“DING-DONG” AND A GUN.
All this time Ding-dong Bell had been making history in a fashion all
his own. The lad had been below, pottering about his beloved engines,
at the time that the others had gone aboard the schooner, and
consequently was quite unaware of what had occurred till he emerged on
deck and found that the Motor Rangers’ craft was deserted.
“Guess they’ve gone aboard the schooner,” thought the lad, and was
preparing to follow, when a sailor, stationed at the latter vessel’s
main shrouds, to which the Motor Rangers’ boat was made fast, stopped
him.
“Stay where you are, young feller,” he ordered crisply.
It was at this moment that Ding-dong’s sharp eyes noticed a little
group, consisting of the captain, the mate, and several of the sailors,
standing aft by the cabin companionway.
“I want to join my friends,” exclaimed Ding-dong, forgetting to stutter
in his righteous indignation at the fellow’s tone and manner.
“Guess your friends ain’t receiving company, except by permission of
Captain Lawless,” was the reply given, with an impudent grin.
As the man spoke, he made a motion as if to grab Ding-dong, who was
standing with one leg on board the _Nomad_ and the other on the
schooner’s bulwarks.
But Ding-dong was quite as quick in his actions as were his two chums.
Moreover, he was a muscular lad, and his thews and sinews had been
toughened to a steel-like fineness by his many adventures.
Consequently, as the sailor rushed at him, the lad merely caught the
man’s outstretched arm, and, by a trick that he had learned from Nat,
gave it a sudden twist.
“Ouch!” grunted the fellow, and, without making any more fuss, he
writhed almost double and fell in a heap. But as he did so, Captain
Lawless spied what was going forward. In the haste with which the plans
to capture the Motor Rangers and their friends had been made, the fact
of Ding-dong Bell’s existence had been temporarily forgotten by the
rascally skipper and his mate. This sudden appearance, then, of one of
the Motor Rangers, alive and intensely active, was very disconcerting
to them.
“Confound you, boy; where did you spring from?” roared Lawless, as he
dashed at Ding-dong like an angry bull.
“Fer-fer-f-from under a go-go-gooseberry bush,” sputtered Ding-dong,
giving an agile backward jump, which brought him upon the deck of the
Motor Rangers’ vessel.
At the same instant came a thunderous sound from the cabin door
beneath, which, as we know, the imprisoned party were pounding and
rapping.
The sound told Ding-dong the whole story as plainly as if it had been
put into words.
“What have you done with my friends?” he demanded.
“Never you mind. Just throw up your hands and come on board this
schooner or it will be the worse for you.”
“No, thank you,” parried Ding-dong, his speech quite distinct in his
indignation and excitement, “I guess I know when I’m well off.”
“You brat, I don’t propose to be thwarted by such a whipper-snapper as
you. Come on board at once, I say!”
“Not to-day, thank you. Call around to-morrow,” scoffed Ding-dong.
As he spoke, the lad rapidly made his way forward over the turtle back
of the _Nomad_.
A sudden idea had come to him. On this turtle back was situated the
rapid-firing gun which was a part of the craft’s equipment. Joe had
been polishing it that morning, the cover was off and it looked ready
for instant action.
With cat-like activity and swiftness, Ding-dong made for the implement
of destruction. Reaching it, he took his stand on the small platform on
which it stood.
Before the astonished Captain Lawless could scramble after the lad,
Ding-dong had swung the gun on its swivel, and the captain found
himself gazing straight into its formidable looking muzzle.
Ding-dong had his hand on the firing lever, and the rascally skipper
went white as ashes as for an instant he thought the lad was going to
discharge it.
“Don’t! Don’t shoot!” he begged abjectly.
“Then you get right back where you belong,” ordered Ding-dong.
Just then he noticed that several of the crew of the schooner were
about to follow their captain on board.
“You fellows, too,” ordered the boy in a sharp, shrill voice, which
nevertheless rang with determination.
“I’m ver-ver-very nervous,” he went on, “and at any mum-mum-moment I’m
likely to give this lever a twist.”
“I’ll get even with you for this, my hearty,” muttered the nonplussed
Captain Lawless, but nevertheless he scrambled back after his crew as
Ding-dong gave his crisp command.
