If any additional evidence had been needed, here was another and still more startling proof of the devastating change which had somehow been wrought in the Bonteck Van Dyck I had been thinking I knew. One of his hobbies in the past had been the study of practical navigation, and on more than one long cruise he had been his own sailing-master. That he should deliberately turn the Andromeda over to a man who had been merely "recommended" by some one whose name was already forgotten was little short of astounding.
"I truly hope there is nothing worse than an ordinary, every-day mutiny in store for us," I said grimly. "Judging from our course—which Goff may have changed every night, for all you seem to know—we ought to be somewhere in the southern half of the Caribbean. The steamer lanes are well charted, but there are a good many cays and islands outside of them—places where the bones of the Andromeda might lie until they rotted before anybody would ever discover them."
"And not all of the islands are inhabited, I take it," said Van Dyck, peering down at his chart as if he hoped to identify some of them.
"You know that as well as I do—or better," I snapped. And then: "What in the name of common sense has turned you into such a milk-blooded shuffler, Bonteck? You talk and act as if you weren't more than half——"
"Listen!" he said hastily, holding up a warning finger.
The stringy tinkle of Billy Grisdale's mandolin had stopped, and with it the singing. Above the murmuring diapason of the yacht's engines we both heard Edie Van Tromp's shrill cry of "Land-o-o-o!" As if the cry had been a pre-concerted signal, it was followed instantly by a confused trampling of feet on the deck over our heads, a sudden slackening of the yacht's speed, and more cries and foot-tramplings.
I was upon my feet and was reaching for the door-knob when Mrs. Van Tromp's throaty scream came from the adjoining saloon where the bridge players were sitting. Before I could turn the knob the door was thrust open, and the under-steward, whose ship name was Lequat, backed by two evil-faced fore-deck men armed with rifles, stood in the doorway. At the appearance of this warlike demonstration I was glad to see that Van Dyck, for once in a way, seemed genuinely shocked.
"You?" he demanded. "How is this? Where is Mr. Goff?"
The little man's smile and bow were like those of a dancing master.
"Ze captaine is sand me to inform you zat you are both ze prisonaire, oui. You vill sit down in ze chair and wait patient', M'sieu' Van Dyck—and you, Mistaire Preb'. Zis ees w'at you call all cut-and-dry, and——"