The two tentacles that lay on his body bothered him most. He felt them tighten, the suction cups biting into his flesh, in an effort to drag him forward within reach of the brute’s jaws. The great beak opened revealing a hole big enough to take in a head larger than Roger’s. Savage teeth edged the opening.
The octopus was disappointed, for the moment at least. It could not crawl towards him because of the water pressure that glued it to the moving sled, and it could not drag him closer because he was strapped to the deck. But what if the straps should break or slip?
Should he rise to the surface? Then the men in the boat would see him and stop. They would circle around and come to his rescue. But that would take several minutes, and in the meantime … Once able to move, the octopus would not need more than ten seconds to reach back and nip off his head.
No, he must stay down, keep moving, and fight this thing out all by himself.
The sled shot through a school of parrotfish. They were taken by surprise and several of them bumped into the octopus and into Roger’s head and shoulders. He seized one of the big, fat, green-and-gold beauties and thrust it into the jaws that yawned in front of him. Perhaps if he treated his visitor to lunch it would lose interest in him. The fish disappeared into the black inside of the octopus.
The creature did not even trouble to close its jaws. Roger gave up the idea of winning his enemy over by feeding it. This was a case of anger, not hunger. The octopus, he knew, is a highly emotional creature. His companion on the flying sled was too mad with rage to worry about its stomach.
The sharp-rimmed suction cups of the two tentacles that lay along his back were tearing his skin. He felt himself pulled an inch closer to the waiting beak. He drew his knife and sawed away at one of the tentacles where it joined the body. It was as thick as a man’s leg and as tough as rubber, but it had no bone in it. At last the great red snake was cut through, the suction cups relaxed their hold, and the tentacle fell away in the rush of water.
But another immediately took its place! Nor did the temper of the octopus seem to be improved by the operation. The body glowed a more fiery red than ever and the eyes burned with hate.
Roger felt the sled sweep round again and was reminded that he was looking for a sunken galleon. It was hard to keep your mind on it in the presence of such company. He laboriously sawed off another tentacle, and then another. Two more tentacles took their place. One of them strapped down his arm so that he could no longer use his knife.
He realized that he was breathing hard. That would not do. He would quickly use up his air supply, and then what would happen? He must breathe as lightly and shallowly as if he were sitting at ease on the deck of the Lively Lady instead of battling with an octopus on an undersea glider.
A dark shadow fell across him. He looked up to see that he was charging straight towards a cliff that towered fifty feet high and was covered with jutting crags and hooks of rock. He turned the sled upward. It responded sluggishly because of the weight on its bow. It rushed nearer and nearer the cliff, and the waving sea fans and great anemones attached to the base of the precipice loomed larger and every crevice and hole and out-reaching rock was visible.
If he crashed into it, that would be the end of the octopus. But it would also be the end of him and of the sled and of his hunt for the galleon. To protect himself he had to protect his unwelcome passenger. He steered upward sharply and just skimmed the summit, passing so close that the octopus was dragged through the plumes on the reef top.
Again he found himself puffing like a steam engine, and again he throttled down his fear and forced himself to breathe lightly. The two enemies stared at each other in silence for what seemed a very long time while the sled made another transit, and then another. Blood was drifting back from the animal’s wounds, but it did not seem to be seriously disabled by the loss of three tentacles.
A new problem presented itself - seaweed in the form of great coils and festoons of giant kelp. Roger’s wits were beginning to play tricks with him and he could
imagine these long arms to be the tentacles of a monstrous octopus as big as a ship and with no purpose in fife but to strangle and swallow Roger Hunt. He dodged here, there, up, down, to avoid the clutching fingers. He was weak now with fear and exhaustion. Then suddenly he was out of the kelp forest and sliding over a coral garden in which tall Neptune’s sponges stood like Joshua trees.
