“Well, if this doesn’t beat anything I ever heard of!” said Seth, in a frightened whisper. “That isn’t him, is it?” “No sir, it isn’t. It is somebody else, as sure as you are alive,” replied Will. “It is—it is—”
“I want to know if I have you to thank for this?” repeated the prisoner, raising himself to a sitting posture, and looking over the coil of rope at the astonished boys. “Why don’t you say something.”
Bayard was so utterly confounded that for a few seconds he could not speak. He stood as if he had been turned into a wooden boy, and then, rubbing his eyes and staring hard at the prisoner, to make sure that he was awake, called out in tones indicative of great excitement, “Hank Chase!”
“Yes, it is Hank Chase, and nobody else,” replied the owner of that name, indignantly. “Now,[150] I want to know what you brought me here for, and what you intend to do with me?”
Bayard, who quickly recovered from his bewilderment, leaned forward to take a nearer view of the prisoner, and, paying no heed to his entreaties that he would release him, or at least explain his reasons for having him brought there, walked slowly out of the room, followed by his cousins. After closing and fastening the door, he handed the lantern to Coulte, and began pacing thoughtfully up and down the hold, thrashing his boots with his riding-whip at every step.
“Haven’t we got ourselves into a pretty scrape?” said Seth, after a little pause.
“Shut your mouth!” exclaimed Bayard, savagely.
“Haven’t we, though?” cried Will. “That plan of yours, for getting even with Walter Gaylord, has worked splendidly, hasn’t it? I wish I was a million miles from here. I am going to start for home this very day.”
“So am I,” said his brother.
“Hold your tongues, I say; both of you,” shouted Bayard, raising his riding-whip, as if he had half a mind to use it on them.
[151]
“You zee, Meester Payard,” observed Coulte, shrugging his shoulders and waving his hands, as if to say that he was in no way to blame, “my leetle poys have made one big—one magnifique mistake.”
“Are these ‘the little boys’ who have made this ‘magnificent mistake?’” asked Bayard, looking contemptuously at the two tall, broad-shouldered men, who stood leaning against a stanchion close by, waiting to see how the interview would end. “I call them pretty good-sized boys, and think they might have known better. They are blockheads, both of them. Now, I want you to tell me how you came to make this blunder.”
Edmund and his brother were sullen at first, but after a few words of encouragement from their father, they began and told the story of Chase’s capture, just as we have related it. They wound up by saying that they could not see where they were to blame. Their father had visited them the day before, according to promise, and, after informing them that Bayard had it in his power to make serious trouble for them if he chose to do so, and gaining their consent to assist him in carrying out his plans, had told them that if they saw a boy riding a white horse, and wearing a blue cloak with[152] a red lining, and heavy top-boots, armed with small silver spurs, to make a prisoner of him. They had met a horseman who had answered to the description perfectly, and had captured him according to orders—a proceeding on their part that they were now heartily sorry for. It was no fault of theirs that it proved to be the wrong boy, for they did not know that there were two fellows in the settlement who rode white horses, and wore blue cloaks with red linings, and besides, they were not well enough acquainted with Walter Gaylord to tell him from anybody else. When their father came over that morning to ascertain how they had carried out their instructions, he saw at a glance that they had made a mistake, and that was the first intimation they had had of the fact. Some portions of their story must have astonished and alarmed Bayard, for he stood with his mouth and eyes open, listening intently, and his face was as pale as a sheet. When the men ceased speaking, he went into the locker, closing the door after him.
“Chase,” said he, “I want to ask you something: What were you and Wilson doing in Mr. Gaylord’s yard last night after dark?”
“Eh?” ejaculated the prisoner, surprised and[153] disconcerted by the abruptness with which the question was asked; “I—you see—”
“Yes, I do see,” exclaimed Bayard, in a voice which trembled with anger or terror, Chase could not tell which. “I see that my suspicions are confirmed. I knew yesterday that I ought to look out for you, for there was something in your eye that told me that you and Wilson had overheard what I said to my cousins about the smugglers. This is what you get for playing eavesdropper, my young friend, and by meddling with things that do not concern you. It serves you just right.”
