were close upon the man and the woman.

Whistler, with an oath of consternation, jumped backward. The next moment, he had whirled his gad and brought it down on the lantern. A crash followed, and Stygian blackness shrouded the spot. A sound of running feet, fading away in the timber, came to the boys' ears.

"Never mind Whistler, Dick," said Matt; "let's look after the woman."

CHAPTER II.

YAMOUSA.

No sound had come from the woman since the two boys had reached the scene. Groping their way to her, they found that she had become unconscious and was drooping heavily in the cords that held her bound to the stump.

"Of all the things that ever happened to us, mate," remarked Dick, "this captures the prize. We get cast away on a little turtle back in the Bahamas, and Lat Jurgens and this old hunks, Whistler, come to the island in Nemo, Jr.'s submarine. We capture the pair and leave 'em roped in our tent; then we capture the submarine. Later we send ashore for Jurgens and Whistler and the landing party reports that they have vanished. Now, dropping down here in answer to a cry of distress, we find Whistler giving an old woman a taste of the cat. Whistler, of all men! I'm fair dazed with it all."[A]

"So am I," said Matt, "but we'll not let that bother us now. This old woman has been brutally treated, and has fainted away. We must get her to the hut and see what we can do to revive her."

"Right-o," agreed Dick. "I've my sheath knife handy and I'll cut her loose from that stump in a brace of shakes."

Matt held the limp form upright while Dick severed the cords; then, picking the woman up, they carried her through the woods, back to the clearing, and laid her on the ragged blankets in the hut.

"I think I saw a candle on the shelf over the fireplace, Dick," said Matt. "Better light it."

Dick found the candle. It was a tallow dip stuck in an old tin candlestick. With the light in his hand, he walked to the old woman's side and bent downward.

The face of the woman was scarred and hideous. There were big gold earrings pulling down the lobes of her ears, and another large ring pierced her nose and fell down over her upper lip. Her cheeks were hollow, and the yellow skin resembled parchment. Her clothing was a motley garb of patched rags. Two claw-like hands, with finger nails an inch long, lay on the blankets beside her.

Matt lifted his eyes to Dick's with a shudder.

"She's not what you'd call Cinderella, exactly," grinned Dick, "and I don't think her beauty will ever prove fatal."

"Anyhow," said Matt, "she's a woman and needs help. That's enough for us to know."

A tin water pail stood on a bench, and there was a gourd dipper hanging over it. Matt filled the gourd and returned and dashed the water in the old woman's face.

The effect was magical. With a screech that caused the boys to start backward in consternation, the old woman sat up suddenly and glared about her, with eyes like coals. Abruptly her attention fixed itself on the boys and she began to croon in a harsh, mumbling voice:

She exploded the last word like the crack of a revolver, lifting and aiming her fingers as she might have done with a weapon.

"Avast, there, old lady!" cried Dick. "We're friends of yours. Can't you understand that?"

"American?" shrilled the woman, rising slowly to her feet.

"Yes," said Matt.

"Where is ze man zat take me from my home and beat me wiz ze stick?" she demanded, crouching like a cat, while her talon-like hands clawed the air angrily.

"He ran away," answered Matt. "We cut you loose from the stump and brought you here. Do you know that man?"

The old woman staggered to the fireplace and stirred up the coals under the kettle; then she turned back, took the candle out of Dick's hand and studied his face. From Dick she turned to Matt, giving him a similar scrutiny.

Her eyes were bright and fiery—age had not seemed to dim them. As she turned from Matt, the hag gave a croaking laugh.

"I guess we'd better send the 'blue peter' to the masthead, old ship," said Dick, "trip anchor and slant away. This don't look like a comfortable berth, to me."

"You not go 'way yet," cried the woman, whirling about. "You are ze good boys, you help Yamousa, ze Obeah woman, and by gar, Yamousa help you! Sit on ze bench."

She waved one hand toward the bench on which the water pail was standing. Dick, heeding a significant look from Matt, followed to the bench and sat down.

"Do you know that man who was beating you?" asked Matt, again, determined if possible to get a little information about Whistler.

"Oui, I know heem!" answered the woman, with a spitting snarl. "One time he work on ze sugar plantation near ze bayou, and he come many time to see Yamousa and have her tell him ze t'ings he do not know. He come now from ze Bahamas and ask about ze iron chest, and where zis Townsend take heem. But Yamousa, she no tell. For why Yamousa no tell, eh? Well, she see zat Whistler haf ze bad heart. Whistler try to beat her, make her tell; zen ze American boys come and drive heem away. How you get here, eh?"

"We came in an air ship," Matt answered.

"Sacre tonnere! I know zat you come—I seen him in ze smoke."

Yamousa had said things which had aroused the intense curiosity of the two boys. Whistler had tried to force her into telling him the whereabouts of an "iron chest." That iron chest had been found in a sea cavern of an uninhabited island among the Bahamas, had been taken aboard Townsend's submarine, and had been in the submarine when Matt and his chums turned the boat over to her owner on the Florida coast. Townsend had taken the chest to New Orleans, and Jurgens and Whistler were eager to recover it.

What the chest contained, no one knew. A man who called himself simply the "Man from Cape Town" had given Townsend a chart and secured his promise to find the chest, carry it to New Orleans, and open it in the presence of a woman whom the Cape Town man claimed was his daughter. These two were then to divide the contents between them.

The fact that Whistler, and presumably Jurgens, as well, still had designs on the chest, was surprising information for Matt and Dick. The three boys were proceeding to New Orleans in the Hawk, in response to a request from Townsend; and it might easily chance that the business which had led Townsend to call Motor Matt and his friends to New Orleans was to cross the evil designs of Jurgens and Whistler.

"Do you know anything about that iron chest, Yamousa?" inquired Matt.

"Not now, but I find heem out," replied the old woman. "By gar, I find out anyt'ing zat ees wanted to be known."

"You say you knew that we were coming?"

"Oui."

"I can't understand how you discovered that. We didn't know ourselves we were coming until we got a telegram at Palm Beach, Florida, yesterday."

"I