The Southerner sprang up, his eyes flashing:
"Mr. Browning," he said, hotly, "I warn you not to speak lightly of Miss Benjamin! You seem to take delight in mentioning her in connection with every little occurrence, and it is getting tiresome. There is a limit!"
"Huah!" grunted the giant. "Touchy, mighty touchy. First thing I know he"ll be challenging me to a duel."
"It would be useless to challenge you!" flashed Jack. "You Northerners are too cold blooded to fight."
"Well, now, this will do!" cut in Merry, promptly rising to his feet. "I won"t have it on board my yacht."
"Then I suppose we can go on sh.o.r.e and fight it out," said Jack, sourly.
"If you want to make fools of yourselves--yes."
"You are very plain spoken, Mr. Merriwell."
"It is necessary at times, Diamond. Hold your temper in check, old man, and don"t talk about Northerners and Southerners. There is no North, no South. The time is past. When you came to Yale you were full of freakish notions about the North and the South, but I fancied you had been pretty well cured of that. I see it will crop out occasionally, though."
To this Diamond made no retort, but he looked thoroughly angry. With another fellow Frank would have laughed him out of the mood, but he knew it would not do to try that on the Virginian, for Jack could not endure a bit of ridicule.
However, Merry talked quietly, and soon he could see he was pouring oil on the troubled waters, for the look of anger was leaving Diamond"s face, and Browning had a.s.sumed a lounging att.i.tude.
"This is no time for hard feelings between any of us," said Frank. "As I said a few minutes ago, I have called you together for a council of war."
"Vot did I mean ven you said dot?" asked Hans Dunnerwust. "Berhaps you don"d understood me as vell as I might. Vot for haf dot gouncil uf var peen caldt?"
"Yes," said Bart Hodge, "just what are you driving at, Merriwell?"
"Fellows, we have struck a mystery."
"I thought you had solved the mystery of the monster of Devil Island."
"I solved the mystery of the monster"s ident.i.ty and discovered the creature was the hunchback, Put Wiley, in disguise."
"But he came near ending your career."
"With the aid of the c.o.c.k-eyed man, whose name, I have learned, since returning to Green"s Landing, is Dan Hicks. I could have handled Wiley alone, but Hicks came to his aid and caught me by the throat, grasping me from behind. Together they knocked me out and tied me to the old railroad on the island. But for Browning"s wonderful efforts in ripping up the rails, they would have succeeded in their attempt to send a flat car loaded with granite down the track, and I must have been cut in two.
I tell you, fellows, it was a wonderful sight to see Bruce pry up those rails and send that car, granite and all, into the water. Ah, Browning!"
exclaimed Merriwell, his voice betraying his feeling despite his effort to keep it under control, "it prolonged my life when you were born strong."
"Oh, it wasn"t much work to rip up those rails," said the big fellow, with an air of modesty. "You see, the spikes that held them were planted in rotten wood, for the ties are very old."
"You never moved half as fast before in your life, Browning," said Hodge. "You did get a hustle on then."
"I had to," grunted Bruce. "Saw there wasn"t any time to loaf."
"You saved my life," declared Frank. "The ident.i.ty of the monster is solved, but the mystery of the island is as deep as ever."
"Shust vot do I mean ven you said dot?" asked Hans.
"Why should the hunchback rig himself up in that horrible manner and try to frighten persons away from the island?"
"There is a mystery," confessed Diamond.
"Certainly it is," nodded Merriwell. "Discovering the ident.i.ty of the monster has not seemed to clear things up much. It has added to my curiosity."
"Berhaps id peen a healthy thing to stayed avay dot islands from,"
observed Hans, sagely.
"Whatever the secret of the island may be," said Frank, "those men are ready to commit murder in order to guard it."
"They came near succeeding," said Hodge.
"It looks as if they have succeeded."
"Eh? How?"
"You remember the story of the Boston man who was landed on the island and never seen afterward."
"The c.o.c.k-eyed man told that story."
"Yes."
"Perhaps that was a part of his plan to scare us away from the island--to keep us from going there."
"Perhaps so; but you remember he told us there was a grave on the island and the headstone was marked, "Sacred to the memory of Rawson Denning.""
"Yes. More of his plan to scare us away."
"The grave is there."
"What?"
"Sure."
"You--you----"
"Found it. Bruce was with me. We came out into a dismal glade in the heart of the black woods, and there was the grave and the headstone with the words upon it."
"Jingoes!"
Hodge stared at Frank a few moments, and then asked:
"Do you really believe the Boston man was murdered and buried in that grave?"
"Rawson was the name he gave, and the grave was found on the island after his strange disappearance. It seems probable enough that he is planted there."
"By Chorch!" exclaimed the Dutch boy, turning pale; "I don"d vant to monkey aroundt dot island all alone by yourself."
"Do you have any idea what the mystery of the island can be, Merriwell?"