The Mysterious Caravan (2 page)

“We'll help you back,” Biff said, and he steadied the injured boy with a strong grip.

“Wait a minute,” Joe said. “I think there's a body in the sand. You might be stepping on it.”

“Where?” Tony asked.

“Right there.”

Tony and Phil dropped to their knees and felt about.

“Argh! Here it is,” Tony said. His hands found the face, slippery and covered with sea moss and barnacles.

“Careful as we dig,” Phil cautioned. “If it's been in the water long, it might fall apart.”

Biff still held onto Joe as the others clawed the sand from around the face.

“Hey, it's a skull!” Frank cried.

Phil felt it. “Half a skull,” he said with a shudder. “The back of it is sheared right off!”

“Leave it be,” Chet advised. “In a voodoo place like this I want nothing to do with a skull. Its ghost may come to claim it!”

“What are you scared of?” Frank asked. “This might be a help to the authorities. It could have been a missing person.”

“It feels like a face!” Joe thought.

“Most likely a murder victim,” Biff said.

Joe bent down impatiently and picked the thing up. It had not felt like a skeleton to him. He remembered the cold lips and firm chin. “We'll take it back to the cottage,” he said, “and examine it there.”

All five trudged along the beach, with eyes still peeled for possible bodies from the shipwreck, but had seen nothing by the time they entered the beach house and shut the door behind them.

Phil, who had a medical career in mind, got the first-aid kit and applied medication to Joe's bump.

Frank fixed the shutter while Biff lit the candle on the table. They all pulled up wooden chairs to look at Joe's find.

“See. It's not a skull,” Joe said. He pressed his thumbs into what should have been soft flesh.

“Hard as a rock,” Frank observed.

“Suppose it's ossified?” Tony asked.

“Hardly,” Phil said. “Not in the water.”

The light flickered over what appeared to be a man's face. The nose was straight, the chin firm with a curly beard.

“It's some kind of mask,” Joe said. He pulled out his penknife, flipped open a blade, and was about to scratch away the covering of sea growth when Phil stopped him.

“Hold it,” Phil said. “This should be done by an expert, or it'll be ruined!”

“What about you?” Frank said. “Didn't you work for the museum once?”

“Right. I restored old artifacts. That's why I was worried when Joe tackled it.”

“Well, can you do it?”

“I'll try. But no guarantees!” Phil took the knife and started to work on the mask. “It's metal,” he said after a while. “See it shine?”

“Am I glad,” Chet said. “No skull, no ghost!”

“Where do you suppose it came from?” Tony asked.

“That's anybody's guess,” Frank said.

The boys watched, fascinated, as Phil worked on the mask carefully.

“I'm glad you're feeling better about the ghost,” Tony ribbed Chet. “I didn't know you believed in spooks.”

Chet grinned wryly. “You never can——”

His words were cut off by three loud raps on the door. They all jumped!

I
T
was the middle of the night and the boys were not expecting a visitor. Could it be a shipwreck survivor? Frank raised his hand in a signal of caution as the knocks came again, this time even louder.

“Who's there?” he called.

“It is I. William.”

Frank stepped forward and flung the door open. “Hi, William. Come on in.”

Framed in the entrance stood a tall, well-built black youth, about the same age as the boys from Bayport. He had a handsome face, lit up now by a broad white smile. Like the others, he wore cut-off jeans and a tee shirt. Around his neck dangled a small trinket carved in the shape of an African native.

The boys had met William on the beach shortly after their arrival and had become friends. Joe
had developed a special interest in William's hobby of African lore and his great admiration for King Mansa Musa. He had even learned a few words of Swahili, which William was studying.

“
Hujambo?
” (“How are you?”) William asked.

“
Sijambo, ahsante
,” (“I am well, thank you,”) Joe replied.

“You learn Swahili fast,” William said with a nod as he stepped inside and closed the door behind him. “I came because I feared your house might have been blown down.”

“Thanks,” Phil said. “The cottage survived but we nearly lost Joe.”

“How so? And what do we have here?” The Jamaican boy looked curiously at the mask.

“It's a long story,” Joe said.

Spelling one another, the companions told their guest about the lights on the sea, Joe's disappearance, and the discovery of the strange face in the sand.

“Now we're trying to figure out what this mask is all about,” Frank concluded. “Have a seat while Phil scrapes off the sea moss.”

“Take my place,” Chet said, offering William his chair.

“Thank you, Chet. You are very considerate.” William spoke with a slow, measured cadence. His English, with a slight British inflection, was perfect.

“I'm just sleepy,” Chet said with a yawn. “I want to go to bed. Hey, what's that under your belt?”

“A present for you all,” William said. He drew out a plastic-covered paperback book and handed it to Chet. “This is the Swahili word book I was telling you about.”

“Oh, great! Thanks,” Chet said, and he moved his cot out toward the table in order to catch a little light from the candle. He thumped his pillow into a ball and lay back to read the book.

The others, meanwhile, watched as Phil continued to work on the mask.

“That is a most distinguished face,” William said. “Probably the replica of an important man.”

The knife blade worked about the eyes. They were blank. The mouth, cleaned of the greenish covering, looked stern and noble. Even the beard seemed patrician, with every curl carefully arranged.

“Wait a sec,” Phil said. “You know what? I think this is a death mask. Remember the pictures in our ancient history textbook?”

“You're right,” Joe said. “When a famous or rich person died they'd take a plaster impression of the face and make a mask from it.”

“Sometimes,” William added, “even while the person was living, they would do this.”

