CHAPTER XXXIX
SHOWING HOW MR. WEEKS MADE HIS LAST MOVE
“WHAT is it, Brandon?” gasped Milly, seeing the look upon her companion’s face.
“Look! look!” whispered the youth, thrusting the glass into her hands.
Milly gazed in terrified silence at the approaching boat.
She, as well as Don, at once recognized the villainous Leroyd and his friend, Sneaky Al, and her heart sank with fear.
“What shall we do?” she inquired at last, turning to Brandon.
The latter turned back into the cabin without a word, opened the secret closet and grasping the package of diamonds thrust it into the breast of his shirt.
“I’ll hide in the hold,” he said, appearing to grasp the situation at once. “I do not believe they’ll find me. Tell Swivel, and he’ll know what to tell and what not to tell, if they try to pump him.
“They needn’t know that I’m here at all, or that you know anything about me. They’ll not dare to hurt you, Milly. But I shall be on hand in case they try it.”
“But what can you do against so many?” she returned, with a hysteric laugh.
“Something—you’ll see. They shan’t hurt you while I’m alive,” he declared earnestly.
“But suppose they take us off with them—Swivel and I?”
“Go, of course,” returned Brandon promptly. “Leave me to shift for myself. When you get ashore communicate with Adoniram Pepper & Co. of New York, and tell them how I’m fixed. Good by, Milly!”
He wrung her hand warmly and disappeared in the direction of the booby hatch ’tween decks. At the same moment there were voices outside and the noise of the schooner’s small boat scraping against the side of the brig.
Milly, with hands clasped tightly across her breast, as though in the endeavor to still the heavy beating of her heart, remained standing beside the cabin table as the men boarded the brig and entered the cabin.
The first to come below was the ill featured Leroyd himself, and close behind him was Alfred Weeks and two other men from the crew of the schooner.
“Dash my top lights!” cried the sailor, as he caught sight of the young girl standing there so silently.
He retreated precipitately upon his friend Weeks, who was almost as greatly astonished as himself.
“How under the sun came you here, Miss Frank?” demanded Sneaky Al, stepping forward.
But Leroyd grabbed his arm and strove to drag him back.
“Stop, man! ’tis not a human!” he gasped, his usually red face fairly pallid. “It’s the spirit of the poor girl. I knowed how ’twould be we’en we left her aboard the Success.”
Weeks shook off his grasp in contempt.
“I’m only too willing to meet such a charming ghost as this,” he said, with a smirk, smiling at the young girl. “Don’t be a fool, Jim. It is Miss Frank herself, though how she came here is the greatest of all mysteries.”
“’Tis the work o’ Davy Jones hisself,” muttered the sailor.
The other two men, both low browed, sullen appearing fellows looked on without comment.
“How did you get here?” repeated Weeks.
“We came from the Success just before she was about to sink,” Milly declared. “Did you come to save us?”
“Us?” cried Weeks, in utter amazement. “For goodness’ sake, who’s with you?”
“After poor papa was killed,” there was a little choke in Milly’s voice here, “a vessel overhauled the Success and a boy tried to save me. He brought a rope to the wreck, but it parted before we could haul in a heavier cable, and the gale swept the other vessel away during the night.”
“Brave chap!” muttered Weeks. “Where is he now?”
“There,” she said, pointing to the open door of the stateroom in which Swivel was lying. “He is hurt.”
“But that doesn’t explain how ye got here, miss,” said the sailor suspiciously.
“I hadn’t got to that, Mr. Leroyd. Had you been men, you would not have left me to drown as you did, and then there would have been no necessity for my remaining for three days on these two vessels.”
“You misjudge us, I assure you,” Weeks hastened to say, as Leroyd shrank back at the girl’s scornful words. “Both Leroyd and I were in one boat and the second mate was in the other boat. He declared you to be safe, and I thought, and so did Mr. Leroyd, that you were with him.
“It was not until we were picked up by the schooner Natchez, of Bermuda, and carried to those islands, that we discovered your deplorable loss.”
But Milly did not believe this plausible story. She had too vivid a remembrance of Leroyd and the cowardly Weeks during the gale, to be impressed by this tale.
“This brig passed the Success on the second day after you left me, and we made a raft and came to it, because it was so much more seaworthy than papa’s vessel,” said Milly coldly.
“You say this boy is hurt, eh?” said Weeks, stepping around to the stateroom door and peering in at Swivel, who was sleeping heavily despite the sound of voices. “Gee! he does look bad, doesn’t he?”
“Well, wot in thunder shall we do?” growled Leroyd at length. “We’ve got no time to spend in fooling, Al. No knowing what that—that other craft is.”
