CHAPTER XVII CRAGTHORPE INTRODUCES HIS REAL SELF
"Now, if you find you've anything to say," continued Cragthorpe, in the same low voice, "you can say it when the time comes. But don't try to call out, and don't attempt any impudence, or I'll pull this noose tight. You know what that will mean!"
Undeniably Tom Halstead paled. Upon his feet, with at least a fighting chance, the young motor boat captain, while he might have feared death, would not have run away from it. He had a record for showing grit.
But this was a time when no amount of courage could give him a chance. He read it in Cragthorpe's eyes that the fellow intended to keep the upper hand, and to abuse it, to the end.
"You felt fine and important when you told that big Irishman to lead me off to the brig, didn't you!" began the tormentor.
"What else could I do!" demanded Halstead, in a low voice. "Wouldn't you have done the same by me, if the boot had been on the other foot!"
"And you struck me that cowardly blow over at Oakland the other day," cried Cragthorpe, who seemed to have nursed his wrath until it angered him to the striking point.
"When you went to school," mocked Tom, his coolness returning rapidly, "you studied out of a different book of definitions from the one I had. I was never taught that it was cowardice to defend a woman."
"What call had you to defend her?" insisted Cragthorpe, with a show of increasing anger. "Was it any of your affair?"
"Yes; the fact that the young woman was annoyed by you was excuse enough for my act."
"You spoiled my last chance with her when you humiliated me by a blow that I didn't get a chance to return at the time."
"I'm glad to hear that," retorted Tom, candidly.
"Oh, you are, are you?"
The working of passion in Cragthorpe's face was a fearful sight to see.
"And a fine thing you did for the young woman!" hissed the fellow. "I wanted to marry her. She has money enough to make her a prize," sneered the wretch. "Her brother is to go on trial for his life in a few days, and I am the only witness who could save him from the chain of evidence that the authorities are weaving about him. I made the offer to the girl to save her brother if she would wed me."
"You cowardly—cur!" uttered Tom Halstead, in cool disdain.
Cragthorpe started; then deeper lines of passion graved themselves in his features.
"Yes," continued Tom, scornfully, "you're about the lowest sort of cur that could possibly breathe. To charge a woman such a price for her brother's life and good fame!"
Cragthorpe suddenly restrained his growing anger. He leered down into the face of his straightforward young enemy.
"However, I am to make money in another way," he continued, cheerfully. "Frank Rollings is my cousin. After my failure with the girl he found me so desperate and ugly that, without telling me what he was about to do, he enlisted me in his present fine enterprise."
"Took you along with him to help him guard his stolen treasure, did he!" jeered Captain Tom Halstead.
"Yes, if it interests you," snarled Cragthorpe.
"It'll interest your precious cousin a lot more, before he gets through with you," sneered Halstead. "He'll be lucky if you don't make away with him and try to secure all the stolen money for yourself!"
Cragthorpe started, almost as though the young skipper had hit on the head the nail of his intentions.
"Here! Chew on this, instead of words!" flashed the wretch.
He suddenly forced the young skipper's mouth open, wedging in a crumpled up handkerchief. This he followed with another, gagging his victim.
Scenting more dastardly work to come, Tom Halstead fought furiously with the little chance that was left to him. His hands were secured, in front of him, but his feet and legs were free. He struggled with all his might, trying to use his bound hands, together, on the head of Cragthorpe, as that wretch again bent over him.
In his struggles Halstead rolled over on his side. His lashed hands reached briefly under the edge of the bed. In this way he hoped to gain purchase enough to pull himself free and yank himself to his feet. It was a slight hope, yet the only one the motor boat boy could see.
In the brief interval before Cragthorpe seized him roughly, hurling him back into the middle of the bed, Tom's hands touched something on the under side of the frame. He didn't know what it was he had touched.
In that brief though furious struggle Halstead had succeeded in working out the handkerchiefs. His oppressor caught up one of them.
"I'll gag you in better shape, this time," he proposed.
At that instant the door of the cabin opened. Cragthorpe, busy with his scheme of revenge, did not hear it. But Halstead lay so that he saw the door move ajar; he saw the head of the sailor who, with this watch, served in the wheel-house.
Over the seaman's face swept a look of the most intense amazement. He darted back into the darkness, for an instant, then returned.
"One moment—wait!" spoke Tom Halstead, sharply.
"Confound you—not so loud, if you value your safety!" warned Cragthorpe.
Had not the rascal been so intensely absorbed he would have felt and noted the light breeze that blew in with the opening of the door. But Cragthorpe was passion-ridden at the moment. The door closed, with the sailor and Third Officer Costigan in the room.
That "one moment—wait!" Mr. Costigan and the sailor had the presence of mind to understand was directed at them.
"That girl—and her brother—you were lying to me about them," taunted Halstead. "You can't tell me their names."
