NICK WINS A POINT.
“This is a tangle all around,” he said to himself. “Who the deuce is
this fellow, getting ready to lay out our friend Miguel? Can it be----”
He did not finish the sentence. At that instant some unexplainable
impulse made Miguel swing around in his chair.
He saw the tall figure standing there, and, without hesitation, he
picked up the deck chair on which he had been sitting and flung it full
at the head of the other man.
Nick Carter saw the man put up his hands to protect his head. Then the
chair smashed into him and he reeled backward across the cabin roof,
holding the chair in front of him.
In the darkness, Nick was unable to see whether the chair had struck him
in the face or not. Certain it was that it had taken him off his
balance, and that he seemed to have been weakened in some way.
He staggered backward across the roof and fell hard against the low
railing. For an instant he tried to save himself.
But he had nothing to clutch at, and could only go. Turning almost a
complete somersault, he went off the roof and down into the water with a
loud splash.
“A good thing he didn’t strike the deck on his head. That would have
settled him. Even in the water he may not be altogether safe.”
This last thought made Nick let himself down quickly from the block and
sent him scurrying to the stern of the yacht, where he could get to his
skiff.
It was not an easy task to get down without being seen, for the noise of
the scuffle had attracted three men who slept forward, and were part of
the deck crew of the vessel.
But Nick reached his skiff, and, as he heard a gasping cry for help some
distance out in the river, he rowed rapidly in that direction.
He was only just in time. In the faint moonlight he made out a ghastly
white face--it was Prince Marcos’. Nick saw that he was swimming on his
back almost unconsciously.
There is little doubt but that, if Marcos had not been a magnificent
swimmer, he would have drowned before the detective reached him.
As it was, his arms and legs moved practically of their own volition.
They had been used so often in swimming that they went through the
motions mechanically so long as he had strength enough to use them at
all.
As Nick Carter reached for him, the nearly unconscious man grabbed at
the boat, while the water gurgled in his throat and seemed to be choking
him.
It was an unfortunate grab. The skiff tipped over, and before the
detective could save himself, he was in the water with the man he had
come to rescue.
Now began one of those awful struggles that good swimmers dread so much,
and yet which may come to any of them at any time.
Nick Carter knew it would be useless to expostulate with the drowning
man. He must try to beat him off. It would be the only way to save both
their lives.
But Marcos was strong, and in the water he could use his strength to the
disadvantage of his would-be rescuer, even though Nick was much the more
powerful of the two.
At the first collision, they went down together. Here was Nick Carter’s
chance. The detective had often practiced holding his breath for long
periods, so the ducking was not so trying to him as it was to Marcos.
For this reason Nick deliberately stayed below the surface as long as he
could, with the object of taking all the life out of the other man. It
would be possible to handle him if he were unconscious.
But Marcos had good lungs, and though they were under the water long
enough to have rendered many a person unconscious, they came up without
any material change in the condition of either.
Marcos had recovered somewhat from the blow of the chair, which had been
the main cause of his dazed condition. The water had revived him to some
extent, but he hardly knew what he was doing.
He fought wildly with Nick, trying to hold to him, and down they went
again.
This time, however, the detective contrived to loosen himself a little.
Getting to the surface with a frantic effort, he delivered a jolt under
the chin of Marcos that knocked him out entirely.
“I’m sorry for that,” muttered Nick. “But I had to do it. There was no
other chance for either of us. Now, how am I to get him to shore?”
He got the senseless man across his shoulder, and struck out vigorously
in the general direction of the launch and away from the yacht.
“Hello! They’ve lowered a boat from the yacht. They are not going to let
their man drown, if they can help it, I suppose. Well, they don’t get
him.”
A boat with three men in it had left the yacht, and Nick could just make
out its dark outline as he looked toward the half-lighted sky in the
vicinity of the dull moon.
“If they get this fellow, we shall be just where we were before,” was
the detective’s reflection. “I’ve got to prevent that. It will be a hard
swim to shore. But I believe I can make it if I am not interfered with.”
The boat was rowing swiftly toward him, and soon there came a long flash
of white light across the water which struck him squarely in the face.
