There in the midst
of the camp Mr. Tubbs stood, the center of a group who were
regarding him with astonished looks. Mr. Shaw and the captain had
left their tinkering, Cookie his saucepans, and Aunt Jane and
Violet had come hurrying from the hut. Among us all stood Mr.
Tubbs with folded arms, looking round upon the company with an
extraordinary air of complacency and triumph.
"What is it, oh, what is it, Mr. Tubbs?" cried Aunt Jane,
fluttering with the consciousness of her proprietorship.
But Mr. Tubbs glanced at her as indifferently as a sated
turkey-buzzard at a morsel which has ceased to tempt him.
"Mr. Tubbs," commanded Violet, "speak--explain yourself!"
"Come, out with it, Tubbs," advised Mr. Shaw.
Then the lips of Mr. Tubbs parted, and from them issued this
solitary word:
"Eureka!"
"What?" screamed Miss Higglesby-Browne. "_You have found it_?"
Solemnly Mr. Tubbs inclined his head.
"Eureka!" he repeated. "I have found it!"
Amidst the exclamations, the questions, the general commotion which
ensued, I had room for only one thought--that Mr. Tubbs had somehow
discovered the treasure in the cabin of the _Island Queen_.
Indeed, I should have shrieked the words aloud, but for a
providential dumbness that fell upon me. Meanwhile Mr. Tubbs had
unfolded his arms from their Napoleonic posture on his bosom long
enough to wave his hand for silence.
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