Amos and Abner were each in the hands of half a dozen troopers in
less time than it takes to relate. Then, as terrified screams burst
from Muriel and Jenny, Abner gave vent to a howl that seemed hardly
human and gasped affrightedly:
“They are ghosts, ghosts, ghosts! We are lost, Amos!”
“We are indeed, you fool!” spluttered his brother, struggling
frenziedly now to free himself from the dozen muscular hands
clutching him, “for you ’ave betrayed us.”
Then a gag was forced into the mouth of each of the two young
desperadoes, and their hands were dragged behind their backs and
handcuffed so.
“Stop your screaming, girls! Hold your tongues or we shall be forced
to gag you also,” cried Inspector Medhurst.
At this threat Jenny was silent, save for a loud, terrified panting.
Muriel had only uttered one involuntary scream upon the rush of the
police.
“What is the meaning of this, policemen?” she now demanded,
hoarsely. “Sergeant Dick, have you all gone crazy that--that you
attack us--make prisoners of my cousins in this way and that
you--you have disguised yourself in that way--are personating old
Mr. Seymour?”
“Miss Arnold, an explanation is certainly due to you and your cousin
Jenny,” replied Dick, sorrowfully, as he put his pistols back in his
belt. “You have both been cruelly deceived by your relatives. It
grieves me very much to have to tell you, Miss Muriel, that your two
cousins there, as well as their brothers and father, are members of
the dreaded White Hood Gang.”
“Impossible!” gasped Muriel, while Jenny stood as if transfixed.
“Oh, that is too absurd!”
“It is true, Miss Arnold,” put in Inspector Medhurst. “Your cousin
yonder took us for ghosts, and his brother cried out that he had
betrayed them. So he had, for it was fairly good proof--his taking
us for ghosts--that he believed we had all been killed by a horrible
trap set for us by him and his brothers and the two Seymours up
among the hills.”
“Oh, it is impossible--impossible! I cannot believe it of them,”
panted Muriel, sinking helplessly upon the seat under the bulwark of
the scow.
“You will oblige us, ladies, by going inside the cabin and keeping
silent,” continued Inspector Medhurst. “If your uncle and cousins
_are_ innocent, Muriel Arnold, they will be afforded every chance of
clearing themselves by the law of the land, provided they submit
quietly. Haverty and Leclere, bring the Seymours aboard. Then we
will draw out and make for the ‘castle.’ Sergeant, will you take the
tiller, and steer?”
Gasping hard and staring wildly at each other, the two girls passed
inside the after-cabin, then stood embracing for mutual support,
while the police-troopers brought the Seymours aboard and hauled on
the anchor-rope, pulling the ark off-shore.
Amos and Abner had been thrown helplessly handcuffed and gagged into
two of the bunks in the fore-cabin. Bud Seymour was put in another
bunk and his wife was bound to the mast inside the cabin.
As the ark drew near “Water Castle,” Sergeant Dick and his
fellow-policemen saw that the gate in the “dockyard” palisading
stood wide, just as they expected it would be. The way in up to the
verandah or landing-stage was clear.
But standing half within, half without the door of the “castle,”
peering out anxiously, was old Alf, rifle in hand, while faces were
visible at two of the windows facing them. There were no lights
showing in the place; all had been extinguished, and most of the
windows in sight appeared to be shuttered.
“They heard the girls’ screams, and are on their guard, sergeant,”
Inspector Medhurst called in a low voice from the after-door of the
ark.
“I’m afraid so, sir. Sound travels far over water, and this lake is
famous for its remarkable echoes,” Sergeant Dick answered as
cautiously, turning the ark’s nose a degree so as to skirt the
palisading to the open gate.
“Ark, ahoy! Anything wrong? That you, Amos--Abner?” Old Man Alf
bawled to them.
Sergeant Dick was still wearing “Bud” Seymour’s hat and coat, and
again mimicking that old reprobate’s voice, shouted back:
“Of course, it’s Amos and Abner, and ‘Bud’ Seymour, too, a-comin’ to
see you, ole hoss! What do you think’s wrong?”
Old Alf evidently consulted with others of the garrison, but he
still seemed suspicious as he called out again:
“Amos, Abner, are you there? What did them there screams mean? We
heerd them right enough. Muriel--Jenny, is it all right wi’ you?”
