DISASTER!
Clearly the churns saw that, although the hi-jackers had escaped for a
time, they were really trapped. The _Senorita_, their cruiser, if she
lay where she was until dawn, must be discovered.
Within the Sound, reached with such daring and risk, there was no
safety, now that Uncle Sam’s watchdog had their scent, so to speak.
But, with the perversity which Nature seems sometimes to show, the
elements played a card in favor of the evil-doers. Heavy rain squalls
came up, and the wind blew the water in sheets that made a perfect
screen for a slipping, silent gray shape.
Captain Ortiga took quick advantage of his fortune. The gray _Senorita_
nosed out into Little Card Sound, crossed its end, skirting the shore,
and, again at the outlet, nosed quietly, slowly out toward freedom. In
the downpour it was unlikely that they could be sighted and the
propeller thrash would be deadened by the wind and waves.
“I have a scheme,” whispered Nicky, as the chums stood at the bow,
straining their eyes hopefully into the downpour, themselves heedless of
the rain that stung their faces. Tew, with surprising kindliness, had
loaned them oil-skins from the “slop chest” or supply reserve.
“What is your plan?” queried Tom, lips close to Nicky’s ear.
Three heads drew together.
“I was in the little steerman’s cubby at the front of the cabin, just
now,” Nicky said. “I saw the place where the electric buttons are set.
They control the electric lights.”
“I see what you mean,” Cliff broke in. “You want to get in there and
work the electric lights.”
“Yes. Then the cutter will see us.”
Tom raised an objection. “If she chases us again,” he declared, “she
will fire until she hits us.”
“That’s right,” Cliff agreed. “This time she won’t give up until she
captures—or sinks us!”
“It’s a risk, I know,” Nicky admitted. “She won’t know we are on board
and she will have a right to sink these fellows. But it would be one way
to help to capture——”
Tom spoke practically.
“What good will it do us to have this boat sunk?” he asked. “In this
rough water we wouldn’t have a chance to be picked up, maybe.”
“I guess it is too dangerous,” Nicky admitted.
“Better wait,” Cliff suggested. “We will get our chance. The right must
win or there wouldn’t be any justice in the world!”
They watched eagerly for any sign of the cutter but Captain Ortiga stood
well out from land before he swung west. The chums saw that the chances
for the cutter to discover them were remote and went back into the cabin
where they were assigned to berths.
But if the weather had seemed to aid the wrong side, there was another
card to be played and it came as a surprise.
Instead of lying-to, close to land, the cutter had stood out to the
deeper channels also!
There came a warning call from the man on watch on top of the cabin,
echoed by the one at the bows. “Hard a-port!” was the call, “something
ahead!”
The boys dashed again to the deck.
They quickly discerned the dim shape toward which the _Senorita_ had
been directly advancing.
Had they, too, been sighted?
The _Senorita_ swerved from her course, and made almost a right angle to
her former course, though, of course, on a wide curve!
That swung them in toward land, again, for it was the safer way. Then,
on a quartering line, partly on the true path and partly drawing toward
land, they held steadily on.
There came across the water a vivid flash, but the wind swept away the
cutter’s voice as her cannon spoke.
“Full speed ahead!” was the order to the engineer.
The _Senorita_ trembled and strove, and behind her the cutter, her
headway increasing, again took up the chase.
“But she’s behind us now, and she may have to turn around—I couldn’t see
which was her bow, she was so far away,” Cliff said.
“I’m half afraid we’ll show her our heels,” Tom whispered. “And I’m half
glad. If we can get to an island or close enough to swim to one, they
can sink her and welcome!”
Nicky agreed.
From the stem they watched the chase. Several shots were fired at them,
but they could guess, by the diminishing light of each succeeding flash,
that they were drawing away from the cutter.
“But she won’t give up,” Nicky proclaimed. “She will hang on like a
bulldog.”
“I wonder why Don Ortiga doesn’t give up the run for the archipelago and
stand out to sea?” Tom said.
Captain Ortiga had a different plan. He knew that the Government boat
would never give up, and he wished to use that very point for his own
advantage. He planned to make the other boat very sure that he would
continue along the Cape Sable coastline. He wished them to follow.
Therefore, to the chums’ amazement, he caused the mast light to be
switched on, and even reduced their speed a little, so that the cutter
would pursue, but would be just out of dangerous range.
“Why is he doing this?” Nicky wondered. “Let’s find out! We’re part of
his crew, aren’t we? He ought to tell us.”
Cliff laughed at Nicky’s assumption that they were real hi-jackers, but
the trio trooped into the cabin. They found Mate Tew there, going over
some of the weapons in the arsenal.
“Well, my hearties!” Tew explained, “it’s this way. Don Ortiga’s got a
grudge ag’inst them Government snoopers! He hates ’em!”
Don Ortiga, Nicky mused, seemed to have a grudge against almost
everybody—the government men, his brother—who else?
“He’s going to lure them where he can—do—what he plans—” He did not make
the plan clear but the chums felt that it was a very serious danger into
which their countrymen, pursuing their duty, were being led.
“We’ll run up along them islands,” Tew went on, “to the mouth o’ the
Shark River. O’ course it ain’t rightly the mouth o’ the river, out
there in them islands—it’s just a channel through ’em opposite the
Shark—that’s about fifteen miles back, at the mainland edge.”
“What good will that do?” Nicky inquired earnestly.
“Well, we’ll have the _Senorita_ well in the mouth o’ the river, come
dawn! Then we lands, see? Then we waits. O’ course they’ll run up along
the islands and if they miss us, well an’ good—but if they turn and come
into the inner channel and spot us, they’ll put a crew onto the deserted
_Senorita_, and keep some on their cutter—and then—we’ll spring a little
surprise!”
There was little sleep for the excited chums during that night. It was
quiet enough, and uneventful; but they were so excited and “worked up”
that they could not stop discussing the situation long enough to fall
asleep.
They made good progress and when the sound of running feet and low
orders came, they all rose from their bunks and ran on deck.
“You’re sure you know the channel?” Tew was asking, as they came up to
him and Captain Ortiga.
“Yes,” replied the latter, shortly. “You stand by to pass the word
quickly to the man at the wheel.”
The first faint dawn light was visible in the East. Ahead were dim
blotches on the water; to the right lay many other gloomy shapes. There
seemed to be a wider space off the bow at one point. The order was
given, the vessel swung her course toward the break and, still at good
speed, bore on.
The dim islets closed in on each side.
“Starboard a point,” called the captain from the bows, his eyes probing
the dark, just faintly glimmering water, “starboard a point!”
“Starboard a point!” relayed Tew.
“Starboard a point it is!” the helmsman, at his little wheel, drew down
the spokes to the side.
“Port—port two points!”
“Port—two points!”
“Port two it is!”
“Hard a-port! Hard a-port—quick!”
“Hard a-port—quick!”
There came a shout of dismay, a call from the pilot.
“Tiller rope’s broken!”
“Stop the engines—hard a-starboard—hard over—reverse her!”
There were shouts, cries, dismayed questions, a jangle of a bell.
The whole fabric of the vessel seemed to shudder as if in the grip of an
earthquake. The engines had not been stopped and reversed in time. The
captain shouted and at the same instant there was a rasping rending
sound—a sickening sound—a tearing, grinding, splintering as the ship
tore her side on coral—and stopped, settling gently on her side!