CHAPTER XVICAST ADRIFT
Whatever the intention of the two men was, their plans were now being affected by something they had not anticipated. The fog had blotted out everything except a comparatively small space of the ocean around them; and, to complicate matters still more, the sails of theSea-Lark, after flapping lazily for a while, now began to hang limply. The faint breeze had died down entirely, and the sloop lay motionless.
“This ain’t no good!” Hegan commented at length, addressing his companion. “Better set them two adrift in their dinghy.”
“What do you want to do that for?” demanded the captain, heatedly. So long as he had both feet on the sloop’s deck he stood at least some chance of defending his property.
“Don’t ask questions,” snapped Hegan. “Hop over the side, there.”
With both Martin and Hegan covering them with revolvers, the lads had no alternative but to obey. They were in the dinghy and Martin still held the painter in his hand ready to cast it loose, when an idea occurred to Hegan.
“Pass me up those oars,” he ordered.
Jack gave a sudden tug on the painter but did not succeed in dragging it from Martin’s hand.
“Come down and get them yourself if you’re so anxious for the things,” Jack retorted.
“You young varmint! Bound to give us as much trouble as you can, ain’t you?” snarled Hegan, clambering over the side and nearly swamping the little dinghy—which was never made to hold more than two—as he gained possession of the oars.
“What did you expect me to do?” asked Jack. “Hand them up to you politely and then kiss you good-by? I suppose you fellows both know you’ll go to prison for this as soon as the police put their hands on you.”
“They’ve got to catch us first,” gruntedHegan as, with his foot on the prow of the dinghy, he pushed it off. It slid a few yards through the water and then lay still by the side of theSea-Larkuntil a faint puff of wind fluttered the sails of the sloop and she drifted half a cable’s length farther away.
“What in the name of goodness do you suppose those chaps did that for?” Jack exclaimed presently.
“They’ve got some crazy notion of stealing the sloop, I guess,” replied Rodney. “Itiscrazy, though. To begin with, they can’t get far. They’ll have to put in at Baymouth or some other place within a few miles. And when we land it won’t be half an hour before all the police along this part of the coast are looking out for them. They can’t disguise her, and they won’t have more than a few hours to sell her.”
“I can’t help thinking the same way that you do about it,” replied Jack, laughing, for in spite of the unpleasantness of their position there was something utterly ludicrous and unexpectedabout it. “But we’re not ashore yet. Got no oars, remember.”
“How far is the coast from here?”
Jack shrugged.
“A couple of miles, perhaps. I guess it can’t be much more. Ithinkit lies over there,” he said, pointing vaguely into the bewildering mass of fog.
“Ithink it’s over here,” declared Rod, pointing in nearly the opposite direction. “The sloop is—” He turned to glance in the direction of the sloop, but found the mist had swallowed her up.
“She’s over there,” said Jack.
“No, she’s over there,” Rod contradicted.
“What are you going by? The wind, or the sun?”
“Guesswork,” owned Rod, realizing that in a dead calm, surrounded by fog, all points of the compass looked alike.
“We’re stuck! That’s all there is to it,” said Jack. “Nothing much can happen to us, though, as it’s such fine weather, barring thefog. And that’s bound to lift soon. We can paddle ashore with our hands, on a pinch, as soon as we can see where we are.”
But the fog continued to hang over the surface like a pall, and the boys waited with what patience they could muster, because, though by paddling with their hands they might be able to send the dinghy through the water at the rate of a mile an hour or even more, they were as likely as not to paddle her farther out to sea.
Suddenly Jack straightened up and put his head on one side, listening.
“What was that?” he asked.
“Didn’t hear a thing,” replied Rod.
“I did, though,” declared the captain. “Listen!”
After a while a faint creaking sound came over the water.
“Hear it then?” Jack asked.
The other nodded. “What was it?” he queried, straining his ears afresh.
A smile came slowly to Jack’s face.
“I believe it’s the sloop,” he declared. “She’s stuck, anyway, the same as we are, youknow. Hegan and his pal will have to stay just where they are until a breeze happens along. And there hasn’t been more than a breath of air since they threw us out.”
“It might be some other boat,” Rod suggested.
“We’ll soon settle that,” said Jack. “Ahoy, there! Ahoy!”
He knew that call must travel some distance in such still air, and when no answering hail was returned his suspicions were confirmed.