Simultaneously, the man who sat in the bows, looking ahead, called out,
in a gruff tone:
“Pull hard! And you, at the helm, steer toward the shore a little. I see
him right ahead!”
“Aye, aye, sir!”
Nick Carter was quite aware that he could not beat the boat to shore.
Even if he had been unencumbered, he could not have expected that he
would swim faster than a husky man could pull a light boat containing
only three persons.
But it was not the habit of the detective to yield until he was overcome
by the enemy. “Fight to the end,” was his motto, and he had won many a
seemingly hopeless battle by adhering to this determination.
“I wish you could swim a little yourself,” he said, in a gasping
whisper, to the unconscious man who now weighed so heavily across his
shoulder. “I’ll have to get you in some other position, I am afraid, or
you’ll drag both of us under.”
He began to shift his burden a little, but without much advantage, when
suddenly there came to his ears the low chugging of the launch.
“She hasn’t got all the power on,” he muttered. “But, by Cæsar, she is
moving it a little. I always knew that girl was better than the average.
She’s as good as a man in many things that you wouldn’t expect a girl to
know much about.”
His quick ear had told him just what had happened. Claudia had loosened
the launch from the landing stage, and putting on some of the power, was
coming rather slowly to his aid.
“If she can get to me before the skiff, it will be a good thing,” he
muttered. “I wish she’d hurry up that engine a little. What a pity I did
not give her a lesson while we were coming up the river! However, it’s
too late now. I’ll have to be grateful that she can do as much as this.”
It soon resolved itself into a three-cornered race, with the chances
about equal.
If the launch were to get to Nick and the unconscious Marcos first, the
probability was that the men in the boat would be circumvented. There
was still another chance. Even if Nick could swim away in the darkness,
so that the searchlight could not pick him up, it would not be bad.
On the other hand, if the boat got to him before the launch, then the
whole purpose of the expedition up the river would be frustrated at
once.
It was soon apparent to the detective that Claudia was handling the
launch very well so far as the steering was concerned.
She did not quite understand the engine. Therefore, she hesitated about
opening the throttle too wide, with the result that her speed was less
than it need have been.
On came the boat, while the launch bored her way forward steadily in the
other direction.
Nick Carter never allowed his exertions to flag for an instant. Whatever
the boats might do, he knew that it would be better for him to get as
near shore as possible.
“There he is!” exclaimed the gruff voice he had heard before, as the
small white light sought out his face again. “He’s swimming for shore.
We’ve got him now!”
“Have you!” muttered Nick, quickening his stroke. “I’m not so sure of
that, my friend!”
He saw that the launch was about the same distance from him on one side
as the skiff was on the other.
Allowing for the difference in speed--for the launch was coming much
faster than the rowboat, even without the full pressure of her
engine--Claudia ought to get to him a minute or so sooner than the
skiff.
Once he could get Marcos on board the launch, the detective was not
afraid of anything that might happen to himself.
He did not believe the men on the yacht would know that he had been
their assailant at the ball, and he was satisfied that when they knew
who he was, the power of his name, as that of a detective who had been
heard of even in Joyalita, would be his protection.
“If that is not enough protection,” he told himself grimly, “then I have
a pair of active fists that have never failed me yet.”
He increased his efforts, but was swimming now straight for the launch,
rather than for the shore, although in a general way he was going
shoreward, too.
“Stop!” bellowed the gruff voice.
Nick Carter did not answer, but the girl, trying to increase the speed
of the launch, somehow got her hand on the valve that governed the
whistle, and a mocking scream was the consequence.
The detective grinned. It was a good answer to the skiff, he thought,
although he was rather surprised that the girl had hit on it so
opportunely.
“She’s learning the launch pretty fast,” he told himself. “It’s made
them mad, I guess.”
“If you don’t give up, it will be the worse for you, Marcos!” came from
the gruff man in the skiff, as he waved his light about.
“Marcos, eh?” thought Nick. “This is the right man I have here, after
all. I thought I recognized him. Well, he isn’t going on board that
yacht again, if I know myself--and I think I do.”
He felt a thrill of satisfaction as he saw how the launch was cutting
through the water, faster than at first.
