For a moment the two were silent, seeing in the shadowy kitchen the heavy-booted Redcoats, the children huddled about their mother, the white face of John Blake who, without his firing piece, was helpless to defend his home.
“John’s wife, Sally—”
“Sally Blake! Like me,” Sally broke in.
David nodded. “Lots of the Blake girls have been named Sally after her. Anyway, the first Sally sent the oldest boy, Jonathan, to hide the valuables — family silver, I think, and pewter, and things like that. And the British never found them.”
“Then they might be right here in this house,” cried Sally. She seemed not to hear the thunder that crashed and echoed among the islands.
David placed a piece of driftwood on the flames. “But if Jonathan had hidden the things in the house, he could have found them again, couldn’t he?”
“I should think so.”
“Well, I’ve been thinking.” David faced his sister. “If I had been John and Sally Blake, I’d have stuffed the valuables into something the minute I saw the British drop anchor. Then I’d have sent Jonathan off with them in a boat. Then, when the British came and swarmed all over the house, the valuables would have been safe on some other island. Besides . . .”
“Besides, what?”
David hesitated.
Sally jumped off her keg in a fury. “If you had your precious old Poke here, I bet you’d tell him!”
“Poke doesn’t talk.”
“Poke does, too, talk.” Sally insisted. “Sometimes he talks exactly like an ency . . . an encyclo . . . a book.”
David studied his sister’s angry face. Then he laughed. “All right, hothead. Never mind about Poke. Cool off and come on.”
David picked up the light and led the way to the buttery, with Sally following closely at his heels. Here it was even darker than the kitchen, and dank with the chill of stone and age. Except for several rusted old lanterns lined up against the wall, the place seemed empty.
David handed Sally the light and stooped to open the door of a low cupboard. “There was a stack of old newspapers in here and I’ve used them up, building fires. So yesterday I poked around for some more, way in back of this beam.”
Sally peered in. “It looks spidery in there.”
“And I found this!” David dragged forth a heavy crock. From it he pulled a roll of musty papers.
“Grandfather’s charts,” he said briefly. “Most of them are like the ones we all use now, except they’re too mildewed to be much good.”
Sally sniffed with distaste.
“But take a look at this one!” A note of excitement had crept into David’s voice.
Her eyes bright, Sally lowered the candle over a stained scrap of canvas that David held flat on the floor. It was a faded and crudely drawn chart. In one corner the name, Jonathan Blake, was written in a childish script.
“It’s so old it’s all yellow,” Sally murmured.
“That’s why I studied it. Now look a-here.” Tensely, David’s finger traced the rude but certain outlines of Saturday Cove.
Sally crouched, wondering, over the chart.
“Don’t go dripping wax all over it,” her brother warned. “See. Here’s Blake’s Island, with a square to mark this house. Then all these little islands with no names on them. But look — ” David tapped his forefinger over a small circle. “What do you see?”
“I see a little circle for an island,” Sally said unevenly.
“Look in the circle.”
Sally looked, and drew in her breath. Very faint, so dim that she could scarcely make it out, she saw the careful cross of a small X.
Chapter
2
AN ENEMY AND AN ISLAND
SAN ENEMY AND AN ISLANDALLY looked up, her face aglow. “It’s a cross, David! On an island! I’ll bet anything it’s where Jonathan buried the treasure.”
“Could be.” Carefully, David rolled up the old chart and tied it with a piece of string from his pocket. “But don’t get your hopes up. . . .”
“But why don’t we just follow the chart?”
David laughed shortly. “That’s easier said than done. It’s only a rough sketch drawn by someone who didn’t know beans about the cove.”
“Jonathan? But Jonathan lived here.”
David led the way back to the kitchen. “That’s right. But the family had just settled on the island when all this happened, Dad said. They probably hadn’t done much scouting around the bay, what with clearing the land and raising the homestead.” Thoughtfully, he handed the chart to Sally while he scattered the ashes of the fire. “The cove is drawn too short and the islands are spaced wrong. I recognized Blake’s only by the little beach and the square that marks this house. But anyway it’s a good clue. I want Dad and Poke to see it.”
“David? Can’t I help?” There was no mistaking the longing in Sally’s voice.
“Maybe.” Her brother snuffed out the candle and flung open the door. “Look, Sally. The storm is over.”
They gazed out upon a fresh and shining world. The sun sparkled on the spruces and the spruces breathed in the light wind. For an instant the two stood silent in the doorway. Then David said, “We’d better get going.”
Down on the little beach the Lobster Boy lay safe but stranded, yards from the ebbing tide. David and Sally removed their shoes and socks and rolled up their jeans. Then they dragged the dory down the flats and into the water.
Soon they were beating their way through the cove toward Fishermen’s Dock. Sally, with Jonathan’s chart held proudly in her lap, half turned in the bow to watch their progress. As they entered the inner harbor David cut down his speed as usual. They were halfway to the town landing when they noticed the boat — a powerful mahogany inboard, new to the cove. It was roaring away from the yacht club float too fast for courtesy or safety, and it was bearing straight down on them. For a moment David stared, waiting for the other to check his speed, to change his course.
Then he shouted to Sally, “Hold on!” He pushed the stick to starboard as far as he dared, but in a flash the newcomer followed them. For a chilling instant it seemed that the two boats must crash head-on. Then the faster boat shied easily to one side, leaving the little dory pitching crazily in its wake.
David steadied the Lobster Boy on her course and said nothing. But his lips pressed angrily together as the tall boy in the other boat shouted, “Quit holding up traffic!” Then, with an insolent burst of power, the cruiser continued out of sight around the point.
Wrathfully, Sally stared after the show-off. “He could have upset us.”
David’s face was grim. “He practically did.” But there was much work to be done and the day was ending. Talk could wait.
With the motor idling, they drew alongside the lobster car, a padlocked floating crate where David kept his catch until he sold it to the hotel. Into this he emptied the day’s catch, the mottled shellfish splashing one by one into the dark water.
Sally rinsed out the bait