“No, father, it isn’t,” shrilled Jenny on the instant, rushing to
the edge of the squared bow. “The police are here, and they are
after you and the boys. They’ve got Amos and Abner, and the two
Seymours, prisoners in the cabin. Those you see are police wearing
their hats.”
She shouted the words rapidly--all in one breath.
Muriel gasped in dismay and ran and clapped a hand over her mouth,
too late. She fought to free her mouth and shout something more, as
Inspector Medhurst and three of the troopers rushed forth from the
cabin and seized and dragged her and Muriel within it again.
“Oh, Jenny! Why were you so foolish? They will fight to the bitter
end now. I know they will--your father and brothers. You have sealed
their doom.”
“She has that, for, as I said, if they resist, we will show no
mercy--we cannot show any,” exclaimed Inspector Medhurst. Then he
stepped to the door again, and called out:
“Surrender, Arnold! Submit quietly, and you will all have the
benefit of a fair trial. Refuse, and resist us at your peril! You
know the penalty of defying us--the police.”
Old Alf had vanished within the door, which was now closed, and the
other faces were no longer visible at the windows. All the windows
in sight presented only their armored, loopholed screens.
Suddenly one of the screens was thrown open, and Aunt Kate’s voice
boomed forth, even as the bow of the ark scraped one of the gate
posts in the palisading, and the clumsy vessel swung slowly round to
enter the gate.
“Let my two sons and daughter whom you have prisoners come on to the
verandah and talk to us, and we’ll think about surrenderin’.”
Inspector Medhurst did not reply, but stepped back inside the
fore-cabin. He called through the after one for the two troopers
with Sergeant Dick to keep close behind the tiller-shield, with him.
“Stand on up to the house and lay us alongside the verandah,
sergeant,” he added.
“Do you hear me, you policemen?” roared the lion-like old woman
again. “Give my sons and daughter their liberty, let ’em join us,
and we’ll then talk about surrenderin’.”
“Your two sons aboard with us are prisoners, and as such they will
remain,” Medhurst answered, after another moment or two’s pause
during which Sergeant Dick ran the scow swiftly and deftly alongside
the verandah. “I will hold no further parley with you than to ask
you once more, ‘Do you surrender or do you not?’”
“Curse you, we will fight to the death!” roared out the voice of
Aaron.
An automatic pistol cracked rapidly from the open window, and bullet
after bullet from the weapon clanged against and ricocheted off the
steel tiller-shield, behind which Sergeant Dick and Troopers Bell
and Watts were standing huddled, showing not as much as an elbow,
fortunately for them.
“Hold your fire, troopers! Hold your fire!” bawled Inspector
Medhurst. “Within the ‘castle,’ there! Alf Arnold, listen to me. I
have no wish to fire on the house, as you have women with you. Let
them come out--your wife and two daughters-in-law--then, if you men
will not surrender, so much the worse for you. Send the women out,
anyhow, first of all.”
Abel, the other son in the house, had been quick to join in the
firing at the ark. But both desperadoes now ceased shooting, and a
silence intervened, broken at length by Aunt Kate’s voice, calling
out:
“No, no! Let Deb and Bella go, but my place is here. I will not
leave you, Alf, nor my brave lads.”
“They only want you to open the door so’s they can make a rush in.
Don’t be gulled, men,” shrilled the voice of Bella, Abel’s wife.
“We will take no such advantage of you,” the inspector bawled back,
“but, if you doubt my word, lower the women through your trapdoor
into a canoe.”
Another longish pause, broken only by murmuring voices within the
“castle”; and then old Alf Arnold called out:
“Very well, we will send the women out through the trapdoor.”
Aunt Kate and her daughters-in-law could be heard still fiercely
protesting against quitting their husband’s sides. But the men’s
arguments evidently prevailed, for presently the occupants of the
ark could hear noises under the “castle,” which told them the women
were being put into one of the canoes.
Sergeant Dick and Troopers Bell and Watts, by stooping and peeping
round the side of the tiller-screen, could see, through the piles
and cross-timbering under the verandah, the three women being
lowered in turn through the trap in the central passage of the
“castle” into a canoe drawn up under it. There were two other canoes
moored close by.