The machinery was behaving badly and the coal was running short; she carried only three hundred tons, and the officers were concerned and worried; but in a couple of days the Puritan reached Gardiner’s Bay at the eastern end of Long Island without mishap, and was anchored alongside a collier. As the midshipmen could do nothing while the ship was being coaled, they were all sent ashore on a picnic and had a glorious time rambling over Gardiner’s Island.
While Ralph, Bollup, Creelton and Himski were wandering through a piece of woods they almost walked on top of a small deer. This was up and off like a shot from a gun. It was but a small incident, but was of enthusiastic interest to the young men. It was the first wild deer any of them had ever seen.
They returned aboard tired and contented; the ship had been coaled and washed down, and everything was now clean about her. When Ralph got aboard he was greeted with an order that did not please him. “Osborn, you have a forecastle watch from three to four o’clock to-morrow morning,” he was told.
“Pshaw,” said Ralph. “I hoped to have a good night’s sleep to-night, but I guess I can stand it.”
He relieved Streeter at three in the morning.
“Hello, Os,” said Streeter; “by Jove, I’m glad to see you. Good-bye. I’m going to turn in now.”
“Hold on,” said Ralph; “what have you to turn over?”
“Nothing. Everything is quiet. Both booms are alongside, the steam launch is moored astern, the catamaran is alongside the port bow; her painter is made fast to a cleat on deck. Bill Jones is on watch.”
Streeter left and Ralph commenced his lonely vigil. He took a look at the anchor chain and at the catamaran, and then paced up and down the starboard side of the forecastle deck. It was a beautiful, calm, starlight night. The moon was not visible. Ralph was sleepy and would have preferred his hammock, but after a while he rather enjoyed the feeling that all but a very few were asleep; at half-past three the quartermaster came forward and struck the bell seven times. “Half an hour more,” said Ralph; “I wouldn’t mind it if it were an hour more.” On one of his tramps forward and back, he suddenly stopped, abreast of the turret. From out of the forward hatch, in the deep gloom, he saw the figure of a man appear and then lie on the deck. It lay still for a moment and then quickly crept over toward the port side forward, and instantly was over the side. “Somebody is after the catamaran. Stop!” Ralph shouted. He rushed over to where the catamaran was secured. Here the ship’s deck was only two feet above the water,—a monitor’s deck is very low. In the catamaran Ralph saw a man unloosing the painter from the cleat on the deck, a foot from the side where it had been secured. Ralph was now bending over the chain railing. The painter of the catamaran was now untied and the man was in the act of shoving off from the Puritan’s side. Ralph leaned far over to get a grip on the man. He was full of excitement, too full for the moment to call for help. But he was determined to prevent the man from escaping. He leaned over the chain railing for a grip and instantly felt himself in the grasp of a man whose physical strength must have been prodigious. Both arms were seized; he was whirled up and over the chain and came down with a sickening crash, head first into the catamaran. He lay there stunned and helpless. The catamaran was now twenty feet from the Puritan and was being rapidly carried away by the tide. The man in the catamaran looked anxiously at the ship and at Ralph huddled in the bottom of the boat. “I can’t put him aboard. I’ll have to take him with me, but I don’t intend he shall give me away,” he reflected. He then rapidly whipped off his neckerchief from around his neck and fastened it over Ralph’s face, gagging him. He then took the catamaran painter and bound Ralph’s arms to his side and wound the end tightly around his legs. Ralph was securely tied and gagged. The catamaran had by this time drifted far from the Puritan; and the man in her looked back from time to time at the lights of the ship, but everything was perfectly still aboard, and he knew that Ralph’s cry had not been heard and that the boat had not been noticed as it had drifted by. He then picked up an oar and sculled vigorously toward the shore.