Chapter XV: An Ultimatum

"That will do, Jim Sixty!" shouted Captain Nemo, Jr., the moment he had got head and shoulders over the rim of the tower.

With a burst of profanity, Sixty leveled the rifle at the captain.

"What's to hinder me from puttin' a bullet through you, right where you are, you meddlin' hound?" he shouted.

"Several things, Sixty," was the calm response. "In the first place, I don't think you're a good enough marksman; and, in the second place, I don't think you'll do anything rash when I tell you that we're ready to put a torpedo into the brig and blow you and the wreck out of water."

That was a blow in the face for Sixty. He staggered back, dropped his rifle, and cast longing eyes at the two boats moored to the brig's side.

"You wouldn't dare do a thing like that!" he cried.

"Why wouldn't I?" asked the captain, casually.

"Well, for one thing, if you blowed us up, Motor Matt's two pards would go with us. You ain't takin' no chances with----"

"The schooner! The schooner!" clamored those on the deck of the brig.

Through the lunette Matt could see the schooner, with all sail set, hustling off across the ocean, showing as clean a pair of heels as any sailing craft could.

"Come back here, blast you!" howled Sixty, trumpeting the words through his hands.

But, if any one on the schooner heard, they made no response. The craft kept to her course, hauling up every stitch of canvas possible.

"We've got her scared," remarked Captain Nemo, Jr., "for her skipper knows that if we could sink you with a torpedo we could also sink her."

"What d'you want?" demanded Sixty.

"We want you and your men as prisoners," replied the captain. "If Motor Matt's friend on the deck, there, is badly hurt, you'll all be held to answer for it. Not only that, but we want to examine the brig's cargo----"

"No need of that, captain," sung out Dick. "I've got her log and her manifest. There's enough guns and ammunition down below to arm a regiment--and they're not down in the papers."

With a swirling roar of rage, Sixty sprang toward Dick. The latter stepped away quickly.

"Stay right where you are, Sixty!" shouted the captain. "Make another move like that and you'll do it at your peril. If those men with you know when they're well off, they'll help Dick Ferral get his chum into one of the boats and bring him over here to us."

"They'll do nothin' o' the kind!" shouted Sixty. "If you blow us up, you're goin' to blow up Motor Matt's friends along with us."

But the nine men with Sixty were of another way of thinking. Their only hope had been the schooner, and, now that she had mysteriously taken to flight, their next best plan was to fall in with the desires of their captor--the gray-haired man in the submarine.

Together the nine swarthy sailors started toward Carl. Sixty endeavored to drive them back, but they pointed revolvers at him and brandished dangerous-looking knives. Baffled, and held at bay by superior numbers, Sixty could only watch like an enraged panther while Carl was picked up and lowered by means of a rope into one of the boats.

Dick, before he dropped over the side, ran into the cabin after the log and manifest. Then, while Dick was getting down the side of the derelict, another unexpected thing happened.

A trim launch, manned by six of Uncle Sam's sailors and carrying four marines and a lieutenant, shot in between the brig and the submarine.

"Back, all!" shouted the lieutenant, and six oars pushed against the rushing water in perfect unison, bringing the launch to a halt.

"What's going on here?" asked the lieutenant, standing up, his amazed eyes wandering from the rowboat in which were Dick and Carl, then to the panic-stricken men on the derelict, and finally to the submarine.

Captain Nemo, Jr., and Matt had climbed from the conning tower to the deck of the _Grampus_, in readiness to give Dick a hand with Carl.

"They're threatenin' to blow us out of water with a torpedo," howled Sixty.

The trap had been sprung, but the filibuster was hoping to brazen his way through to freedom. But it was a forlorn hope.

"Where did you come from, Sixty?" demanded the lieutenant.

"I left New Orleans on the fruiter, _Santa Maria_," replied Sixty, "goin' on a hunt for this here brig which was reported somewhere in the track of steamers for Central America. A schooner from Belize was waitin' for me, an' yesterday we sighted the schooner from the steamer and I was put aboard. Then we went lookin' for the brig."

"Where's the schooner now?" inquired the lieutenant.

"She slipped away like a singed cat, a little while ago, and she's purty nigh hull down."

"She left you and the rest of those men, together with the two boats, behind?"

"That's the how of it."

"Then it must be that she saw us coming. If she'd been engaged in honest business, Sixty, she'd have stayed right here. But she didn't stay. You're treed, my man, and if there are not arms and ammunition in that old hulk, I'm no prophet."

"There are, sir," called Dick. "I've been in the hold and there are plenty of Krag-Jorgensens down there, and ammunition, too."

"Who are you?" demanded the lieutenant.

"I and my mate, here, got adrift from the _Santa Maria_ during that storm, night before last. We've been on the wreck nearly two nights and a day. Ran into her in the dark, caught a trailing rope and climbed aboard."

"These are the lads you were looking for, captain?" asked the lieutenant, turning to Captain Nemo, Jr.

"Yes," was the reply.

"Then you're in luck to find them. What was that shooting a while ago? It was that that brought us in this direction."

"Sixty and a boat's crew," explained Dick, "tried to get on the brig. My mate and I held 'em off with rifles, because we knew him for a treacherous swab who had thrown our raggie, Motor Matt, over the rail of the _Santa Maria_----"

"Did Sixty do that?" cut in the officer, sternly.

"Yes," spoke up Matt.

"Go on," proceeded the officer, laconically, turning to Dick.

"Well," went on Dick, "when Sixty found he couldn't board the brig, he went back to the schooner. They had a bow chaser, and another small cannon over the stern. They let drive at us, then rounded in on the other side and let drive again, covering the movements of two boats' crews who laid us aboard. The last shot splintered the bulwarks and brought down my chum here."

"How badly is he hurt, Dick?" queried Matt.

"Stunned, that's all."

"A nice sort of schooner that is," muttered the officer, staring off to sea. "If we hadn't had such important work here we might have followed her and compelled her to heave to. You say there are rifles and ammunition in the brig?" he added, to Dick.

"Yes; and they don't appear on the manifest."

"How do you know?"

"Here's the manifest and the log."

Dick held the documents out. At a word from the officer the launch was driven alongside the rowboat, and the papers changed hands.

"Up on deck," the lieutenant said to the marines, "disarm those scoundrels and make prisoners of them. Look well after Sixty. Two of you boys come with me."

Two of the sailors dropped their oars and there was a scramble for the brig's deck.

Dick, dropping down on a thwart, picked up two of the oars and pulled the boat in which he and Carl found themselves over to the submarine.

"I'd about given you up, old chap!" exclaimed Matt as he seized Dick's hand.

"There was a time, old ship," replied Dick, "when I'd about given myself up. But all's well that ends well. If Carl proves to be only stunned, as I feel sure he will, there's no great damage done for all Sixty's treacherous planning."

Carl was taken below, Matt and Dick lifting him through the conning-tower hatch, down the ladder, and then making him comfortable on the locker in the periscope room.