Frank glanced at his brother. He was beginning to suspect that Captain Royal was having some fun at their expense. The old man rattled on.
“The rhinoceros finally swam out to sea again and I was able to come down. I lived on that island for half a year, hoping that my warship would come back, but it never did. So I made myself a raft and loaded it up with water and fruit and finally sailed away. It took me more than a month of steady sailing before I finally reached land off the coast of South America. By jing, I was glad when I saw the Andes Mountains again. I landed at a port where there was a ship, and I’m swizzled if it wasn’t my own boat.”
“Your own boat!”
“Yes sir. I could hardly believe my eyes. So I come on board, and they were going to throw me off.”
“Why?” asked Chet, in surprise.
“They didn’t know me. You see, I hadn’t been able to shave when I was on the island, and I’d grown a beard. So nobody knew me and they wouldn’t believe me when I said I was their captain. But I told them to lend me a pair of scissors and a razor and I took off that beard and stepped out on deck, and by jing they all saluted me then, I can tell you. I made the quartermaster walk the plank and we all sailed back to San Francisco.”
“That was quite an adventure,” said Frank politely.
“Oh, I’ve had many things happen to me. I’ve been in a lot of battles, too. Of course, I’ve retired from the navy now, for there isn’t the excitement nowadays.”
“Were you in the Spanish-American war?” asked Chet.
“I was all through it from start to finish. I had a narrow escape during that war. I took my ship out one night off the Philippines to see if I could catch a Spanish warship that I’d heard was in the neighborhood, and we sighted her just about midnight, not half a mile away. So we pumped a couple of shots over her keel and she turned and went steaming away to the north. Well, I gave chase, but the Spaniard was fast and it was three hours before we came alongside. We were just going to board the ship when the steward came up to me and said some other boats were coming up. There was. Five of ’em. All Spanish.”
“What did you do?”
“What could I do? I couldn’t run away. I told my men to get on board the Spaniard and I took all the sailors from that boat and made ’em surrender and put ’em on my ship. So the other boats didn’t dare fire at my ship for fear of killing their own men and they didn’t dare fire at the boat I was on for fear of sinking their own ship. So we opened fire on them and they didn’t dare fire a shot back.”
“That was mighty clever.”
“Wasn’t it? I sunk two of the Spaniards and the others surrendered and I brought ’em back to Manila Bay. I was given a medal for that.”
Captain Royal looked very pleased with himself, and he dug into a capacious pocket and produced a plug of tobacco, taking a huge bite.
“Oh, I’ve had experiences,” he said, wagging his head. “Are you going to be around here long?”
“Just a few days.”
“I’d invite you to come and live in my cave, only there ain’t much room.”
“We have a cave of our own, farther down the shore.”
“That’s fine. I’ll call and see you some time.”
“We’ll be glad to have you do that,” said Joe cordially.
The old man got up and walked toward the entrance of his own cave.
“Come on inside,” he urged. “You’d better stay and have some dinner with me. I was out fishing this morning and I caught quite a few fish. As soon as they’re ready, we’ll sit down and eat.”
The boys accepted the invitation eagerly, and trooped into the cave of Captain Royal. Chet looked around hungrily, for the fish, but there was none in sight. The old man invited them to sit down, and they squatted in the sand, there being no chairs or boxes.
“Are you the only person living around here, Captain Royal?” asked Frank.
“The only one. I thought I was the only person who knew about these caves until I saw you lads here.”
“There was someone who visited us last night—” began Frank. Then he hesitated in surprise, for Captain Royal leaped to his feet, a look of fear on his face.
“What’s that?” he exclaimed. “Someone visited you! Don’t tell me there’s someone else around here!”
XVI
“Go Away!”
“Someone came into our cave last night and stole most of our supplies,” said Frank.
“A man!”
“We didn’t see him, but it could scarcely have been an animal of any kind, for he carried off a whole box of food.”
“You don’t say!” exclaimed Captain Royal.
“And we found a footprint too,” added Joe.
Captain Royal shook his head in amazement.
“This is very strange. I had no idea there was anyone else around this part of the coast. You can see for yourself that it is hard to get here, and if there were anyone else around I would be sure to see him.”
“And you’ve seen no one?”
“Not a living soul, besides yourselves. And he stole your supplies?”
“Nearly all of them. He left us some canned beans, a loaf of bread, some butter and some coffee; but that’s about all.”
“Canned beans! It’s a long time since I’ve had any canned beans. Perhaps we could trade.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” said Chet. “There are other things we need.”
“I have some dried fish here,” said the captain. “I have fish and a case of eggs and some other things. Go get those beans and we’ll trade.”
Chet hastened back to the other cave and returned in due time with