Then he saw it - the wreck! Or, at least, it was a wreck. He could not be sure it was the Santa Cruz. It lay half buried in sand and covered with seaweed, barnacles, and coral. He soared up over its broken-off mast and looked down on the high poop that certainly could not have belonged to any modern ship. His heart pounded with excitement. But there was time for only a glance and he was carried swiftly away. He dared not signal for a stop - not so long as he had this passenger. A dim shape loomed ahead. In another moment the sled would crash into it. Roger lifted the bow just in time to slide over the back of a big tiger shark.
Smelling the blood trail of the wounded octopus, the shark immediately turned and followed the sled.
It was soon joined by another inquisitive pirate, a great swordfish. Roger, glancing back fearfully over his shoulder, estimated that the sword alone of the monster was eight feet long.
He nervously expected the shark to come nipping at his white heels, laid out invitingly at the back of the glider. As for the swordfish, if it took a notion to, it could ram its sword clear through the sled, and through Roger as well.
He remembered the account of a swordfish that had rammed a schooner and driven its lance through a quarter inch of metal sheathing, three inches of Douglas fir, and two and a half inches of ceiling plank and had left its broken-off sword in the hull as a memento of this feat
The swordfish came alongside on Roger’s left and the shark drew up on his right. The three swam along together, like good friends. The octopus, no longer interested in Roger, twisted to face the swordfish, then turned again to fix its baleful eyes on the shark.
Even a shark is afraid of a swordfish, and with good reason. That mighty sword is one of the few weapons sharp enough and strong enough to pierce the shark’s tough hide. The tiger kept at a safe distance and it was the swordfish that acted first.
It made a sudden rush, plunged its rapier all the way through the balloonlike body of the unfortunate octopus, and ripped it away from the sled. The octopus locked its five remaining tentacles around the body of the swordfish and there followed a titanic struggle that Roger could not wait to see. He was carried swiftly away, and was glad to go. A great feeling of relief poured through him.
But his nerves tightened again when he noticed that the shark, which had dropped back for a moment, had decided not to contend with the swordfish for the carcass of the octopus, but had turned its attention again to the sled. It was following close behind, probably admiring the white soles of Roger’s feet and sniffing the scent that drifted back from the bow of the sled where the blood of the octopus had smeared the deck. In fact Roger himself was contributing a little to the blood smell from the suction disc cuts on his back.
The tiger could not be blamed for supposing that the strange creature fleeing from it was badly wounded, terrified, helpless, and could easily be turned into a good meal.
The sled swept around a curve and started back. Roger hoped the manoeuvre had shaken off his pursuer. But the shark was still close behind - even closer now.
What worried him almost as much as the shark was the chance of missing the wreck. On this transit he would not pass over it but should not be too far away to see it. He must get rid of this hanger-on so that he could give his full attention to his real job.
He thought of the way flying fish escape from sharks and other hungry monsters. They take to the air. Why couldn’t he do the same? He had no idea how the sled would respond, but at least he could try.
The men in the boat were astounded to see the sled suddenly shoot up through the surface, rise into the air, soar for
a moment, then plunge again into the sea. Before they could speak it happened again. And then again!
That kid!’ Hal exclaimed in disgust. ‘He just must have his fun - doing stunts when he ought to be watching for the Santa Cruz Sometimes I think he’ll never be serious.’
But Roger was very serious. After the first two flights he could still see the shark some distance behind. After the third flight, he was alone. A moment later he caught sight of the wreck, some distance to his left. He signalled for a stop. He let the sled rise and skim the surface. The dinghy circled back and came alongside.
‘What was all the jumping for?’ Hal demanded angrily.
‘I’ll tell you about that later. I’ve found a wreck. Perhaps it’s the Santa Cruz.’
Hal forgot his anger. ‘Great! Where is it?’ ‘Right over there, thirty yards.’ ‘How deep?’ ‘About ten fathoms.’
The two men were about to dive in when Hal noticed the blood on his brother’s back and on the deck of the sled. ‘Why all the gore? Are you hurt?’ ‘It’s nothing,’ Roger said impatiently. ‘Get in there and tell me if I’ve found anything.’
