BOARDING THE PIRATE CRUISER.
At midnight the three watchers put on the bathing-suits which were
supplied by Maxwell Kane, and then seated themselves again on the
after-deck, to await developments.
“What I want to know is, how are we going to carry any guns with us, with
this rig?” asked Kane, as they seated themselves, and Nick asked Chick if
he had supplied himself with weapons.
“I think that two apiece will be sufficient,” replied Nick, “and you can
easily carry them.”
“But how?”
“In a belt around your body. See? Here is mine,” and he lifted his belt
from another chair. “I shall buckle that around me before we go into the
water.”
“But they will get wet.”
“Sure.”
“Won’t they be useless after that?”
“Hardly. Get yours, and I will load them for you with my cartridges. You
could soak them in water for a week, and they would do their work just as
well after that.”
For an hour and a half they talked upon random subjects, but all the time
the keen eyes of the detective never wandered from the water of the cove.
He had brought his watch on deck with him, and from time to time he
glanced at it.
“It is two o’clock,” he announced, after an unusually long silence
between them. “I think we will make a move now, if you are ready.”
“Ready,” they each replied.
“Are you a good swimmer, Max?” asked Nick.
“The best that ever was,” was the reply.
“All right. I’m going to take the lead in this affair. Chick will follow
me, and you will follow behind him.”
“All right. Where——”
“You will take your cues from Chick. Whatever you see him do, you will
copy without delay. Understand that?”
“Yes; it’s plain enough. Where——”
“If he dives, you are to dive, and you are to follow him under the water
wherever he goes. No matter what he does, you do it, too.”
“I will. Now, confound it, tell me where you are going?”
“To the _Aurora_.”
“You haven’t seen any sign of the pirate, have you? I haven’t.”
“No.”
“Then what makes you so certain that the _Aurora_ is the place to go?”
“I think, from what you have said, that she is the yacht which will be
the object of attack, if an attack is made; but, anyhow, her position is
much better than ours. She is farther out and she lies so that she will
be first in line for attack, even if the pirate has no direct information
about her.”
“But the watch will see us come aboard, and there will be the devil to
pay.”
“I have just told you that you are to do as Chick and I do; however, I
may as well tell you that I am not going aboard of her.”
“Oh! You are not?”
“Max, there is only one way to capture this pirate and his ship as well,
if he does enter this harbor to-night, and that is to go aboard of the
_Shadow_.”
“I’m onto that, all right.”
“I shall, therefore, not make the slightest effort to prevent him and his
men from looting the _Aurora_ from stem to stern, if they care to do so.
It will be while they are up to that trick, or one like it, that we will
get in our fine work.”
“You might as well tell me something about what that will be before we
take to the water. I will be all the better able to obey orders in that
case.”
“Very well; listen.”
“I’m listening.”
“We will swim out to the _Aurora_. When we get within a reasonable
distance from her, we will dive, and not come to the surface again until
we are under her chains. In that way we will avoid observation from her
deck.”
“Sure.”
“Fortunately, it is a warm night, and the water is quite warm, also, but
I don’t think it will be necessary for us to remain in the water all the
time.”
“Thank goodness for that.”
“A yacht like the _Aurora_ is not very well guarded when she is at anchor
in a place of this kind.”
“Huh! I know that only too well.”
“Fortunately, the tide is coming in, and her bow points toward the open
Sound. It will be high and slack in a couple of hours, so under her bow
will be the best vantage ground for us, and it will be the least-guarded
part of the yacht.”
“I know that. You mean to get aboard of her, don’t you, and to keep watch
from there?”
“If it is practicable, yes.”
The detective buckled his belt around him, and then let himself carefully
down over the side into the water. His companions did the same, and in
another moment they were swimming silently toward the _Aurora_.