“Can’t you picture them, as mad as a couple of hornets!” Jack chuckled. “They’ve fallen into their own trap and they can’t get out of it until a breeze comes.”
“I suppose there’s no chance of paddling back alongside and catching them off their guard?” Rod suggested.
The captain frowned thoughtfully.
“I guess not,” he said. “They’ll be getting the jumps soon. We’d make a pretty good target, remember, if they started to take potshots at us. All the same, I’m game if you are. It would be better than sitting here and doingnothing.Thereshe goes again! You heard? It’s the boom swinging in the swell. Here, what idiots we are!” he went on, stooping and lifting the floor boards of the dinghy. “What could you want better than these for paddles? Quietly, now! If they hear us coming we shall have no better chance than when we drifted away. I expect it will be no good, anyway, but I can’t sit still doing nothing, much longer.”
Judging as accurately as possible the direction of the sound that came across the water occasionally, they began to paddle softly, and within five minutes Jack held up a warning hand and pointed ahead, where the shape of theSea-Larkloomed dimly.
For another twenty fathoms they urged the dinghy along, until it was possible to see the sloop distinctly. Contrary to Jack’s expectation, there was nobody visible on deck. In such a dead calm it would have been useless for Hegan to stand by the wheel, but Jack was puzzled. The dinghy was now drawing near the vessel.
“I wonder if they’ve—” Rod began in awhisper; whereupon Jack silenced him with an imperative gesture. The sloop looked as though she had been abandoned, but as there was no small boat in which the men could leave her, that was obviously not the explanation. By signs only did Jack now communicate with his friend. Like a wraith, the dinghy slid under theSea-Lark’sbow. Motioning Rod to keep the little craft from bumping against the side of the sloop, Jack placed his hands on the deck and slowly drew himself up until he was aboard theSea-Larkagain, on his hands and knees. Still nobody challenged him. His pulse was beating a shade faster than usual as he crawled cautiously down the little alleyway between the deck-house and the low rail, for there was no disguising the fact that he was inviting trouble. There were two armed men, evidently entirely unscrupulous fellows, to contend with. If they suddenly saw him creeping along the deck, it was the most likely thing in the world that one of them would blaze away with his revolver.
Jack came near to the port-hole let into the side of the deck-house. By looking throughthere he would be able to see the inside of the cabin. But unfortunately those inside the cabin stood an equally good chance of seeing him, with consequences distinctly unpleasant, if not painful. He could hear them now. They were evidently engaged in some dispute, for Hegan’s raucous voice was raised in protest more than once, and he heard Martin say: “Well, hurry up, then.”
There came, also, a peculiar sound as of dull blows and the straining of woodwork.
A wild hope had come into Jack’s head, but in order to execute the plan which he hastily formed it became necessary for him to pass before the port-hole.
Cautiously he leaned forward until his eyes fell on the forms of the men inside. They had their backs turned toward him, and were intent on some work of destruction. In his hand Hegan held a short bar of steel, just such an implement as Jack had found on the cabin floor after the midnight struggle. With it he was tearing away one of the boards that formed the sheathing of the cabin. Several such boardshad already been ripped off and lay in splinters on the floor.
“I tell you it’s gone!” Martin exclaimed in an angry voice.
“And if it’s gone,” retorted Hegan, turning toward his companion, with the bar of steel held menacingly in the air, “there’s only one person who could have taken it.”
“What d’you mean?” demanded Martin.
“I mean just what I say. If you’ve double-crossed me you won’t get away with it. You’ll have me to reckon with. I know now why you didn’t want to come off in the sloop to-day. I thought at first it was just because you were naturally scared o’ anything bigger than a chicken. Now I got you!”
“I tell you I don’t know a thing about it,” Martin protested in whining tones. “Maybe it’s there, after all. Smash another board off.”
Hegan returned to his task, and for a few minutes there was no sound beyond the rending of planks from the side of the cabin, and the creaking of rusted nails.
Suddenly Hegan gave a cry and put his hand down behind the sheathing.
“I see it!” he cried exultantly. “Just like we left it, too! Sort of misjudged you, didn’t I? Guess you wouldn’t have the pluck to double-cross a feller like me, though! Here it is, safe and sound!”
Then he drew from behind the sheathing the thing for which he had been seeking.
And Jack, watching through the port, saw the man’s hand grasping the strange object of his search.