_THROUGH THE PORTHOLE_
Jo and Ann dashed across the clearing and down the path that the men
had taken. There was no danger of their being heard, if the men had
kept up the pace at which they started. When the two reached the edge
of the woods they paused a moment or so, to see whether the coast was
clear, but there was not a sound or a trace to indicate that any one
had lately passed that way.
Night had fallen by that time and Ann was glad of its shelter. She
would not have wished to cross the road and the narrow strip of beach
with an uncomfortable feeling of certainty that she was being watched
from some crack in the warped hull.
“You stay here,” commanded Jo. “I’m going to take a look around.”
Obediently Ann settled herself in the deeper darkness under the side
of the boat. There was a gentle rattle as Jo swung himself up into the
irons and then absolute silence, so far as any human sounds came to her
ears. It seemed as though she waited for ages, alone in the dark. There
was plenty of time to think and to worry. Helen must be nearly there
and it wouldn’t take long for father and Mr. Bailey to get started
after they heard the news of Ben’s capture. They must hurry, hurry!
Perhaps she ought to have gone for them, she could run so much faster
than Helen and she surely wasn’t being of much use now, sitting under
the side of the boat! Perhaps Helen had fallen, stepped into a hole in
the turf and broken her leg, so she could not go on for help.
Something was making a slight noise, something was coming across the
pebbles toward her! She half rose to her feet to meet it--and then she
saw that it was Jo cautiously creeping along, bent almost double in his
efforts not to be seen from the deck of the schooner.
“I found Ben,” he whispered. “I know where he is--in the hold. He ought
to be about here, behind where you are sitting.”
“Did he see you?”
“No. And I didn’t see him, but there isn’t any other place for them to
hide him. You both know the Code, don’t you? You let him know that we
are here while I get the ladder.”
It seemed a slight chance to Ann. But Jo was certain that Ben was there
and so Ann began to tap against the plank nearest her right hand. It
sounded fearfully loud in the stillness and she could only hope that
the thunder of the waves and the rattle of the pebbles as each wave
receded might keep the men from hearing. It seemed to her almost too
great a risk to run. But if Jo told her to rap, rap she would.
“Ben! We are here!”
Three times she tapped it out and then the SOS signal. Each time she
listened and received no reply.
And at last an answer came, clear, but fainter than the taps she had
given. “OK, OK, OK.”
That was enough; she was not taking any unnecessary risks. As softly as
possible she went to join Jo.
He had hoisted the ladder already and climbed up, and he motioned to
her to follow. In another minute Ann was looking through the porthole
of the captain’s cabin.
She wouldn’t have thought of speaking in any case but Jo’s finger on
his lips cautioned her to be quiet as possible. As she stepped on to
the ladder with her eyes lifted toward the porthole she realized that
there must be a light in the room and when she could see over the rim
she was not surprised to find the two men hard at their search.
Tom was running a knife through the cracks and crevices of the berth.
Not a sound could be heard except his heavy breathing, and Charlie
stood close by, watching.
“I tell yer it ain’t there,” said Charlie as Tom straightened his back
at last and stood glowering at the berth.
“It’s--” And then Tom stopped, giving every thought and attention to a
strained listening. “Hist!”
Charlie heard it, too, whatever it was, but Ann could catch no faintest
echo. Was the ssushing sound coming?
Suddenly the light went out and with utter darkness came perfect
silence in the cabin. Ann wished that she could keep her heart from
beating so loud. It seemed as though the thuds must be noisy enough to
be heard by the men below. But this complete silence did not last long.
Suddenly came the sound of thuds and blows, and light came again.
Warren Bain was stretched out on the cabin floor, unconscious. Tom was
glaring angrily at the man whom he had knocked down. “He’ll come back,
all right. Gimme some blanket strips to tie him fast.”
Charlie scurried to the berth and with his knife ripped one of the
blankets into strips and with these Tom began to tie Bain’s arms and
legs.
Ann had no time to think; things were happening too fast.
First Tom tied Bain’s ankles together, then used another strip for his
wrists, and then tied the two together using a peculiar slip knot that
seemed to tie the tighter the more it was strained.
“Now you”--and Tom swung about toward Charlie with a suddenness that so
startled Ann that she nearly fell off the ladder--“you rout out them
blankets and tear the berth to bits and I’ll take care of the floor.
There’s a secret hiding hole in here somewheres and the money is in it.”
Charlie obediently threw the remaining blankets and the mattress and
pillow into a pile outside the cabin door and began to wrench and tear
at the boards. But apparently he was not convinced of the value of
what he was doing. “What makes you so sure the cash is down here?” he
snapped.
“Captain Jim had it on him when the men started rioting, up forward,”
Tom answered. “He came down here to the cabin to hide it, I reckon. Why
else did he come down? And after he was on deck again he went no place
but overboard.”