There was no moon, fortunately, for the weather had changed into one
of those still, but cloudy, nights which often precede a storm; and
yet there was a bright moon shining somewhere back of the clouds, and
sufficient of its brilliancy penetrated them so that floating objects
upon the water could be seen at a considerable distance.
At a distance of about a cable’s length from the _Aurora_ the three men
disappeared under the water, and they did not reappear until they were
well under the chains of the _Aurora_; and there they paused a moment and
held a whispered consultation.
The surface of the cove, and of the Sound out beyond it, was as smooth
as glass. There was not a ripple any where to be seen, and the detective
knew that if the pirate attempted to approach on the surface of the
water, his craft would create a ripple which a close watcher would surely
discover.
On the other hand, if he should approach under the water, as the
detective had no doubt he would do, he would in all probability observe
his previous program, and come to the surface close under the bow of the
vessel he intended to attack.
“In that case,” he argued, “he will be right where we want him. But it is
too early yet. Wait here until I climb aboard the _Aurora_, and if all is
clear I will call you up there, and we will do our waiting on the deck.”
He found that all was clear, and in another moment the three were
together on the deck of Sam Kearney’s floating palace. After that there
followed another period of waiting, although it was a short one.
Scarcely half an hour had passed when Nick suddenly seized Chick by the
arm and pointed toward a black object which seemed to be floating on the
water, and which was plainly drifting directly toward them.
“It is the amidships turret,” he whispered. “It is the only thing about
her which shows above the water, and the man who is doing the steering is
doubtless looking directly at the bow of this yacht; so be careful. He
will discover the slightest motion we make, if we do not keep well out of
sight. Follow me.”
He turned and crawled away on his belly, wriggling along like a snake,
until he was well out of sight behind the capstan. Then, rising to
his knees, he made his way rapidly to the vessel’s rail and softly let
himself down into the water.
There was not a splash or a sound, and his companions were equally
fortunate.
As soon as the detective was in the water, one stroke took him a fathom
nearer to the bow of the yacht, and he saw that the pirate craft was
swinging silently, as if she were on a pivot affixed amidships, so that
she would eventually lie directly across the yacht’s bow, but still with
her stem pointed seaward, so that she could start ahead on the instant,
and shoot away out of danger.
“She must be provided with the Kuhnstader propeller to do that,” he
whispered in Kane’s ear. “It is a double propeller, and the one farthest
aft works on a knuckle-joint, so that it can be made to serve as a rudder
as well as a propeller. And it must be very deep in the water, too, to
work so silently. Come on.”
He sank out of sight in the water, and swam with powerful strokes toward
the stern of the _Shadow_. He had noticed how far he would have to go
before he went under the water, and accordingly, when he did rise to the
surface, he was about ten feet, or a trifle more, abaft of the stern of
the vessel.
“See!” he whispered to Kane, who had risen to the surface close beside
him. “Captain Sparkle is already climbing aboard the _Aurora_, and I
don’t wonder that he surprised you, Kane, when he paid his visit to you.
There has not been a sound made by his vessel, loud enough to wake a
sleeping dog. You hadn’t a ghost of a show. By Jove! but I am anxious to
see the interior of that craft.”
“How are you going to do it?”
“Follow, as I told you, and you will soon see.”
Again he sank beneath the surface, but this time he was under only a
moment, and, when he reappeared, he was directly abeam of the amidships
turret, and his companions were beside him.
“You see,” he whispered, treading water silently; “they won’t have
occasion to make use of that machine-gun of theirs to-night, and they
know it. In all probability the amidships turret is unguarded; or even
if there is a man there, his eyes are intently fixed on the _Aurora_. He
won’t think of trouble from this side. Come on, now!”
He swam quickly to the side of the vessel.
She was so low in the water that it was an easy matter for them to reach
and seize hold of the rail which has already been described. In another
moment the three men had hauled themselves aboard of the _Shadow_, and
then, gliding along like so many shadows themselves, they passed through
the open turret into the interior of the pirate cruiser.