Wearing masks only, their aqualungs having been left on board, Blake and Hal plunged in, swam thirty yards in the direction Roger had indicated, and submerged. Roger unstrapped himself from the sled and climbed into the boat.
Within forty seconds the two were up again, spouting and blowing and red with excitement. They swam back to the boat where Roger waited in tingling suspense.
‘You’ve got something there,’ Blake said as he climbed in. ‘Is it the Santa Cruz?’
‘I couldn’t make enough of an examination to be sure. We’ll come back with the aqualungs.’ ‘How will we find it again?’
‘That’s easy.’ Blake rummaged in a locker and brought out a line with a weight on one end and a flagged buoy on the other. He started the motor and eased the dinghy out to a point directly over the wreck. Then he dropped the weighted line. The buoy floated jauntily on the surface, waving its little red flag.
The dinghy returned to the ship. All on board were thrilled by the news, Skink as much as anyone, but in his own sour fashion. He could be seen scanning the horizon as if looking for an expected visitor. No one noticed turn particularly, since all attention was focused upon Roger and his story of his undersea sleigh ride. Blake treated the cuts on his back.
‘That was a fine piece of work,’ Blake complimented him. ‘You used your head. Now I suppose you want to know what you found.’
He went to the cabin and brought up a sheet of specifications of the Santa Cruz. He and Hal studied them carefully.
‘All right, let’s go and check,’ Blake said. Taking their aqualungs, they set off in the dinghy, sternly refusing Roger’s appeal to let him go along.
‘You need to take it easy. We’ll let you know soon enough.’
In half an hour they were on the way back. Roger, standing at the rail, could hardly wait for them to come within earshot before he called, ‘How about it?’
Dr Blake stood up in the dinghy and cupped his hands around his mouth. His deep voice, softened by distance, came faintly across the water.
‘It’s the Santa Cruz!’
Chapter 10
The mystery of the sunken ship
There’s no doubt about it,’ Blake said as he climbed on board. ‘It’s the ship we’re looking for. Sunk three hundred years ago and still in beautiful condition!’
It was too good to believe. Roger said doubtfully, ‘I should think a wooden ship sunk three hundred years ago would be rotted away by this time.’
‘Not at all/ Blake said. ‘You have to remember that the wood has been sealed away from the air all this time. If you bring some of it up into the air it will shrink and begin to decay rapidly. But so long as it is protected by the sea it will last not merely three hundred years but a couple of thousand. You know the book, The Silent World,1 by Captain Cousteau, the man who invented the aqualung. He tells of finding at the bottom of the Mediterranean the Galley of Mahdia which sailed from Greece in 80 b.c. The wooden decks and hull were still tight enough to hold together all the ship’s art treasures which have since been transferred to the Museum Alaoui in Tunis. There were so many of them that they filled five’ rooms in that museum. Among them are some of the ship’s ribs made of Lebanon cedar and covered with the original yellow varnish.’
‘Does cedar stand salt water better than any other wood?’ Hal inquired.
‘Not necessarily. You probably saw in the papers a few months ago the story of the National Geographic expedition to bring up the treasures of a Greek ship that sank around 230 b.c. They found the wood rubbery and tunnelled by shipworms but reasonably sound after nearly twenty-two hundred years at the bottom of the sea. The ship was built of Aleppo pine, Lebanon cedar, and oak. The Santa Cruz is built of teak, another fine wood. So it’s no wonder that she’s still in pretty fair shape.’
Upon Blake’s orders, Captain Ike sailed the ship the half mile or so to the point where the little red flag bobbed up and down on the waves. There he dropped anchor.
Blake, Hal, Roger, and Skink strapped on their aqualungs. It took longer than usual, for their fingers were crazy with excitement. Beneath them lay a ship loaded with treasure worth perhaps half a million. It was enough to make your fingers fumble over the buckles.
Captain Die drew Blake to one side.
‘Are you going to let Inkham go poking around that wreck?’
Blake was surprised. ‘Why not?’
‘l don’t trust him.’
‘I don’t either. But I fail to see what harm he can do.’
‘Don’t you remember what he said - that if you found any treasure he would take it for himself?’