“Now, then,” cried the boy in a determined tone, “you let my friends
out of that cabin, or I’ll have to indulge in some target practice with
your schooner as the bull’s-eye.”
“Not much you won’t!” roared out Durkee, the mate.
As he spoke, the fellow whipped out a pistol and aimed it at Ding-dong.
The lad depressed the breech of the gun and gave the lever a twist.
Instantly a sputter of bullets flew forth. They lodged in the
schooner’s spars and rigging, sending a shower of splinters all about.
At the same instant, the roar of the blunderbuss sounded from the
cabin, and a fat sailor, who had been sitting on the door, bounded into
the air. He was not hurt, but imagined that a mine had exploded beneath
him.
As the adventurers rushed out of the cabin, they came face to face with
a scene in which Ding-dong Bell was the dominating factor. The moral
effect of the machine gun’s discharge had been tremendous. Palefaced
and demoralized, Captain Lawless and his crew fled forward, where they
huddled in a mass like so many frightened sheep.
“Say, professor!” hailed Lawless, “call that young gad-fly off. He’s
done a hundred dollars’ worth of harm to my ship already. Call him off,
do you hear?”
“It would serve you right if your schooner was sunk,” retorted the
professor. “What did you mean by imprisoning us in that cabin?”
“It was just a joke,” pleaded Lawless, whose face was pallid. He paid
no attention to the promptings of his mate, who was urging him, in an
undertone, to “stand up to the lubbers.”
“We’ll give in, professor,” he went on in a shaky tone. “You’re welcome
to take all your baggage and go, without us making any more trouble.
“How can we depend on you?” asked the professor.
“I’ll give you my word,” said the captain.
“A whole lot of dependence we could place on that,” scoffed Mr. Tubbs.
“Tell you what,” spoke Nat; “let’s make him lock all his sailors up in
the forecastle. We can guard them, and then, in case of treachery,
we’ll only have two to deal with.”
The professor delivered this ultimatum. Captain Lawless readily agreed
to comply with it. The crew, sullen and muttering, was ordered below,
and the forecastle hatch battened down. Joe was set to guard it, while
the others helped in the work of transporting the baggage on board the
Motor Rangers’ craft.
Of course Ding-dong Bell, who had really displayed the qualities of a
capable general, came in for much warm congratulation. He took his
honors modestly.
“I dud-dud-didn’t know it was lur-lur-loaded,” he protested, and, as a
matter of fact, the lad had been as much astonished as any one at the
tremendous fusillade that followed his manipulation of the
machine-gun’s firing lever.
At length all the baggage was on board. During its transportation,
Captain Lawless and his mate had looked sullenly on, but offered no aid
or interference. They were beaten men, and they knew it. Once the
professor’s report of their conduct was circulated, there was not a
civilized port into which they could take the schooner without being
arrested and brought to book for their misdeeds.
But they watched the Motor Rangers board their own craft and cast off
the lines without show of any emotion on their stolid countenances.
“You can release your crew now,” said Nat, when Joe had clambered on
board. As he spoke he rang the bell for the “Go ahead.”
The _Nomad_ began to forge through the water. By the time Captain
Lawless had reassembled his crew, the schooner was not more than a
speck to those on the _Nomad_.
“Well, that was a queer adventure,” said Nat, as they talked it over
that evening. “What a foolish man that skipper was to ruin his career
for the sake of spite!”
“Yes, he will be a marked man now,” spoke the professor. “In these days
of wireless telegraphy and other improved means of communication, there
is not a spot in the Seven Seas where he can hide his head without
being overtaken by the consequences of his folly and cowardice. I think
he was led into this thing by that mate of his, Durkee. He is a very
bad man.”
“Well, I guess they won’t bother us any more,” struck in Joe; “in fact,
my thoughts from now on are centered on the lost city and that cloud
cruiser of yours, professor.”
The professor smiled at the youth’s enthusiasm. Then Mr. Tubbs spoke.
“I reckon you folks have forgotten something,” he said. “That chap
Lawless has overhauled the professor’s papers. Don’t you think it’s
likely he may try to locate the lost city, too? It’s a stake worth
playing for.”
“Wow!” exclaimed Joe. “If that’s the case, look out for squalls.”