CAPTAIN NICKY TAKES COMMAND
There was every kind of excitement on the _Senorita_! Men rushed this
way and that; they came together in excited groups, spoke quickly
together, separated.
“The cutter’ll be on us any minute!” said a deckhand.
“This is no place to stand ’em off!” grunted another.
“Great captain, dat Don!” grumbled the cook. “Know de channel! Huh! Look
whah we’s at!”
“Lower the tender!” called Tew. “We’ll get away. Grab what you can!”
“Bettah we do dat!” agreed the cook. “Ashore we gits tuh hide; heah dey
kin shell us out-a de watah!”
Tom gripped Nicky’s arm. “Come on!” he cried, “let’s get there so they
won’t forget and leave us!”
“No!” urged Nicky. “Wait—come on with me!”
“What for?” demanded Cliff. “Where are you going?”
“Come on!” Nicky demanded of his chums. “We don’t want to go.”
“Don’t want to go—” began Cliff. Then he followed Nicky.
The self-appointed leader went hastily down into the forecastle. His two
comrades followed, wonderingly.
“I don’t see—” began Cliff.
“Look at it this way,” begged Nicky. “If we go with them we are in their
hands, aren’t we? When the cutter has come and gone, without finding
anything but the wrecked boat, these men will want to make us tell them
where the treasure is supposed to be. Then they’ll desert us!”
“That’s good common sense,” agreed Cliff.
“Yes, it is,” Tom nodded.
“Let them go in the tender,” Nicky pursued his argument. “Then we can
take possession of this boat, and when the cutter comes we can signal,
and then—isn’t there some reward for claiming salvage on a boat, some
way?”
“You’re going to get a treasure out of this adventure somehow, aren’t
you?” laughed Tom. “I never saw such a money-grabbing fellow!”
“Whether I do—we do—or not,” Nicky defended, “we are safer here than
with those hi-jackers. If the cutter doesn’t come, we have all the food
and things—maybe the arsenal. We can stand them off and——”
“Instead of them making us toe the mark, we can make them do it!” Cliff
cried, fired by Nicky’s eagerness.
“That’s it!” Tom agreed. “Nicky has the right idea!”
The tender, which was used with muffled oars according to need, had by
that time been lowered over the slanting side of the _Senorita_.
“But suppose she sinks!” a new thought came to Cliff.
“The channels can’t be very deep, even at the deepest, between these
islands,” Nicky asserted. “I think she has settled onto the rock now. If
she starts down we can almost jump onto that island—and we won’t be as
badly off as in the hands of hi-jackers!”
Gathering most of their weapons and some supplies and dropping them into
the boat, the crew hurriedly rowed away on the course toward the distant
mainland and the mouth of the Shark River where they could hide for a
time.
Tom, Cliff and Nicky assured that the ship was completely deserted
except for themselves, came on deck and from the points of vantage
watched the departure without disclosing themselves.
The cutter, in the meantime, had pursued to the best of her speed during
most of the night, but when the _Senorita_ rounded the western end of
Cape Sable and was, for the time, out of sight of her pursuer, a man on
the cutter sighted what he took to be her lights again.
They were not, however. A coasting schooner, of the old type, blown
somewhat off her course, had hove in sight.
Naturally, not being aware of the true facts, and supposing that the
quarry had doubled on her course to escape them, believing that her
masthead light—which the schooner’s light, from the rear, closely
duplicated, was that of the _Senorita_, the cutter changed her course.
By dawn she overhauled the schooner, saw her mistake and lay to, her
commander and Mr. Neale and the others completely baffled.
Had they been pursing that schooner all the while?
At the same time Nicky was delivering an oration, on the silent,
stricken _Senorita_.
“Now, fellows,” he said, “we have to organize. We’re the captain, and
crew, and cook and cabin boy, all in three. Which is which? If the
cutter doesn’t come, we have to make plans. Those men will come back.
They may not be able to use this boat again but they will want to find
out what we know about the treasure before they leave—and they may do
something to us after we’ve told. We ‘signed on’ in a way as
pirates—hi-jackers.”
“And, sure enough, we are hi-jackers!” exclaimed Cliff. “We’ve taken a
whole ship!”
“That’s so!” said Tom. “Well, I move that the Mystery Boys nominate the
acting chief for this year of their order as Captain in this emergency.”
“Second the motion!” cried Cliff.
“All in favor!” grinned Nicky. “But Tom has the cooler head and you,
Cliff, know more than I do.”
“Aye—just the same—you’re elected!” laughed Cliff.
“I’ll volunteer to cook,” Tom offered.
“Then I’m crew and cabin boy,” chuckled Cliff.
“What are your orders, cap’n?” asked Tom with assumed deference,
touching his forelock in approved nautical fashion.
“Of course we all are captain, really,” Nicky stated. “But just while
we’re in no danger, I’d say we ought to see what weapons the men left,
and where the food is and how badly broken the hull is.”
“That’s one job for each of us,” Cliff agreed. “I’ll round up the
artillery. Tom will cook, so that leaves the captain the rightful duty
of estimating damage to his ship!”
“Then we may try to repair her,” grinned Nicky, “and sail, and sail the
seven seas, and spread our sails to every breeze and take our captives
as we please——”
“Only we have no sails!” Cliff reminded him.
“Well, then, we’ll gaily man our ocean rover and swiftly turn her
engines over and if we’re chased—if we’re chased——”
“We’ll run for cover!” suggested Tom, chuckling.
“‘Rover’ doesn’t rhyme with ‘cover’ but let it go at that!”
Then, with the spirit of youth and daring alert in their strange
situation, they departed for their several tasks.
Over a plentiful breakfast, helping to make up for the fast of the long
day on the island, they compared notes. There was a long rent in the
vessel’s side, below waterline, Nicky reported, not easily to be
repaired even if they could float the ship at all. Plenty of canned food
and some fresh supplies, Tom stated. Five automatic pistols, two rifles
and a small signaling cannon was Cliff’s list of weapons. “So far, so
good,” said Nicky. “What next?”
From a little beyond the ship came a hail.
The chums became tense.
“You’re captain,” his chums told Nicky. “Go and parley!”