Gold and the Girl
By H. de Vere Stacpoole
Author of “Ocean Tramps,” “The Garden of God,” Etc.
WHAT HAPPENED IN PREVIOUS CHAPTERS.
How that ill-assorted quartet came to be drawn together aboard the mystery-ketch Baltrum is quite a story. Sheila Dennis and the Irish fisherman Larry were there when Dicky Sebright found the boat. They were there under sufferance of the British government, whose port representative at Hildersditch had loaned the ketch to Sheila's sea-captain father pending its sale by auction. And they had stayed on, having nowhere else to go, after Captain Dennis' death. The ketch herself had come from nowhere, with two foreigners aboard. And when these two had conveniently murdered each other for reasons unknown she lay unclaimed. So much for sheila, Larry, and the Baltrum. Dicky Sebright found her. Dicky had lost his job and picked up a slender heritage simultaneously. And being sick of jobs he wanted to do a bit of small-boat sailing while he pulled himself together and readjusted his scheme of life. He liked the Baltrum and her crew, and would have bought the one and adopted the other. But he couldn't buy her until she came up for auction—so, pending that event, he took a berth aboard her. Then the gold was discovered. It lay in painted pigs, down in her hold, masquerading as iron ballast. Many times over a fortune, it was. So much for Dicky and the gold. Now for Mr. Wilfred William Corder, fourth of the venturesome crew. “James,” as Mr. Corder was called, happened to be a friend of Dicky's. And he happened to be the sole surviving heir to a great many millions. It was he who bought the Baltrum—knowing Dicky wanted her, and desiring to play the fairy godfather. He thought he was buying a ketch, but he found he had acquired a gold mine. And so he joined the three. For the gold was like a magnet. He didn't need it, but he wanted it—his share of it. So much for the whole quartet. Now for the problem. Whose was the gold? The government's? Possibly. Yet the four had found it. They felt that whatever the law said, they owned it by moral right. What to do? You cannot peddle pigs of raw gold without long explanations. And explanations lead to investigations. Again gold is slippery stuff. They hit on a plan. Bury it secretly. Get a permit to search for treasure. Then find it—legally. And so, convoyed by Corder's yacht, the Dulcinea, they set out to bury the Baltrum's ballast on Crab Cay, three thousand miles away. And at Teneriffe they met Bompard. And Bompard roused suspicions. In fact, everybody roused suspicions—particularly Morgan, mate of the Dulcinea—and Bompard.
(A Four-Part Story—Part III.)
CHAPTER XXIII.
LONGLEY AND HEARN
The great Peak stood whilst the sunset's flowers
Grew on its lava of clif and scaur,
Stood, a tower above all towers,
Died like a dream with the evening star.
KEEP her as she goes,” said Larry, handing the wheel to Longley.
Sheila looked away back where the great peak was dying in the dusk above a luminous purple sea with the islands of Heiro and Gommera vaguely sketched in the twilight beyond. They were beyond
