"Just say when and how," Billy Grisdale cut in tersely, trying the strength of his club over his knee.
Van Dyck sketched his plan rapidly, and it was evident that he had worked out the details in advance, basing his conclusions upon what he and I had seen on the night of the storm.
"They will land a party in the launch, and our first move will be to capture every man of that landing party, dead or alive, and without making any noise. So don't use the firearms. If their boat's crew doesn't return within a reasonable time, they'll send again to find out what has become of it. When they do that, we'll repeat, and by eating them up a little at a time—but you get the idea, I'm sure." And to me: "Dick, will you take the command? You are better qualified than any of the rest of us."
"You are doing very well, yourself," I told him. "Show us the way and we'll stay with you."
"All right," he agreed briefly. "I think we all understand that this is likely to be our last chance, so far as the yacht is concerned. There are nine women up at the other end of the island who will, in all human probability, starve to death if we bungle this thing and let the Andromeda get away from us. Keep that in mind when you hit, and hit hard!"
Since the choice of position was one of the few advantages we should have in the coming struggle, we picked our way silently across the point to the wood fringe from which Van Dyck and I had witnessed the earlier landing. Judging from the little we could see in the starlight, the mutineers were making hard work of the job of clearing away the electric launch without the aid of the steam winch. In spite of Mr. Edison's continued and most ingenious efforts to find a substitute for the lead in them, storage batteries are still heavy contrivances; and at the end of it the weighty little tender got away from the men at the davit tackles and dropped into the sea with a resounding slap that might have been heard half-way around the island.
For a minute or two the small boat lay chafing against the side of the yacht, and there was no attempt made to man it; from which we inferred that the mutineers were waiting to ascertain if the crash of the sudden launching had given the alarm. In view of the fact that the invaders had every reason to believe that we were all either dead or dying from starvation by this time, it struck me that they were excessively cautious, and I spoke of this to Van Dyck.
"That is the 'spiggotty' of it," he commented in low tones. "Lequat's name is French, but I'd be willing to bet that he and his backers are of the mongrel breed—dock-rats who will fight only when they're cornered."
"Will they be well armed, do you think?" I asked.