“And he put three good men there, before him,” commented Charlie dryly.
He seemed to have a wholesome respect and fear of the captain, even now.
“Any one of ’em was a better man than three of you!” Tom growled. He
had taken a short iron from his pocket and now began to pry up big
pieces of floor boards.
Jo touched Ann’s shoulder to call her attention to Warren Bain. He was
stretched just within the circle of light cast by Tom’s torch and Ann
saw at once that he had regained consciousness. Not only that, but as
she looked down into his open eyes he stared straight up into hers. He
smiled slightly, but instantly his face became expressionless as Tom
turned in his work.
But he was not quick enough. Tom caught the flicker of Bain’s eyelids.
The sailor dropped his iron and stood upright over the detective.
“None of that faking!” And he kicked the bound man in the side. “You
ransacked this place and we want what you found!”
To Ann’s amazement Bain opened his eyes and answered, “Yes, I found it.
What are you going to do about it?”
Tom seemed as much surprised as Ann and for a moment he gaped stupidly
down into Bain’s face.
“There is not a thing you can do,” Bain went on. “Kill me if you like
but the secret of the money goes with me--Tom Minor.”
Charlie leaped to his feet with a cry of terror. “He knows us! Knock
him off, Tom, knock him off! He’ll tell on us.”
“Not until we get what we’ve come for,” answered Tom, with one shove of
his hand pushing Charlie back into the wrecked berth. “There is ways of
making people tell secrets.”
Into Ann’s mind came all the tales of days gone by when men were
tortured and put on the rack; historical tales were her great love in
reading, Crockett and Scott and the others. What were she and Jo going
to do to save Warren Bain? Run to the house? There wasn’t time for that
to be of the slightest use. Her father and Mr. Bailey should be here
now.
Ann had no idea how long it was since Helen had left them. She knew
well enough that it could not be as long as it seemed, but surely it
wouldn’t have taken Helen more than half an hour to get home. Half an
hour, and then five minutes for Mr. Bailey to get his gun--Ann was sure
that her father hadn’t one--and then ten minutes across the sloping
field from the house. But all those minutes had seemed like an hour
each, with all the excitement and all the happenings. Help would come
in a minute, but it seemed as though time had stopped. Anything could
be done in a minute, and no one was there but Jo and herself.
All at once she knew. The strange noise! It had frightened the men last
night; she had heard Tom admit it, she had heard Charlie taunt Tom with
his fear of it.
“Jo!” She hardly breathed the words. “Get two sticks, two dry sticks!”
He could go more silently than she; pebbles seemed never to rattle
under his feet.
Jo did not stop to ask why. Down the ladder he went while Ann tried to
press more firmly against the hull of the ship, so that no sound of a
ladder bumping against the planks of the side could be noticed by the
men. It was only now that Ann realized that the storm had come at last.
The rain was pouring in torrents and she was wet through.
Jo came back with several small rough branches from the hedge beside
the road where they kept the ladder hidden. Taking one branch from him
Ann reached out as far as possible along the side of the wreck and
rubbed it harshly against the boards. She tried to make it sound like
the weird haunting shuffle, a noise that there was no danger of her
forgetting as long as she lived.
Sussh--she rubbed the branch away to the length of her arm and the wet
leaves on the little twigs added to the effect that she hoped to give.
Sussh, she went, making it hard and scraping, then sussh, she pulled it
back with a slight rasp.
She was afraid to peek into the porthole, for surely the men would be
looking in the direction from which the noise came. But she could hear
what they said.
Charlie gave a squeal of fright. “There it is!” he cried.
“That devil figurehead!”
“The captain’s sent him after us!” Charlie’s voice rose in a shrill
yelp.
It was impossible to hold her hand steady, but she kept on with scrape
after scrape as rhythmic as that dread sound she had heard on the first
day they visited the ship.
“Put the table against the door, Charlie,” ordered Tom.
“You can’t keep him out with that,” Charlie shouted. “That table would
have been just kindling wood to Cap’n Jim and it won’t be even that
much to the figurehead. I’m going!”
“Hands up!”
Heads up, too, for it was Mr. Seymour’s voice and instantaneously Jo’s
and Ann’s eyes came level with the porthole.
In the doorway stood Mr. Seymour with a shotgun in his hands and behind
him, his lean face grimly set, Mr. Bailey stood with a long rifle held
above Mr. Seymour’s shoulder. The shadows in the cabin were strange,
for Tom and Charlie had dropped their torches as they raised their
hands and all the light in the room came from the two circles on the
floor. Warren Bain, still trussed like a fowl, had been shoved into a
corner.
“Where are the children?”
Ann could hardly believe that it was her father’s voice that said those
words, so changed it was from the voice she knew.
“Here we are!” she called.