It was almost twilight when they heard the returning sweep of oars and the grate of the boats alongside.
“Jim, see if those lads are still safe, and let them stretch a bit,” came a voice the chums recognized as that of Mr. Coleson. Jim, the colored Jamaican, came into the cabin with leisurely slowness and they saw, from his downcast face, the answer to a question in the minds of at least two cramped prisoners.
He was frowning and his whole bearing was dejected. They had found no treasure!
This was borne out by the faces of the white men when they came in and dropped heavily onto the cushioned side seats. “Look here,” said Senor Ortiga, morosely, fixing Nicky with a cold glare, “are you sure you remembered that message correctly?”
“I’m sure,” said Nicky, rubbing his arms and legs to get the blood into circulation again, still seated on the cabin flooring.
“Well, then,” said Mr. Coleson, “it’s all a myth, or someone has been ahead of us.”
“Repeat that message,” commanded Ortiga, not convinced.
Nicky, looking him in the eyes, did so. “‘At the end of the line, in the lowest part of the Dipper,’” he stated.
“Well, we searched the bottom where those lines join, and then we rowed over to the two islands, went over them again, and then searched the bottom between them—that’s the ‘lowest part of the islands,’ too,” stated Mr. Coleson.
Neither Nicky, Cliff nor Tom cared much. Their bodies were too sore, too tired from staying in one position, too full of aches, to enable them to give much thought to treasure.
Almost nothing was said as Jim prepared supper, for which the chums were waiting as eagerly as their weary bodies allowed. A low-voiced conference was held between the white men, but it was not until the meal was ended, Cliff lifting his cup with cramped arm and hand, Tom feeling his feet prickle as circulation fed the life fluid to them, Nicky feeling as though he had been trussed up for years, that Senor Ortiga delivered the result of the conference.
“We noticed that the tender you came in was marked from the _Senorita_,” he stated to Tom. “We rowed down the inner channel a way, wondering how you came to be in it!”
“Again my dear brother failed to get ahead of me!” snapped the Spaniard, glowering. “But that is aside from the point, which is that we are through here.”