"Looks like a skull of some kind," ventured Jim.
"Not a bad guess," replied the professor. "It is part of the skull of an ophidian."
"An o" what?" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Tom.
"Not an owat," corrected the professor, "but a giant ophidian of palazoic times."
"Gracious!" cried Tom. "I thought it was something awful, but I didn"t suppose it was as bad as that."
"I suppose there is a story connected with it," said Berwick.
"Yes," replied the professor, "rather a tragic, though a common enough one in that region."
"We would like to hear it," suggested Jo.
"Well," began the professor slowly, "imagine if you can the depth of a tropical jungle with a wilderness of tangled vegetation, of arching palms and giant forms whose fronds sway in the air high above a man"s head. Through this tangle there creeps a naked savage intent on the hunt for some animal upon which he can feed. In front of him, pendulous from an over hanging branch there falls a rounded body like a mighty cable, whose green and yellow colorings mix in with those of bush and tree. As the savage creeps beneath, there is a sudden motion in the cable. It comes to life and coils about the man.
"With a shrill cry of fear, the man tries to unloosen the deadly folds, grasping the slimy serpent about the throat in a desperate clutch. But all in vain. They writhe and struggle, but neither relax their hold, and they fall to the ground beneath the arching palms.
"The seasons come and go. The ferns and palms die and bury the snake and his victim beneath the fallen leaves and floods bring down the waste from the hills and cover them more completely."
"My goodness!" cried Tom. "Did you see it?"
"Not actually," answered the professor. "All that happened a long time, years, centuries, aeons, perhaps, ago. What I know is that one day on making an excavation we found the two skeletons, that of the man and the snake in such a position as to indicate the story I have told you. I picked up the skull and the fancy took me to have it mounted and made into a pipe. But that isn"t getting on with the business."
"Are you a zoologist?" asked Berwick.
"No," replied the professor. "I suppose you are thinking of my t.i.tle. I use that because people generally know me better that way, and--" he smiled broadly--"it"s easy to say. I am a mineralogist--a mining engineer. I got the t.i.tle of professor from a college back East where I lecture occasionally on mineralogy and petrology. People haven"t time to write my name though it"s not so difficult to p.r.o.nounce."
"Sure enough," said Jim. "I do not know your name yet."
"Let me write it for you," said the professor. And taking a sheet of paper this is what he penned.
Featheringstonehaughleigh.
"You will always be just plain professor to me," determined Jim, and there was a general laugh.
"To resume," went on the professor, "for the past three or four years I have been down in the South Sea Islands prospecting. Acting for an English syndicate which had an idea that there were some gold or silver mines that could be developed."
"Did you find any?" questioned Jim.
"None that were worth while, but while I was there I came across an old sailor who had a story of a fabulously rich mine that was located on one of the islands. He didn"t know just where, and had been hunting for it for a good many years, traveling from island to island in his quest."
"Couldn"t he find it?"
"All he had to guide him was a rudely drawn map of the island that was located somewhere in the Southern seas. He worked all alone, for he was afraid to share his secret with any for fear that they would kill him to get it all."
"Are they as bad as that down there?" asked Tom.
"About as bad as they are made, a good many of them are," replied the professor. "But, to get on with my story, it happened that I was enabled to do him a good turn on one occasion, and he confided his secret to me.
I tried to help him to find the island, but, as the longitude and lat.i.tude were rather vague, we couldn"t locate it. I helped him all I could, and when he was taken down with the fever, just before he died he gave me the map on the condition that if I found the mine I would share with his family, which I agreed to do."
"Do you think there was any foundation for his story?" asked Jim.
"I think there is. At least I thought there was enough in it to give up my work for the syndicate and organize an expedition to hunt for it. It seems, according to Brook"s story, John Brook was his name, that his father when a young man was a sailor on an English vessel. On one of his voyages, his ship was captured by pirates and the crew were made prisoners. They were carried to the pirates" lair on an island away from the usual track.
"Here, those who did not join the pirates were compelled to do all the rough work about the place. As there was no means of getting away from the island except by the pirates" vessel, they were not kept very close watch of, and were allowed the freedom of the place. This island, it would seem from his description, was of volcanic origin, and had a mountainous ridge, several hundred feet in height at one end. As this part of the island was exceedingly rough and rocky it had no attraction for the pirates, who kept to the low ground along the sh.o.r.e.
"In one of his rambles about the island the sailor came upon a ravine leading up into the mountain, and he followed it up to where it ended in a fissure in the rocks. He was curious to see what the inside looked like, and returning another day, entered the fissure, which lead into a large cavern, where, according to his story, the walls were glittering with gold."
"Fool"s gold," interjected Berwick.
"So I thought at first," responded the professor, "but Brooks said that his father picked up a half dozen nuggets ranging in size from that of a bullet to that of a walnut. He seems, like his son, to have been a secretive sort of a man, for he kept his discovery from his shipmates.
From time to time he made visits to the mine as he had opportunity, gathering the nuggets, which he kept concealed about his person until he had acc.u.mulated a considerable store, hoping that some time he would be able to make his escape, which, with several of his companions, he was finally able to do."
"How did he manage to get away?" asked Jo.
"It seems, from the story, that he and some of his shipmates, having procured a small boat, which they secreted at the mountainous end of the island, and stocked with provisions, they set out on a dark and stormy night when there was less chance of detection. The storm developed into a gale which they ran before, and which drove them many miles, bringing them into the course of trading vessels, one of which a day or so later, picked them up and landed them in a Chilian port. Here Brooks sold a nugget and got money enough to get home. On his return he talked much of the mine, and drew a map of it for his son, who started out in search of it."
"How did he expect to find it when he didn"t know its location?"
questioned Jim.
"He had it figured out something like this. The place where they were picked up by the vessel was about lat.i.tude 9 south, longitude 129 west.
Now, when they were picked up they had been driving for some thirty-six hours before a southwest wind at not less than fifteen knots an hour.
This would make about five hundred and forty miles they had come from the island, which must, therefore, lie somewhere between five or six hundred miles to the southwest."
"I should think that would be the spot where he would look for it," said Juarez.
"That is what he did, and so have I," was the reply, "but we were, neither of us, able to locate it."
"Do you think it really exists?" asked Jim.
"I am quite certain of it," answered the professor. "At any rate, I am going to make another attempt, and I want you to go along with me."
"What do you want with us?" questioned Jim.
"Well," replied the professor, slowly, "I need some efficient help, and I have had my eye on you boys for some time. I had heard of you, that you were thoroughly trustworthy and could be depended upon in any emergency, and I decided that you were just the kind of companions I wanted. But I may as well tell you right at the start that this is not going to be a picnic party; we are going to have our work cut out for us, and plenty of it, so if you go along you are likely to see some pretty exciting times before we get through."
"That don"t scare us any," put in Jo.
"I didn"t think it would," the professor went on, "and if it turns out as I believe it will, we shall all have all the money we need for the rest of our lives."
"But why should you take us in?" persisted Jim.
"Why, if we should succeed in finding the treasure," the professor explained, "it would be a great temptation to those who learned of it to use any means, fair or foul, to get possession of it. That is one of the reasons I want you. I feel that I can depend upon you through and through."
"I think you can," responded Jim quietly, but not the less emphatically.
"What we say we are ready to stand by."