Blake laughed. ‘Now be sensible, Captain. How can he make off with any treasure? You don’t suppose he’s going to swim away with it? And he has no ship. What can he do?’
‘I don’t know,’ the captain admitted. ‘But I bet he knows. He’s a sly one. I don’t trust him. He’s threatened to grab the treasure and kill you. I don’t think he was fooling. If I had my way I’d keep him locked up in the storeroom until we can put him on the plane.’
‘I think his bark is worse than his bite,’ Blake said. ‘Don’t worry, Captain. We’ll keep an eye on him. We won’t let him walk off with the Santa Cruz.’ He grinned and hoped to see a responsive smile on the face of the kindly old sea dog. But Captain Ike only grunted and went off shaking his head.
The four explorers, with waterproof electric torches hooked to their belts, swam down, following the buoy line. At first they could see nothing below. Then the stumps of three masts appeared. They were bare, the rigging and sails having long since crumbled away. Then two strange towers could be seen and, last of all, the deck that connected them.
On their previous descent Blake and Hal had landed on the bottom beside the ship and had gone around it. Now Blake made straight for the deck and the others followed. In a moment they were standing on planks that had known no foot for three centuries.
The deck was covered with algae, sponges, hydrozoa, and gorgonias. Swarms of fish drifted about, for water
creatures of all kinds seem to have a passionate affection for old wrecks. The bulwarks were high and a full three feet thick and pierced with holes for cannon. The cannon themselves lay on the deck, heavily upholstered in seaweed and coral.
Roger stooped to look into the mouth of one of the cannon but was drawn away by Hal who knew that cavities of this sort were exactly the kind of home preferred by the octopus.
What made Hal doubly suspicious of these cannon was the pile of stones and coral blocks in front of the mouth of each, almost closing the entrance. Those piles could not have fallen in place so neatly - they must have been put there by someone or something. And he knew that it was the habit of the octopus to retreat into a hole, then draw stones up to cover the opening, all except a gap just large enough for a tentacle to shoot out and seize its prey. Then the octopus would emerg
e to do battle, tumbling the stones out of its way.
With a quick movement of his hand Hal caught one of the pipefish that swam lazily around him. Holding one end of the long slender body, no bigger than a walking-stick, he dangled the other end in front of a canyon mouth. For a moment nothing happened. Then a tentacle shot out, seized the fish, and attempted to draw it into the hole. Hal hung on. After futile efforts to bring the fish to it, the octopus came to the fish, darting out of the cannon’s mouth and flinging all eight tentacles around is victim. Hal thought it was time to let go and step out of the way.
He watched the octopus consume its prey, then slink back into the cannon and draw the stones up to the entrance.
Hal found himself alone. While he had been studying this little drama the others had moved aft. He wondered how he could spend time over a couple of animals when there was half a million dollars in treasure under his feet. Perhaps after all he was more of a scientist than a treasure hunter.
He followed the others. They were approaching one of the two towers that loomed up at either end of the ship. These the old mariners called castles, and they did indeed look like castles. The one at the bow was three stories high with many windows and rich ornament. The stern castle was even finer, broader and taller, rising to four stories. The forward castle, probably used by the crew, was plain as compared with the magnificent stern castle where the officers and passengers had been quartered. On either side of the stern castle rose a splendid bronze lantern that any museum would value as a priceless relic.
The door from the stern castle to the gun deck had fallen away. The aqualungers entered the dark interior and turned on their torches. There was a scraping, swishing sound as dozens of small octopuses retreated into the corners, their angry eyes fixed on the intruders.
Staying close together to defend each other in case of attack, the men moved farther into the large room. In its centre stood a long heavy table securely bolted to the floor. The walls were lined with cabinets with leaded glass doors. With some effort Blake pulled open a door and would have gasped, if he could have done so without losing his mouthpiece, when he saw the silver and gold and ceramic platters, plates, goblets, cups, beakers, pitchers, and bowls. Even if they found nothing else in the ship, here was fabulous treasure.
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