"Is not bad," Chahda said. "Just made me stop fighting for a few minutes." Rick saw that the boy was right. A bullet had creased his right shoulder, digging a deep furrow from which the blood welled. It was painful, but at least they weren't faced with the problem of getting the bullet out. He sterilized the wound and bound it tightly with gauze pads. Then he washed Chahda clean of blood and put him to bed with a blanket over him in case of shock. "How about you, Professor?" Rick asked. "You said something about being wounded, but I don't see any blood." Zircon chuckled grimly. "Not much blood, anyway. How did you happen to be wearing shoes?" Rick explained that he and Scotty had awakened before the attack and had gotten partially dressed to go on deck. "Then you don't know," Zircon said. Suddenly he put his head back and roared with laughter. "Did you ever see anything weirder than those pirates dancing? I thought they'd gone insane in wholesale lots!" Rick stared at the scientist. "I noticed," he said. "I wondered about it, too." "But you don't know the reason!" Zircon pointed at Chahda, who grinned weakly from his bunk. "There's the cause of it all. He routed the enemy with minimum help from us, even after he was wounded." Rick turned to stare at Chahda. "What's he talking about?" The Hindu boy shook his head. "I was sleepy, and I afraid maybe fall asleep, which big disgrace. So what I do? I fix things to hurt pirates, but also I hurt Professor Zircon, for which I plenty sorry." "But how?" Rick demanded. "Oh, I remembered that in Jolo I never see Moros wear shoes. Not very many, anyway." Zircon had mentioned shoes, too. Rick groaned with impatience. "What have shoes to do with it?" Chahda grinned. "I borrow the professor's cannon ammunition. All around edge of deck I sprinkled, so when pirates come, they dance, and soon they have plenty." Rick got it then. He sat down and laughed until Scotty had to stick his head in to see what was going on. Rick pointed at Chahda. "The Hindu wizard!" he roared. "You know what he did? He sprinkled the deck with tacks! No wonder the pirates danced!" CHAPTER XII Search the Wide Seas There was an atmosphere of rising excitement on the _Swift Arrow_. Rick felt it, and knew the others did, too. Little by little they were narrowing the search. With only a few island groups remaining, he felt sure it would not be long before the pirate stronghold was located. The _Swift Arrow_ had poked its sharp bow into nearly every port in the vast Tawi Tawi Group, and had put into the port of Dungun on the main island to refuel. Since the pirate attack of two nights before, the Spindrifters had practically eliminated the Tawi Tawi islands as possibilities for the pirate hideout. Hobart Zircon, checking their progress on the chart, called the boys together. "There's only one island group remaining in this immediate area," Zircon pointed out, "and I'm not even sure it's in Philippines waters."