"I can't—eh?" sneered Cragthorpe, harshly. "The girl's name is Rose Gentry, and her brother's name Robert Gentry."
"And the brother is accused of murder, and you could prove him innocent? Yet you refused to save the brother because Rose Gentry would not marry you and let you own her fortune! It's a lie!"
"It's the truth," snarled Cragthorpe, hotly. "And you helped doom the brother when you struck me down before Rose Gentry. You made her despise me the more."
"She did well to despise you," retorted Tom Halstead, bluntly. "You ought to be clubbed!"
"You Ought to Be Clubbed!"
That was exactly what happened, ere Cragthorpe could open his mouth. The seaman had been crouching behind the fellow, a belaying-pin in his right hand. At the word from Halstead the sailor struck, and Cragthorpe fell to the floor, stunned.
Leaving the sailor to attend to Cragthorpe, Mr. Costigan now bounded forward to free the young captain's hands.
"How on earth did this happen, sir?" demanded the third officer, as he cut away the cord from the boy's wrists.
"I dreamed I was fighting the fellow," laughed Tom, "but woke up to find he had slipped my hands into that noose. He had this other noose around my neck, threatening to draw it uncomfortably tight if I tried to make any outcry."
Tom was now able to slip out of bed and pull on his trousers, while Mr. Costigan turned on a stronger light.
"But how on earth did you two happen to come to my relief just at the right time?" the young skipper demanded.
"Why, you sounded the call to the bridge," retorted the third mate.
"I sounded the——wait a second."
Tom bent over the edge of his bed, feeling underneath along the frame.
"Why, there's a button here. Does that call to the bridge?" demanded the motor boat captain.
"It certainly does," retorted the third officer.
"I didn't even know the button was there," gasped the young sailing master. "In my struggles I touched it by accident."
"I sent Oleson, the sailor, to see what you wanted, sir," continued Mr. Costigan. "The next thing I knew Oleson backed out of your cabin, grabbed up a belaying-pin, and signaled to me. I came quick and soft-like, sir. And now, Captain, if you've no further orders for me, sir, hadn't I better be traveling back to the bridge? The quartermaster of my watch is running the ship at this minute."
"Go, then, Mr. Costigan, and thank you; but send the extra deck-hand of this watch."
In another moment the third mate's whistle was sounding shrilly. It brought the extra man of the watch on the run.
"Put these handcuffs on the fellow before he comes to," ordered Tom, going to his desk and taking out a pair of manacles. "There, now he won't do much harm if he does come out of it suddenly. But I'm going with you to the brig, and want to see leg irons put on the rascal, too. He won't have the use of his hands again, on this yacht. The second steward will have to feed the fellow his meals."
Tom quickly finished his dressing. Just as he had done so Cragthorpe uttered a deep sigh and opened his eyes. He was still a bit dazed. Halstead waited for some moments before speaking.
"If you were telling the truth, fellow, about Rose Gentry and her brother," taunted Tom, "your silence won't do you so much good, now. My third officer and one of these sailors overheard your declaration of your infernal villainy. They can testify in court in behalf of young Gentry. They'll help the case quite a bit, I guess."
Cragthorpe was enough himself, by this time, to understand. He scowled blackly, but refused to speak.
"Take him along down below to the brig, now," ordered Captain Halstead.
As the three navigators and their captive stepped out forward of the pilot house, Tom pointed over to port.
"There's the boat of your friends, my man," laughed the young motor boat skipper. "You've told me, too, that Frank Rollings is aboard of her, and that he has the stolen funds with him. Oh, one way and another, you told me a lot this night that I'm glad to know!"
Cragthorpe uttered some savage language under his breath as he was dragged below. Once again he found himself in the brig, and the door locked, after the leg-irons had been fitted. This time, to make doubly sure of his man, Halstead put on a double lock by means of a chain and padlock, the latter being of a pattern that could not be picked.
"In one way I almost feel badly at doing this to you, Cragthorpe," Tom said to the fellow, through the grating. "You'll think I'm crowing over you, and abusing my power. I'd be easier with you—but it wouldn't be safe for anyone aboard the yacht."
Halstead then returned to his cabin, where, at his desk, he wrote a note to Mr. Baldwin, advising the latter of what he had learned from the man who was once more in the brig.
This note he turned over to Mr. Costigan.
"Hand it to him if he comes on deck in the morning before I do," requested the young skipper. "Add anything you please, out of what you saw and heard to-night."
Then the motor yacht captain walked over to the port rail for one more look at the "Victor." The "Panther" was still keeping abreast of her, less than four hundred yards away. These two craft appeared to have the sea all to themselves.
"When, where and how will this all end?" wondered Tom Halstead.
Then he turned in once more, this time hoping for some real rest.