The words of the men had told the captive that Diamond and Dustan were unharmed, but the disappearance of the launch was a mystery still.
As he was carried down the rough slope, Frank saw a light below, and he knew that they were taking him to his own yacht, which lay rolling on the swell that reached into the cove.
The men reached the shore, and there lay a boat, which they quickly launched, leaving Frank on the beach. Then they picked Merry up and unceremoniously tossed him into the bottom of the boat, quickly rowing off toward the yacht.
As they approached the yacht they were hailed by some person on board, and they answered. A few seconds later the boat bumped against the side.
“Give a hand, Wallace,” called Flynn. “Help us hoist this chap on board.”
The fellow on the yacht uttered an exclamation of surprise.
“What have you there?” he asked, and Frank knew it was Walter Wallace, of Belfast, who had become Merry’s enemy because Frank and Bart had dared to carry on a mild sort of flirtation with Mabel Mischief and Hattie Hazle. Wallace was very jealous, and he had been concerned in the attack on Merry and Bart when the latter was knocked out by a blow on the head. Thinking Hodge far more seriously injured than he really was Wallace had disappeared and kept out of sight. Now he was again in company with Parker Flynn, the man who had struck the blow.
Naturally reckless and headstrong, Wallace’s inclinations led him to the bad, and now that his feet were set upon the wrong course, he had no desire to turn back. But he was not yet a hardened ruffian, as he betrayed before the night was over.
Frank was dragged to the deck of his stolen yacht and dropped down as if he were an inanimate thing. As he lay there in the darkness, hearing the men taking care of the small boat, he again struggled to free himself of the cords that held him.
“It’s no use,” was his final decision. “Those knots were tied by a sailor, and they will not slip.”