“She’s getting the hang of it,” he muttered. “Hope she won’t run us
down. I can’t do much dodging with about a hundred and seventy pounds of
Joyalita prince on my back. Whew! He gets heavier every second.”
In another minute he saw there was no doubt about the outcome of the
race. The launch was gaining rapidly.
The man in the bow of the skiff recognized this fact, and he was
swearing in Spanish with such gusto that it might be wondered where he
had learned so many oaths.
“He’ll have to swear in another tongue if he keeps on,” laughed Nick.
“The Spanish language won’t be rich enough for him much longer. Why
doesn’t he give us a few of those in English? Or in Chinese? That’s a
language with good profane possibilities.”
If it may seem strange that Nick Carter could laugh under such
circumstances, let it be said that it was the way of the detective to
enjoy himself when things were coming his way, no matter how great might
be his peril.
It was his disposition to see the humorous side even of a very serious
situation that accounted for much of his success.
“Marcos!” called out Claudia.
“All right!” responded Nick. “Come along! Look out you don’t run us
down!”
“Thank Heaven!” she gasped, with unmistakable fervor.
The girl had learned a great deal about the launch even in the short
time in which she had been guiding it from shore, and it was with
considerable skill that she reduced its speed now, preparatory to
running alongside of the two men in the water.
When she had been talking about the resemblance of Nick Carter to Prince
Marcos, she had mentioned the fact that their voices were so much alike
that it would be easy for one to be mistaken for the other.
Now, when Nick called out to her to come on, in response to her cry of
“Marcos!” she supposed it was her cousin calling.
“Here, Marcos!” she said, as she came near. “Climb into the boat. I’ll
hold it as still as I can.”
“I’m afraid we shall have to lift him in, Miss Solado,” suggested Nick.
“He isn’t able to help himself!”
“Oh, Mr. Carter!” she replied. “Is it you I am talking to? But you have
my cousin--haven’t you?”
“Yes. He’s here. But he is not quite as well as he might be. Steady!
Keep the boat where it is, and we can get him in. Never mind about that
man in the rowboat. He can’t get to us in time. Let him blow.”
The gruff-voiced man had never ceased his torrent of profanity and
threats. They came rumbling across the water as violently as ever. In
fact, they increased now that he saw there was a boat by the side of the
swimmer and his charge.
“Stop, Marcos!” he bawled. “You’d better, if you know what is to your
advantage. We won’t stand any more of this nonsense.”
“Let him talk!” said Nick Carter, in a low tone, to the girl. “Can you
get hold of Marcos’ shoulder? That’s right! Catch him by the coat lapel
and pull, just as I give him a heave!”
“Oh! We must save him!” panted the girl. “But you, Mr. Carter! What will
you do if----”
“Never mind about me. Up with him!”
It was with an almost superhuman effort that the detective managed to
get the upper part of Prince Marcos across the gunwale of the launch.
Fortunately, the craft was strong and firm in the water, so that it did
not tip much.
“Can you push a little more, Mr. Carter?”
“I’ll try!”
Getting underneath the unconscious Marcos, Nick gave another tremendous
heave. Claudia pulled with all her strength at the same moment, and the
helpless man lay across the launch. His legs were hanging over the side,
but not enough to drag him out.
“Swing the boat around!” called out Nick. “Put your wheel over to the
left as hard as you can! That’s right! Make a wide circle! You’ll get
there all right!”
The girl maneuvered the little craft neatly until it was headed
downstream.
Nick saw it with strong approval.
“That’s the way! Now put on all the power you can and hustle down to New
York! We’ve fooled them, after all!”
“But, Mr. Carter!” she called out.
“Go ahead!” was all he said. “Get to New York! That’s all you have to
do!”
Claudia Solado would have liked to stay and pick up the detective. But
she was a girl of real sense, and she knew better than to fly in the
face of a man who had saved her cousin against almost overwhelming odds.
So she opened the throttle wide, and, with the unconscious Marcos lying
across the boat--his head on a mat at her side, and his feet
occasionally dipping in the choppy waves as she raced along--she soon
left Nick Carter and her pursuers far behind.
She had not gone far, however, before the skiff ran up to where the
detective was swimming hard toward the shore.
With an oath the gruff-voiced man seized him by his water-soaked coat
collar.