Chapter XI: Under Hatches

Nick Carter was glad that it took more than a quarter of an hour longer to reach the yacht. Every minute was beneficial to Lord Vinton, as he drew in deep breaths of the life-giving atmosphere.

“Easy all!” called out Kennedy, directing his oarsmen. “Back water! Unship port oars! That’s good! Steady! Wait till I get hold of the ladder rail!”

But the first mate was never allowed to get to the ladder rail of the yacht. Instead, he found himself suddenly confronted by Nick Carter, whom he had supposed still insensible.

He hardly had time to consider how the detective had managed to get back to his wits so quickly, for Nick’s right arm shot out, in a feint for the eye. Kennedy attempted to parry, and Carter immediately crossed with his left. Sending in a sledge-hammer crash to the mate’s chin, the detective dropped his man overboard from the stern with a splash.

Nick did not stop to see what became of the mate. There were other things to do.

The two sailors who had been rowing, each seized an oar for a club and tried to knock down Drago.

He was too quick for them, however. Tearing the oar out of the hands of one of them, a sweeping blow mowed the sailor into the sea, to join Kennedy.

Lord Vinton, although still suffering slightly from the effects of the gas in his bedroom, was able to keep in his mind the one thing he had been instructed to do by the detective, which was to use the boat stretcher.

So he brought it down on the head of Groton with a force that knocked him senseless. Then he administered a side wipe to the man who had remained in the boat when the others were ashore, and put him out of the fight, although it did not render him unconscious.

“Grab those oars out of the boat, and shove her off!” shouted Nick, as he got on the square wooden grating at the foot of the ladder, and saw that Lord Vinton was already by his side. “Throw them into the sea or bring them along, Drago!”

Harvey L. Drago was a man after Nick Carter’s own heart, for he seemed to fit into a scrap as if it were his regular occupation. In a jiffy, he had the four oars in his arms and piled them up on the ladder, just as he gave the boat a tremendous shove with one foot.

Away went the boat, with the two wounded sailors and the other three who were more or less disabled. The fifth sailor, together with Kennedy, the mate, had disappeared in the dark waters of the bay.

Nick was obliged to make a quick grab for Drago, or that energetic young man would have gone into the sea, too, as he kicked the boat away.

He recovered his balance with the help of the detective, however, and rushed up the ladder at Nick’s heels.

It was fortunate for the three victors that only a small watch was on deck. The taking away of six men from the crew, with the first mate, had weakened the yacht so far as men were concerned.

There were two men on deck, and neither of them was wide awake. They had been sitting talking in the shadows of the smokestack until one of them had fallen fast asleep, while the other nodded.

Until the fight actually began on the boat at the foot of the sea ladder, there had been hardly a sound.

The men were rowing with muffled oars, and there had been no talking except the whispered exchanges between the three prisoners.

When the battle did begin, it was over before the two men on deck realized what was happening.

Nick and Drago, coming up the ladder, met them both at the gangway, and the swiftness and dexterity with which these two seamen found themselves bound and gagged remained a matter of wonder with them for the remainder of their lives.

“Now, gentlemen!” whispered Nick. “The fo’c’s’le! There must be half a dozen men in there. Close the hatch for the present, so that they can’t get out. We’ll deal with them later.”

They fastened up the cubby-hole forward where the men slept, and had trapped seven men before they awoke. In fact, it was an hour afterward before any of them realized that they were prisoners.

When they did, they found the door so well secured that they feared they could only wait until somebody should come to let them out.

All this had been carried out so quietly that the officer of the deck--who was the second mate, Morgan--did not know till he emerged from the chart room that the _Idaline_ was in possession of an invading party.

Just as he poked his nose out of the chart room--where he had been enjoying a nap on a softly cushioned locker--he was seized by two strong pairs of hands, his mouth stopped with a handful of oakum, and a rope thrown around his arms with the scientific precision that proclaimed it the work of an experienced sailor.

It was Nick Carter who had knotted the rope, while Lord Vinton, acting under orders, had shoved the oakum into the astonished mate’s mouth.

Drago held him by the arms while the detective bound them.

Nick was a yachtsman himself. There was not a rope or a bit of canvas that he did not know on a full-rigged windjammer.

Having deposited Morgan again on the locker--but not so comfortably as before--and lashed his hands behind him, Nick directed Drago to tie him to the leg of the solid table which was screwed to the floor.

“There he is,” he remarked, when Drago had finished the task. “You’ve done that well. He may perhaps get himself loose in the course of an hour or so, although I don’t think he will. But by that time we shall have things arranged so that we shall not care. Come down to the cabin. There is a man there I want to see.”

They went below, the three of them, and when Captain Latell had been caught in his stateroom and made a prisoner before he realized what was going on, Nick went to another cabin.

Here, pistol in hand, he used the barrel to poke a burly man, who lay on his back in the wide berth, snoring in perfect contentment.

The well-built man started up to a sitting posture. The detective promptly knocked him down again.

“Lie where you are, Mr. Spanner!” commanded Nick.

“What does this mean?” spluttered the indignant occupant of the berth. “Who are you, sir?”

“Nick Carter!” replied the detective coolly.

“What?”

This monosyllabic inquiry came with a shriek of amazement, tinged with indignation and fury.

“Keep quiet, Mr. Spanner!” admonished Nick. “We have possession of the yacht, and----”

“Where is Captain Latell?” thundered Spanner.

“A prisoner in his stateroom. And we have the second mate, Morgan, tied and gagged, in the chart room.”

“And Kennedy?”

“Drowned.”

“What?”

“He tried to make a prisoner of me and two guests at the Hotel Amsterdam, and he fell overboard, into the sea. He was not seen again. I want you to tell me where Mrs. van Dietrich is on this yacht.”

“I don’t know what you are talking about,” protested Spanner.

“That’s unfortunate. Because, if you don’t produce the lady within ten minutes, we shall take you ashore and have you put in jail for kidnaping.”

“Let me get up and dress,” growled Spanner. “You have no right to come aboard my yacht at all, and I want to see what you are doing here.”

“Oh, it is your yacht, is it?” asked Nick, with a curious smile. “I supposed you were the uncle of the owner, and that her name is Mademoiselle Valeria. She has been staying at the Hotel Amsterdam for some days under the name of the Baroness Latour.”

“I don’t know a Baroness Latour--or a Mademoiselle Valeria, either,” snorted Spanner.

“Don’t you? Well, we’ll look for Mrs. van Dietrich ourselves. When we have found her, we shall know something about the ownership of the yacht, I think.”

“Look here, Mr. Carter,” suddenly broke in Lord Vinton, who had been standing in the corridor, “Mr. Drago has come to tell me that there is something or other clicking away in the captain’s room, and he’s afraid it is an infernal machine.”

“I don’t think there is anything infernal about it,” laughed the detective. “Take this pistol and hold it to the head of this chunky gentleman in pajamas on the bed till I come back. If he becomes too restless--that is, to the point of being threatening--pull the trigger.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to take a look at the infernal machine in the captain’s room.”

“Very well. The door is locked outside, and the captain is gagged and bound on his berth,” remarked Lord Vinton coolly.