Phil stopped scraping and looked closely at the treasure.

“A real handsome guy,” Tony said. “He looks Italian.”

“Maybe a Roman or a Greek,” William ventured.

“Let's call him Brutus for the moment,” Biff suggested.

“Not bad,” Phil said with a smile. He wrinkled his brow in thought. “
Habari za asubuhi, Bwana
Brutus.”

“Very good,” William said. “Good morning, Mr. Brutus. You are learning fast, Phil.”

From the cot came Chet's sleepy voice. “That's nothing.
Nahitaji vigwe vya viatu.
”

“What'd he say?” Joe asked.

“I need a pair of shoelaces,” William translated. “Chet, your pronunciation is quite acceptable.”

But there was no more comment from Chet. The book rested on his chest, which rose and fell rhythmically to the sound of gentle snoring.

The boys were getting sleepier by the minute, but Phil kept on cleaning the mask.

“Now the face looks pretty good,” he finally said. “Let's try to dig some of this crud out of the back.”

The mud and other detritus came out in big chunks, and soon the mask resembled a hollow shell. When Tony wiped off the last few sandy particles with his handkerchief, he peered intently into the back of the cast. “I think there's some
writing here,” he said, handing the mask to Joe, who squinted at the odd-looking lettering written in several neat lines. But he could make nothing of it, either.

Phil examined the text. “It looks like Arabic to me,” he said. “What do you say, William?”

“You may be right. Did you know the word Swahili is a modified form of the Arabic
sawa-hil
, meaning ‘coast people?'”

“You're a walking encyclopedia,” Biff said with admiration. “Why the coast people?”

“It was the language of East Africa,” William explained, “and it was carried to the interior by traders and missionaries.”

When talk swung back to the mysterious mask, Phil said, “We ought to keep it a secret. What say, Frank?”

“Yes, until we learn more about it. I'll hide it in my gear.”

“Good idea,” Joe agreed. “And now let's call it a night. Will you stay with us, William? We have an extra sleeping bag.”

“I would be honored to be your guest.”

Frank snuffed out the candle and stretched out on his cot. The last thing he remembered was William telling Phil about Mansa Musa, fabulously rich king of Mali in fourteenth-century West Africa.

The storm abated sometime during the night, and when Frank awoke the next morning, the
bright Caribbean sunshine was sifting through the cracks in the shutters. He rose and flung them open, flooding the cottage with daylight. As he shielded his eyes to peer out at the sea, he noted knots of people standing on the beach. They seemed to be talking excitedly.

“Look, guys, something's going on out there!” Frank said as the others rose from their slumber. They dressed quickly and hurried outside.

“Don't you want breakfast first?” Chet asked. “I'm starved.”

“You stay and make it,” Joe said.

“Okay. How many want eggs, sunny-side up, and bacon?”

All the boys accepted with a good-natured cheer, and Chet padded around the kitchen, searching for the skillet. The others ran to the spectators, who appeared to be looking for something along the shore.

William spoke to a group of Jamaicans, while the Americans mingled with vacationers. Fifteen minutes later they met to exchange information.

“This is the story,” William began. “A treasure-hunting ship was wrecked offshore last night. It had found the site of a sunken galleon by radar, and the men were about to dive when the storm struck.”

“Were they drowned?” Biff asked.

William shook his head. “That is the miracle. All three survived.”

“Pretty rugged, I'd say,” Phil commented.

“Their boat is a total loss,” William went on. “It broke like matchwood.”

“Are the people looking for the pieces?” Tony asked.

“No. Jamaicans who understand the sea think part of the old galleon may have been washed in. They are looking for treasure!”

“Come on, let's join them,” Phil said. The boys walked back and forth, eyes glued to the strip where the shiny sand met the lapping surf. Seaweed and odd pieces of debris dotted the sand. Farther down the shore, a girl cried out in surprise and held up an old coin.

“No doubt it is from the galleon,” William said.

Minutes later Biff bent down to retrieve another. “Hey, I've got something!” he cried.

His companions crowded around for a look, and others joined them to gaze curiously at the blackened coin, which probably had been buried for centuries.

Three men pushed through to Biff. The oldest, handsome and in his middle thirties, asked to see the find. He turned it over and over, studying it carefully.

“It's authentic,” he said. “A Spanish silver piece.”

The two other men examined it next. They were younger and rough looking.

“How do you know it's authentic?” Tony asked.

“I'm Tiffany Stribling. These are my assistants, Sam Brown and George Aker. That was our boat that sank last night.”

“Oh, you're the treasure hunters,” Phil said.

Aker nodded with a one-sided smile. “You know, big boy, you can't keep this. It belongs to the Jamaican government.”

“We'll turn it in,” Frank said, and added, “What kind of galleon were you looking for?”

This time Brown spoke, his voice edged with condescension. “That's our secret. Why should we tell you amateurs?”

Joe bristled and was about to respond when Chet trotted up to say that breakfast was ready. He caught part of the conversation and blurted, “Amateurs, eh? We've found a——”

Joe stepped on his foot.

“Oh, you found something else?” Stribling said. “What was it?”

T
IFFANY'S
question went unanswered, and his friendly demeanor disappeared suddenly.

“Why all the secrecy?” he demanded. “We're experts and can tell you whether the item you found is worth anything or not.”

Frank shook his head. “We prefer to keep it to ourselves.”

Aker put on his lopsided smile again. “We can turn you in for concealing Jamaican property!”

“Who says we're concealing anything?” Phil said. “Maybe it was just an old log.”