Grey got upon his feet.
"We have six of these pirates back here in the woods: why can't we make them talk and tell us what they are trying to do?"
At this, Van Dyck took a hand.
"They would lie about it, as a matter of course," he interjected. "Besides, their particular object doesn't make any vital difference to us. They are here, and our present business is to see to it that they don't get away again—with the yacht."
Grey sat down again, grumbling.
"I don't see that we are getting ahead very fast," he complained. "What in Sam Hill do you suppose they're waiting for now?"
The answer to Grey's impatient query was at that moment coming around the Andromeda's stern. It was the disabled electric launch again this time with only one man in it, and he was sculling it with an oar over the stern, slowly working his way toward the gap in the reef. When it came a bit nearer we could see that the loom of a broken oar had been rigged as a mast in the bow, with a white flag of some sort dangling from it.
"A parley," I said; and Goff grunted acquiescence. But Jerry Dupuyster worked the lever of his rifle to reload.
"Don't shoot, Jerry," Bonteck cautioned in low tones; whereat the emancipated idler chuckled.
"Couldn't if I wanted to, by Jove; the bally cartridges are all gone, what?"