IN DIREST PERIL.
The wildest confusion ensued. Fortunately, the drop was a short one, and
beyond a few scratches and bruises, neither boy was hurt. The lamp, by
some strange fatality, was not put out, but rolled off the table. As
Stonington Hunt sprang at him, Tubby seized it. He brandished it
threateningly.
"The Boy Scouts!" shouted Stonington Hunt, the first to recover from his
stupefaction at the sudden interruption to their slumbers.
He dashed at Tubby, who swung the lamp for an instant--it was his only
weapon--and then dashed it, like a smoky meteor, full at the advancing
man's head.
It missed him by the fraction of an inch, or he would have been turned
into a living torch.
Crash!
The lamp struck the opposite wall, and was shattered into a thousand
fragments. Instantly the place was plunged in darkness, total and
absolute. At the same instant a sharp report sounded. It seemed doubly
loud in the tiny place. The fumes of the powder filled it reekingly.
"Don't shoot!" roared Stonington Hunt. "Guard the door and window. Don't
let them get away."
"All right, dad," the boys heard Freeman Hunt cry loudly, as he scuffled
across the room.
"Keep the doorway and the window," shouted Stonington Hunt. "I'll have a
light in a jiffy. We've got them like two rats in a cage."
As he struck a match and lit a boat lantern that stood on a shelf, a low
groan came from one corner of the room. Hiram was horrified to perceive
that it was Tubby who uttered it. The shot must have wounded him, fired
at haphazard, as it had been. The man who had aimed it, the bearded
member of the gang, stood grimly by the doorway.
Almost beside himself at the hopelessness of their situation, Hiram gazed
about him. All at once he noticed that on Tubby's chest a crimson stain
was slowly spreading. The stout boy lay quite still except for an
occasional quiver and groan. Without a thought as to his danger, Hiram
disregarded Stonington Hunt's next injunction: "Don't move a step."
Swiftly he crossed to his wounded comrade. He sank on his knees beside
him.
"T-T-T-Tubby," he exclaimed, "are you badly hurt, old man?"
To his amazement, the recumbent Tubby gave him a swift but knowing wink,
and then, rolling over on his side again, resumed his groaning once more.
Mystified, but comforted, Hiram was rising, when a rough hand seized him
and sent him spinning to an opposite corner. It was the burly form of the
bearded man that had propelled him.
"Not so rough, Jim Dale," warned Stonington Hunt. "We've got them where
they can't escape. Lots of time to get what we want out of them."
"The pesky young spies," snorted Jim Dale, "I wonder how much they
overheard of what we said."
"It don't matter, anyhow," put in his beardless companion of the
afternoon. "They won't have no chance to tell it."
"Guess that's right, Pete Bumpus," struck in the bearded man. Suddenly
Hiram felt a stinging slap across the face. He turned and faced young
Freeman Hunt.
"How do you like that, eh?" snarled the youth viciously. "Here is where I
pay you out for what you Scout kids did to me when we lived in Hampton."
He was stepping forward to deliver another blow, when Hiram ducked
swiftly, and put into execution a maneuver Rob had shown him. As Freeman,
a bigger and heavier lad, rushed forward, Hiram's long leg and his long
left arm shot out simultaneously. The leg engaged Freeman's ankle, and
the Yankee lad's fist encountered the other's chin with a sharp crack.
Freeman Hunt fell in a heap on the floor. Hiram braced himself for an
attack by the whole four. But it didn't come. Instead, they seemed to
think it a good joke.
"That will teach you to keep your temper," laughed the boy's father
roughly; "plenty of time to punch him and pummel him when we have them
tied up."
"Maybe I won't do it, too," promised Freeman, gathering himself up, with
a crestfallen look.
Stonington Hunt stepped up to Hiram.
"Tell me the truth, you young brat," he snarled; "are the police after
us?"
Hiram pondered an instant before answering. Then he decided on a course
of action. Possibly it was a bad one, judging by the immediate results.
"Yes, they are," he said boldly, "and if you don't let us loose, you'll
get in trouble."
Stonington Hunt paused irresolutely. Then he said:
"Get the sloop ready, boys. We'll get out of here on the jump."
A few moments later Hiram's hands were bound and he was led on board the
craft the boys had noticed lying in the creek. A plank connected it with
the shore. Tubby, still groaning, was carried on board and thrown down in
the bow beside Hiram.
"We'll attend to him after a while," said Hunt brutally; "if he's badly
wounded it's his own fault, for meddling in other folks' affairs."
One of the men went below. Presently there came a sharp chug-chug, and
the anchor being taken in, the sloop began to move off down the creek. As
Tubby Hopkins had surmised, she had an engine. Hunt, Jim Dale and Peter
Bumpus stood in the bow. Hiram leaned disconsolately against a stay, and
Tubby lay at his feet on a coil of rope.
The shores slipped rapidly by, and pretty soon the creek began to widen.
Freeman Hunt was at the wheel, and from time to time Jim Dale shouted
directions back at him.
"Port--port! Hard over!" or again, "Hard over! Starboard! There's a shoal
right ahead!"
A moon had risen now, and in the silvery light the darker water of the
shoals, of which the creek seemed full, showed plainly.
"This crik's as full of sand-bars as a hound dorg is uv fleas," grunted
Jim Dale. "It won't be full tide for two hours or more, either. If----"
There came a sudden, grinding jar.
"Hard over! Hard over!" bellowed Jim Dale.
Freeman Hunt spun the wheel like a squirrel in its cage. But it was too
late. The sloop had grounded hard and fast. Leaving Peter Bumpus to guard
the boys, Jim Dale and the elder Hunt leaped swiftly aft. They backed the
motor, but it was no use. The sloop was too hard aground to be gotten off
till the water rose.
"Two hours to wait till the tide rises," grumbled Jim Dale; "just like
the luck."
Slowly the time passed. But never for an instant was the watch over the
boys relaxed. Tubby lay still, and Hiram, almost carried out of himself
by the rapid rush of recent events, leaned miserably against the stay.
At last, just as a faint, gray light began to show in the east, they
could feel the sloop moving under their feet. With reversed motor, she
was backed off the sand-bar, or mud-shoal, and the journey resumed. As
the light grew stronger, Hiram saw that they were dropping rapidly down
toward the sea. Right ahead of them could now be seen the white foam and
spray, where the breakers of the open sea were shattering themselves on
the bar at the mouth of the creek.
The channel was narrow and intricate, but Jim Dale, who seemed to be a
good pilot, and who had assumed the wheel, brought the sloop through it
in safety. Before long, under her keel could be felt the long lift and
drive of the open Atlantic.
By gazing at the sun, Hiram saw that the sloop's head was pointed west.
By this he judged that her navigators meant to head down the Long Island
shore toward New York.
The sunrise was red and angry. Hiram, with his knowledge of scout-lore,
knew that this presaged bad weather. But the crew of the sloop did not
seem to notice it. After a while they began to make preparations to hoist
sail, as the breeze was freshening.
"Take those kids below," ordered Stonington Hunt suddenly. Under the
escort of Jim Dale, who had relinquished the wheel to Freeman Hunt and
Pete Bumpus, the lads--Tubby being carried--were presently installed in a
small, dark cabin in the stern of the sloop. This done, the companionway
door was closed, and they heard a key grate in a lock. They were
prisoners, then, at sea, on this mysterious sloop?
"What next?" groaned Hiram to himself, sinking down on a locker.
"Why, I guess the next thing to do is for me to come to life, my valiant
downeaster," cried Tubby, springing erect from the corner into which he
had been thrown. The apparently badly wounded lad seemed as active and
chipper as ever.