Two seconds later the two searchers were alongside the other. Jack crouched on the deck. He was holding one hand to his head as though it ached; the other continued to move over his person after the manner of a person counting his ribs to make sure they were all there and intact.
Tom slipped an arm about his chum.
“What happened, and are you badly hurt, Jack?” he breathed, full of sympathy, while the girl, saying nothing, started to pat Jack on the head, as if mutely to express her feelings, though she seemed hardly to realize what she was doing.
“That’s just what I’m trying to find out,” muttered Jack, and then gave a sudden quiver as he continued: “Gee! that’s a sore place on the back of my head! As sure as anything, the scoundrel did whack me there, just as I thought! I warrant there’ll be a lump as big as a hen’s egg and I won’t be able to get that cap of mine on during the rest of the voyage! Awful luck!”
Tom hardly knew whether to feel alarmed by the seriousness of the occasion or to chuckle at his chum’s sad lament. The idea of bothering about the fit of a cap when there were such momentous things at stake!
“I’ll fix that lump business all right as soon as I can get you to our room, Jack,” Tom hastened to assure his chum. “But for goodness’ sake tell us what happened to you! Bessie came to me, and said she feared there was some plot afoot to pounce on me in the dark, and when she learned that you were on the promenade deck she became more than ever alarmed. So we hurried out to find you.”
“Well, I think you came along just in time to scare ’em off,” said Jack hesitatingly, as if his wits were gradually returning after his rough experience. “I have a dim recollection of hearing one fellow say something to the effect that it wouldn’t be safe to stay around any longer as someone was coming. They must have slipped across the barricade here, and gone down the ladder to the lower deck.”
“Then you know there were two of them do you, Jack?” continued the other.
“Well, one man wouldn’t talk to himself that way,” observed Jack, still touching his head softly. “But there may have been a dozen for all I know.”
“You didn’t see them, of course?”