“Miss Milly,” Weeks assured her, without paying any attention to the words of his companion, “we shall have the pleasure of taking you and your brave young friend ashore with us—after we settle a little business here.”
“Well, I’m glad ter hear you gittin’ down ter business,” declared Leroyd, with satisfaction. “Come, now, skin out of here, you fellers,” he added, addressing the two men at the companionway. “We’ll come up or call for you when we want ye.”
The men departed and the sailor turned again to his partner.
“Hurry!” he exclaimed eagerly. “Where’s the place you said they were hid? It’s somewhere in the cabin here, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Then send the gal on deck, too, and let’s rummage.”
“We won’t be rude enough to do that,” said Weeks, with another smirk at Milly. “We will just request the young lady not to speak of what she sees us do.”
“I don’t care. Anything, so long’s we get ’em and get out o’ here. Suppose—”
“Never mind supposing any longer. Let me see, now,” and Weeks walked slowly to the upper end of the cabin and counted off three panels from the companionway on the port side.
Quickly his long finger touched the surface of the panel, pressing here and there and rattling the loose board, and finally the panel dropped down, disclosing the secret cupboard—empty!
Leroyd darted forward.
“What is it? Is it there?” he cried.
“The infernal luck! it’s empty!” shouted Weeks, and with a volley of maledictions he staggered back and dropped into the nearest chair.
Leroyd was fairly purple.
“Have you tricked me!” he yelled, seizing his partner by the shoulders and shaking him.
“No, you fool! why should I trick you? That is where Caleb Wetherbee said the diamonds were hid.”
“Sh!” growled the sailor. “D’ye want that gal ter know everything? She knows too much now.”
“She doesn’t know anything about this; why should she?”
“Then, what’s become of them?”
“I can tell you that,” returned Weeks. “Cale Wetherbee’s been here.”
“And left the Silver Swan a derelict—almost as good as new—an’ him with a steamer?” roared Leroyd. “Man, you’re dreaming!”
“Then—what—has happened!” asked Alfred Weeks slowly.
“The gal—the gal here,” declared Leroyd, turning fiercely upon Milly. “She’s found ’em, I tell ye!”
He advanced upon the shrinking girl so threateningly, that Milly screamed, and rushed to the companionway. Leroyd pursued her, and Weeks followed the angry sailor.
Up to the deck darted the girl, and almost into the arms of one of the men whom Leroyd had driven out of the brig’s cabin. The fellow looked excited and he shouted to the angry sailor as soon as he saw him:
“De steamer come—up queek. Mr. Leroyd! Dey put off-a boat already.”
Milly, who had dodged past the speaker, turned her eyes to the east—the opposite direction from which the schooner had appeared—and beheld a steamship, her two funnels vomiting thick smoke, just rounded to, less than two cable lengths away.
It was the whaleback steamer, Number Three!
Already a boat had put off from the whaleback and it was now being swiftly propelled toward the Silver Swan.
The two men whom Leroyd and Weeks had brought with them from the schooner, had been smoking in the lee of the deck-house and had not discovered the steamer’s approach until she was almost upon the derelict.
“Curses on it!” Weeks exclaimed as he took in the situation and recognized the steamer, whose smoke they had beheld in the distance, before boarding the brig.
But Leroyd kept on after the fleeing Milly. He believed that she knew something about the missing gems, or had them in her possession, and he was determined to get them.
Milly ran to the bows of the brig, with Leroyd close behind her.
“Let that gal alone!” roared a voice from the approaching boat. “Give way, boys! I won’t leave a whole bone in that scoundrel’s body, once I get my paws on him.”
In an instant the small boat was under the brig’s rail, and Caleb Wetherbee himself was upon her deck with an agility quite surprising. Mr. Coffin and two of the boat’s crew were right behind him.
A moment later the panting girl, having eluded the clumsier sailor, was behind the shelter of Caleb’s towering form and those of his companions.
Weeks stopped Leroyd in his mad rush for the girl, and whispered a few swift sentences in his ear. Then he stepped forward.
“By what right do you board this brig, Mr. Wetherbee?” he asked. “This is a derelict. We have seized her and propose to tow her to port for salvage. I command you to leave her.”
“How long since you boarded her for that purpose?” Mr. Coffin demanded, for Caleb was fairly purple with rage and surprise.
“Since half an hour ago,” replied Weeks calmly.
“If that is the case, I think I have a prior claim,” suddenly interrupted a voice. “I came aboard two days ago and I claim the Silver Swan as mine by right of discovery!”
The astounded company turned toward the cabin entrance and beheld Brandon Tarr just appearing from below.