The Secret of Phantom Lake - Arden William. Страница 2

“I’m ready to pay a fair price,” Java Jim said quickly.

“Well,” Aunt Mathilda said again, “I suppose it belongs to you. You can pay what it cost Mr. Acres, and —”

A sudden whirring sound filled the museum.

“What —” Bob began, and looked up from the old chest.

There was a sharp click.

A flash in the light — and a short, wicked dagger whizzed past Jupiter’s ear and buried itself in the wall!

2

Danger Past and Present

For a long moment everyone froze. The dagger quivered in the wall.

Then Aunt Mathilda hurried to Jupiter.

“Are you all right, Jupiter?” she cried.

Jupe nodded but sat down weakly on an old bench. The dagger had missed his ear by inches!

“Who threw it?” Mr. Acres cried, glancing wildly round.

Java Jim said, “Don’t go looking at me!”

“N-n-no one threw it,” Bob stammered. “It came out of the chest!”

Mr. Acres went over to the chest and looked inside. “Good heavens!” he said. “There’s a secret compartment in the bottom! It’s open now! Bob must have touched some hidden mechanism that opened it.”

“The dagger must have been inside the secret compartment,” Bob continued, “on a spring that released when the compartment was opened! A booby trap!”

“To stab anyone who found the hiding place!” Pete exclaimed.

Aunt Mathilda strode towards Java Jim. “If this was your work, I’ll have you —!”

“I don’t know anything about any booby trap!” the bearded sailor declared angrily.

“No,” Jupiter said suddenly. The colour was back in his face now. He pulled the dagger out of the wall and studied the deadly weapon. “It’s an Oriental dagger, probably East Indian. I’ll bet that booby trap was set a hundred years ago by East Indian pirates!”

“Wow!” Pete said.

“Pirates?” Bob cried.

His eyes sparkling, Jupiter carried the old dagger to the chest and bent down to examine the spring mechanism inside the secret compartment. He nodded triumphantly.

“See! The spring and catch are handmade and rusty,” the stocky boy said. “Definitely old work. This is a typical East Indian booby trap to protect hidden valuables. Perhaps the work of Javanese or Malayan pirates!”

“Java like in Java Jim!”

Everyone looked at the bearded sailor again.

“Hold on now,” Java Jim said. “It’s just a nickname I got when I was young because I lived in Java awhile. I don’t know anything about any pirates!”

Pete groaned. “I don’t even know where Java is.”

“It’s a big island in Indonesia,” Jupiter explained. “Along with Sumatra and New Guinea and Borneo and Celebes and several thousand smaller islands. Indonesia is an independent country now, but in the old days it was a colony, the Dutch East Indies. It used to be full of hundreds of little kingdoms called sultanates, ruled by local sultans who were mostly pirates!”

“You mean like Blackbeard?” Pete asked. “Sailing ships, and cannons, and the skull-and-crossbones and all that?”

“Not exactly, Pete,” Jupiter answered a trifle pompously. “Those were the hallmarks of Western pirates. Blackbeard was English, you know. The East Indian pirates had no big ships or Jolly Roger flags, and few cannon. They were natives who lurked in hundreds of East Indian islands — in small rivers and villages—and attacked European and American ships by boarding them in swarms.

“The Western ships were there to get pepper and other spices, and tin, and tea and silks from China. Our ships carried manufactured goods for trading and also many bags of gold and silver for purchasing Oriental products. The East Indian pirates attacked the sailing ships to steal money and weapons. Sometimes our ships would retaliate and attack the pirates in their lairs. The pirates had all kinds of defence tricks, including booby traps in chests.”

Bob said, “You mean our sailors would try to steal back what the pirates stole? You think this booby trap comes from way back then, Jupe?”

“I’m certain of it, Bob. Although,” he added thoughtfully, “they do say that there are small bands of pirates still hidden in the remote islands.”

“Jupe, look!” Pete cried. The tall boy had been rummaging in the old chest. Now he held up a small, shiny object. “A ring! It was in the secret compartment!”

“Is there anything else?” Bob exclaimed.

Java Jim pushed Pete aside and bent over the chest. “Let’s see! No, curse the luck, nothing else!”

Jupiter took the ring from Pete. It was intricately carved in what could have been gold or brass. The design was Oriental, and a red stone gleamed in the centre.

“Is it real, Jupe?” asked Pete.

“I don’t know, Pete. It could be. They had a lot of real gold and jewels in the Indies. But they had a lot of fake stuff, too. Trinkets traded by Europeans to natives who couldn’t tell the difference.”

Java Jim reached out for the ring.

“Real or fake, boy, the ring’s mine, eh? The chest was stolen from me, and everything in it is mine,” the bearded sailor said. “Name your price, I’ll take my chest.”

“Well, let me see,” Aunt Mathilda began.

Jupiter spoke quickly, “We don’t know the chest is his, Aunt Mathilda. His name isn’t on it, and all we have is his story.”

“You calling me a liar, boy?” Java Jim growled.

“Show us a bill of sale,” Jupiter said stoutly, “or some witnesses who saw you buy it, or knew you had it on your ship.”

“All my shipmates saw the chest! Now you —”

“Then,” Jupiter said firmly, “I suggest we hold the chest at the salvage yard, and promise not to sell it for a week while you bring proof. I’m sure you can wait a few days.”

“That sounds fair to me,” Mr. Acres said.

Java Jim glared. “Blast you, I’ve had enough! I’m taking what’s mine, and don’t try to stop me!” He advanced on Jupiter, his hoarse voice threatening. “First I want that ring, boy. Hand it over.”

As the sailor closed in on him, Jupiter backed towards the outside doorway.

“Now look here you —!” cried Aunt Mathilda.

“Shut up, curse you!” Java Jim snapped.

A large shadow appeared in the open doorway. Hans, the big, blond helper at the salvage yard, came into the museum.

“You will not talk so to Aunt Mathilda,” Hans said. “You will apologise, yes?”

“He’s trying to take a ring from Jupiter and steal that chest, Hans!” Bob cried.

“Get him, Hans!” ordered Jupe.

“I get him,” Hans said, and lunged forward.

With another oath, Java Jim flung Mr. Acres into Hans’s path and ran to the back of the museum.

“After him!” Pete yelled.

But Hans stumbled over Mr. Acres and careered into the boys. By the time they had all untangled themselves, Java Jim had escaped out of the back door. A car started somewhere behind the museum. When the boys ran outside, all they saw was a cloud of dust where the car had vanished up the coast highway and round a steep hill.

“And good riddance,” Aunt Mathilda said. “Now we can finish loading the truck.”

“Gosh,” Bob said, “I wonder why he wanted that chest?”

Just trying to steal a good chest, I’m sure,” Aunt Mathilda said. “Get to work, boys. We’ll need another trip as it is.”

An hour later the truck was loaded as full as it could be, and Hans and Aunt Mathilda got into the cab. Mr. Acres helped the boys climb into the back. Jupiter was frowning.

“Mr. Acres,” the stocky leader of the trio said slowly,” you said that the dealer in San Francisco, Mr. Baskins, sent you that chest because it was of local interest?”

“That’s right, Jupiter,” Mr. Acres said. “That name in it, Argyll Queen, is the name of a ship that sank just off Rocky Beach about a hundred years ago. Small items sometimes turn up from the ship, and I display them.”

“Of course,” Jupiter said. “That big square-rigger that hit a reef in 1870. I remember now.”