Dick was not aware that his brothers had been captured until some hours after the sailing of the schooner. He headed for a part of the river where several small craft were moving about, and was just about to climb up the spiling of one of the docks when a lighter hit him and knocked him senseless.
"We've struck a boy!" shouted a man on the lighter, and then rushed forward with a boathook. As soon as he caught sight of Dick he fished the youth from the water and hurried ashore with him.
The shock had not been a heavy one, but the lad was weak from swimming with his clothes on, and he lay like a log on the flooring of the dock. This alarmed the men from the lighter, and they hastily carried him to a nearby drug store and summoned a doctor. From the drug store he was removed to the hospital.
When he was strong enough to go about his business he found it was night. Yet he lost no time in making his way to the docks, on a search for his brothers.
The search was, of course, useless, and much depressed in spirits he found himself, at sunrise, on the waterfront, seated on the stringpiece of one of the long piers.
"They must have either been captured or drowned," he mused dismally.
"And the Peacock is gone, too. What shall I do next?"
It was far from an easy question to answer, and he sat motionless for the best part of half an hour, reviewing the situation. Then he leaped up.
"I must get the authorities to aid me," he thought. "I should have done this before."
He walked along the docks until he came to a street leading to the nearest police station. He now realized that he was hungry, but resolved to postpone eating until he had put the authorities on the track of the evildoers.
As he was turning a corner he almost ran into a colored man going in the opposite direction. The colored man stared at him, then let out a wild cry of delight.