Bayard came out and slammed the door of the locker, without waiting to hear what else the prisoner had to say. His face was paler than it was when he went in, but that was not to be wondered at, for he knew that there was a boy in the settlement who was acquainted with his secret, and that he had made an enemy of him. He was afraid of Wilson now. Where was he? He might be in Bellville—very likely he was, for he rode a swift horse which could easily carry him there in one night—and perhaps, by this time, half the citizens of the place had heard of the plans Bayard had laid against Walter Gaylord. He trembled when he thought[154] what a commotion the news would create in that quiet town. Everybody there knew Walter and liked him; and every one able to ride a horse, from the President of the Academy down to the smallest student, would turn out to assist him and hunt down the smugglers; and what would they do with the boy who had caused all this trouble? Bayard asked himself. The question troubled him. He saw that he had got himself into a terrible scrape, and was almost overwhelmed with alarm when he thought of the probable consequences of his act; but when he spoke, it was with great calmness and deliberation.
“This is none of my funeral, Coulte,” said he, “and I wash my hands of the whole affair. Two courses of action are open to you: You can release your captive, or you can take him to the West Indies and lose him there, as you intended to do with Walter Gaylord. My advice to you, however, is to hold fast to him; for if you should set him at liberty he would blow on you before night, and then where would you be? But the matter doesn’t interest me one way or the other. Do as you please. Come on, fellows; there is work before us, and we’ve not an instant of time to fool away.”
[155]
As Bayard said this he placed his foot on the ladder and was about to ascend to the deck, when a shrill whistle sounded from the shore. It had a strange effect upon some of those who heard it, for Coulte once more began to wring his hands, while his sons, Edmund and Pierre, started up and looked about them in alarm.
“What’s the trouble now?” asked Bayard. “Who’s out there?”
“Ah! every dings is going wrong—oui! every dings,” exclaimed Coulte. “Zare is ze captain Whew!”
The old Frenchman had been terrified before; he was doubly so now. Bayard did not pay much attention to him, for he knew that he was so excitable that he sometimes became unreasonably agitated over a very trifling matter; but when he saw that Edmund and Pierre were uneasy, he began to think there might be good cause for alarm.
“The captain!” repeated Bayard; “what would he say to us if he should find us here?”
“He mustn’t find you here,” said Edmund, who seemed to be alarmed at the bare thought of such a thing. “And you won’t be safe any where now that he has come, for he will look all over the vessel[156] before he goes away, to make sure that everything is right. I wish you were at home, where you belong.”
“So do I,” said Seth, heartily.
“And I wish you had been in Guinea last night, for then you wouldn’t have captured Hank Chase instead of Walter Gaylord,” said Bayard. “That mistake will get you into serious trouble if you don’t mind what you are about.”
“Vel, vat shall be done,” asked Coulte, as another shrill whistle rang through the vessel, this time louder than before, showing that the captain was becoming impatient at the delay. “Vare shall ve hide these leetle poys?”
“Let them go into the cabin,” said Pierre, who had not yet spoken. “Edmund and I will take the yawl and go off after the captain, and when we come back we’ll make her fast to the stem of the schooner. Then let the boys watch their chance, and when we come below with the captain, let them climb out of the cabin windows into the yawl and put for the shore.”
This plan seemed to meet with approval from everybody, for Pierre and his brother at once ascended to the deck, and the boys followed Coulte,[157] who beckoned them toward the cabin. Bayard wondered how the captain would get ashore if they went away with the boat, but as that was a matter of no interest to him, he did not waste time thinking about it. He did not care if the captain never set his foot on shore again, if he and his companions could only leave the vessel before they were discovered by him.
Arriving at the after-e............