Rick and Scotty backed far enough away so that the sharks could no longer be seen. Then, heading toward the reef, they started for the surface. Scotty was slightly in the lead, and Rick kept glancing back in case one of the big fish decided to follow. But they reached the surface without incident and broke water about two hundred feet from their floats. There was no boat in sight.

Replacing aqualung tubes with snorkels, they swam on the surface, faces down, alert for sharks. When they reached the floats, Scotty kept watch from the surface while Rick dove to untie the lines.

As they climbed on the floats and lifted masks, Scotty and Rick pointed and yelled "Hey!" simultaneously.

But they had seen different things. Rick had seen the _Water Witch_ pa.s.s through the reef and head for them. Scotty had seen another boat, a big cabin cruiser, tied up at the pier in front of the house occupied by the fancy frogmen!

Rick turned and looked at the cruiser, then at the house. He was in time to see the front door close. There would have been plenty of time for someone to drop the chicken from the cruiser and then cross the reef and tie up at the dock.

"I'll bet that's where the chicken came from," Rick said harshly.

"That's a bet I won't take," Scotty returned. "But you can bet we'll find out!"

CHAPTER IX

Wreck of the "Maiden Hand"

Tony Briotti examined the metallic object they had brought from the bottom, then took his knife and sc.r.a.ped at it. Under the covering of marine growth, red rust appeared. He looked at Hobart Zircon. "Recognize this, Hobart?"

"There's only one thing I can think of that fits the shape, Tony. Bar shot."

"My conclusion exactly." Tony weighed the thing in his hand. He grinned at the boys. "Adventure-p.r.o.ne, and lucky. Describe the place where you found it."

Rick did so, concluding, "The patch didn't look anything like a ship, though. If that's what you're thinking."

"After two centuries, the ship would no longer look like a ship. But this is unquestionably a bar shot for an ancient cannon. It was used to cut ship's rigging, and to knock down masts, and create other damage of that sort. It's likely that the pirates, or the _Maiden Hand_, would have carried bar shot."

"I think you have found the ship," Zircon told them, "and the question about earthquakes was a good one. There was a heavy quake in this region about a year ago. I had occasion to recall it a half hour ago when we found a slight fault at the southern tip of the island that had uncovered an Indian midden."

"And a fine one," Tony added. "You boys can dive for treasure if you want to. I've some work of my own to do."

"Incidentally," Scotty reminded Rick, "in the confusion below we forgot to send up a buoy. Hope we can find the place again."

"We can."

"What confusion?" Zircon asked.

Rick told him. "A freshly killed chicken was dropped near us. And it must have been bleeding when it hit the water, because we suddenly had a shark convention around us." He pointed to the boat tied at the pier, now far behind them because the _Water Witch_ had been moving. "And we think that was the boat that dropped it."

"It was weighted," Scotty added.

The scientists looked at each other. Tony grunted. "It makes no sense, Hobart. Why would anyone weight a freshly killed chicken and throw it over the side?"

"No reason at all," the big scientist said, "unless he wanted to create mischief below."

"But just the act of dropping a chicken wouldn't ensure harm to divers below," Tony objected.

"That's why I said mischief. Inexperienced divers might panic under such circ.u.mstances and attract the sharks to themselves."

Rick hazarded a guess. "What if they just wanted to keep people from diving in the area?"

"That might be one way of doing it." Zircon said thoughtfully. "Are you suggesting that there are others after the _Maiden Hand_ treasure?"

Scotty spoke up. "How could anyone else find out about the treasure?"

"It's possible that there are other references besides the logbook we found," Tony replied. "But it would be too farfetched to speculate that other treasure hunters had found the location and were diving right at this time."

"This might be related to what happened on St. Thomas," Rick ventured.

Zircon shook his ma.s.sive head. "Extremely unlikely. Consider." He ticked off the points on his fingers. "Who knew we were coming to Clipper Cay?

Ernst, Steve, and his Navy friend. We did not mention it to the people from whom we bought supplies, nor did we discuss it in the presence of others. We were not followed here. No, Rick, I think that we cannot blame this incident on the ones in St. Thomas."

"Then it was a dangerous practical joke," Tony concluded. "Unless there was some legitimate reason for throwing the chicken over that we don't know about."

Zircon steered the _Water Witch_ through the reef entrance, and the Spindrifters tied up at the dock. Rick and Scotty inspected the compressor and then measured the amount of air in the tanks. They hooked the tanks up, refilled the gas tank of the compressor engine, and left the tanks to fill while they went to the cottage.

Rick and Zircon prepared dinner while Tony and Scotty refilled the gasoline lanterns that provided light, and generally straightened up the cottage.

Rick called, "Tony, tell us more about this Indian stuff you found."

Scotty added, "And what's a midden, anyway?"

Tony leaned on his broom. "A midden is a polite name for a refuse heap.

Before the days of rubbish collection, people used to dump their trash in the yard. The Indians did, and thereby provided archaeologists with an important source of information. Apparently a tribe lived on this island, close to the southern tip. It's likely that they simply dumped their rubbish into the water. Well, the earthquake Hobart spoke of shifted the old coral formations at the southern tip slightly and lifted a few square yards out of the water."

He went to the front porch and brought back a curved piece of material, encrusted with coral. "This used to be a pottery bowl, probably Taino in origin. I'll probably find many like it."

It didn't look like much of a find to Rick, but he knew that Tony's trained eyes could see many things that he couldn't. "You'll dive with us, though, won't you?" he asked.

"Of course. But you and Scotty are the real enthusiasts, and the diving I do will use up air that you properly should be using. I'll go down with you in the morning, because I want a look at the wreck. But after that I think Hobart and I can amuse ourselves on the midden while you and Scotty hunt treasure. Of course we'll be ready to help if you need us."

A few minutes before six, Rick turned on his portable all-wave radio to the channel Steve had given him, but the air was silent. He waited for ten minutes, then snapped it off again. Apparently Steve had no message for them.

Dinner consisted of fresh snapper and barracuda steaks served with coconut sauce for which Zircon had learned the recipe during his tours of the Pacific. It was delicious, and Rick wondered about the fussiness of people who refuse to eat barracuda simply because the fish is a noted predator. However, he knew that people are served barracuda every day under less offensive names.

After dinner they sat over coffee on the porch and watched the sun sink beyond the reef. It was like a Pacific sunset--colorful and somehow soothing.

The boys walked to the pier, checked their tanks, and found them fully charged. Then, at Scotty's suggestion, they locked tanks and compressor in the cabin of the _Water Witch_. Fresh-water rinses for the remainder of their equipment followed, and they carried the equipment into the house.

Zircon was already engrossed in a book, while Tony was engaged in sc.r.a.ping the pottery shard he had found. The boys watched him for a few minutes, then Scotty suggested, "How about a walk?"

"Okay." There was an idea stirring in the back of Rick's head. As they walked down to the beach he said, "We ought to take a look at the folks who own that boat."

And Scotty said in the same breath, "Let's visit the fancy frogmen."