“Without a map we will have to take some chances,” Mr. Neale told Nicky, Tom and Cliff. “But we can come pretty close to a guess at the point where we must anchor.”
“Where our half of the map showed the crossmarked ‘reck,’” Nicky asserted.
“Yes,” agreed Mr. Neale. “We will hunt for a spot where there could be a set of conditions like those we know.”
“You mean that there must be needles of coral deep enough for a Spanish galleon to have gone aground and broken up,” Cliff suggested. “Then two islands with a channel deep enough between for a heavy boat to use.”
“Right,” nodded the captain of the vessel, for that post had been given to their older comrade. The Mystery Boys had given Mr. Neale his initiation into the secret gestures with which they could communicate without letting outsiders guess that they were doing so.
“Then we will work in through the keys with the light-draft, glass-bottomed boat we are towing,” the captain went on. “If we fail to find islands in a formation like the Great Dipper, we can work North and South alternately until we do.”
“I’m not so sure,” Cliff said. “Centuries have passed since it was put there. The map didn’t show whether the treasure was buried or not.”
“I don’t see how it could have been,” Tom declared. “That coral is too hard to dig in. They’d have had to blast to get a place deep enough to bury it. I imagine they just lowered the chests into the water, maybe in a little cove or where there was a hole deep enough to conceal the chests.”
“We will have to see,” Mr. Neale agreed. “First we must find our Great Dipper.”
They made the end of Cuba without any difficulty, rounded it and set the tiller for the new course, sailing more slowly as they lost the direct force of the steady breeze and had to keep rather close-hauled. They did not use the engine, preferring not to employ it any more than was essential. It might help them off if they ran onto a reef, and they proposed to save their supply of gasoline for such an emergency.
At last, under a glorious sunset, with its rose and coral, its great, vivid bands of green and vivid gold lighting up a few fleecy clouds near the horizon, they sighted the low, long cluster of islets.
Not a thing had occurred during the trip to cause uneasiness. Sam had been both courteous and respectful, without being servile. Like most Jamaica colored people he felt himself to be the equal of the race of lighter color, as far as education and morality could be compared. In the matter of his color of skin he felt, with justice, that the teaching of the Bible, and of the United States Constitution, that all men are equal, in the sense of all being created by the same Great Creator, was a true teaching.