"What made them bring you ashore, Captain Goff?" he asked shrewdly.
But Goff proved to be far too old a bird to be caught napping.
"Maybe they was cal'latin' to have me do the diggin'," he returned with a sly chuckle. "Wouldn't put it a mite beyond 'em."
It was Van Dyck who brought the talk back to things present and pressing.
"We know definitely now what we are up against," he said. "How many of the men are in this with Bassinette, Captain 'Lige?"
"They kep' me too close to tell. Maybe half of 'em, 'r maybe more. And another thing—they've got guns and pistols, plenty of 'em."
Some earnest of this we had had in the taking of the prisoners in the glade. They were all armed, but the weapons were for the most part out of date; pistols and knives, one repeating rifle of an old model, a pair of brass knuckles, a wicked looking "life-preserver"—a short leather club, lead-loaded in the striking end. But we found only a scattering score or so of cartridges for the firearms.
These weapons we now shared impartially among ourselves, and when the professor volunteered to go back in the wood and stand guard over the prisoners, Van Dyck suggested that it was time we were making a reconnaissance in force in the enemy's direction, the war council having been held at a point about half-way between the glade and the beach. Nobody could say certainly what move the mutineers on the yacht would make next, and in spite of Goff's assurances to the contrary, Van Dyck was afraid they might take the alarm and run away, abandoning the launch's crew to whatever fate had befallen it.
"Not much danger o' that," Goff insisted; and after Grisdale, Grey and Dupuyster had been posted in the forest fringe with instructions to keep a sharp lookout for renewed activities upon the Andromeda, Van Dyck drew Goff and me aside and went straight to the heart of things.
"Mr. Preble and I were here on the beach that night when the yacht came up and then had to make a run for it, Captain 'Lige," he began. "Didn't you know they sent a boat's crew ashore that night?"