ran into, or rather the snag the pilot ran him into, was a sunken brig that everybody on the island has known for years blocked the creek bottom."
"Is that so?" said Dave.
"As I get it from the talk of the natives here, yes," said Adair.
"Did the pilot know it was there?" asked Dave.
"Could he miss knowing it?" demanded Adair. "Truth is, I came down here with a sort of fellow-feeling in my mind for you people. The governor here and his friends bleed every American they get hold of. They are a precious set of thieves, and when I heard of your predicament I wondered what new mischief they were up to."
"Then," said Dave, in a startled way, "you mean to insinuate that the pilot ran the _Swallow_ into her present fix purposely?"
"I do," nodded Adair.
"Why?" demanded Dave, with a quick catch of excitement in his voice--"why did he do it?"
CHAPTER III
MR. SCHMITT-SCHMITT
"Yes," cried Bob Vilett impulsively. "Why did the pilot try to wreck the _Swallow_?"
The young engineer had been an interested listener to the conversation that had pa.s.sed between Dave and Adair. The latter shrugged his shoulders.
"Sheer natural meanness and hatred of foreigners," he said, "or they mean to delay you."
"Why should they delay us?" protested Dave.
"To bleed you. The longer you stay here the more they will get out of you. They overcharge for everything, make you pay, and fine you, and make you trouble on every little technicality of the law that wretched governor can dig up."
"Why, that"s abominable!" declared Bob.
"You see, the island here is in a squabble between Chili and Peru,"
explained the artist. "The governor has set up an independent dictatorship. He knows it can"t continue, so he is hurrying to make all the money he can out of his position while it lasts."
"It looks as if you have given us some pretty straight information,"
said Dave seriously. "I must tell Captain Broadbeam. No," Dave checked himself. "I"ll wait till I am sure of what you suspect, and look a little deeper into this matter."
"There"s a group I"d like to take," interrupted Adair, glancing with an artist"s fine interest at the sailors of the _Swallow_ getting some tackle out to keel the ship.
He seized a boathook and, leaning over the side, caught its end in his camera outfit lying in the skiff below.
"There are some island views, if you would like to look them over," he observed, unstrapping a square portfolio from the camera rack.
Adair set up his portable tripod and focussed the group amidships. Dave turned over the photographs in the portfolio.
"You"ll find a pretty good picture of that rascally pilot," said Adair.
"Third one, I think."
"I"ve got it," nodded Dave, "and--say!"
So violent was this e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n that Adair was startled into snapping the camera shutter before he was quite ready.
"You"ve spoiled my picture for me," he said, but not at all crossly.
"Why, my friend, what"s struck you?"
Dave was wrought up all out of the common. Generally cool and level-headed, his nerves seemed to have suddenly gone to pieces.
He had dropped the portfolio, and Bob was scrambling to preserve its scattered contents. Dave himself held a single photograph in one hand; with the other he was pulling Adair by the arm. He drew the surprised artist out of direct range of the others.
"Look here," he said, with difficulty steadying his trembling voice, "this picture?"
"Yes," nodded Adair, with a casual glance at the photograph--"our friend, the pilot."
"There is no trouble recognizing him," said Dave. "It"s the other fellow in the picture, I mean."
"Oh, do you know him?"
"I think I do," answered Dave, in a suppressed but intense tone.
"Likely. He"s been haunting the harbors here for several days. I happened to see the two sitting on that bench in front of the pilot"s shanty, and took a shot."
Dave, looking worried and hopeful, in doubt and suspicious, by turns, kept scanning the photograph.
"Who is the man, anyhow?" he asked, placing his finger on the pilot"s companion.
"Schmitt-Schmitt, he calls himself--from the Dutch West Indies, he says."
"He calls himself that, does he?" said Dave thoughtfully, "and he is a Dutchman?"
"All I know is that he got onto the island here somehow--I believe from a tramp steamer a few days ago. He"s close up to the governor and the pilot. Every craft that touches here, he visits its captain and wants to charter the ship."
"He wants to charter a ship," repeated Dave--"what for?"
"Mysterious cruise. He has discovered an island full of diamonds, or a mountain of gold, or some such thing," replied Adair. "He makes fabulous offers to any captain who will take a thirty-day cruise on the speculation. When he turns out all promises and no ready cash, of course the captains laugh at him. Been to you to join in his speculation, eh?"