"Yes, there is the marooning to be considered, of course," he said coolly, filling his pipe and lighting it. "But we needn't cross that bridge until we come to it. As to the possible loss of the yacht, that is the least of my troubles, just now. She'll turn up again somewhere, I guess; if they don't smash or sink her."
It seemed utterly hopeless to try to arouse him to any adequate sense of the enormity of the thing that had befallen us, and I jumped up and began to pace the narrow limits of the little cabin. Van Dyck's attitude seemed explainable only upon the hypothesis that he had lost his mind, and I wondered if his brooding over the wretched dilemma into which his love for Madeleine Barclay had plunged him hadn't thrown him off his balance. It was certainly beginning to look that way.
While I was tramping back and forth in a fever of gloomy rage and helplessness, with Van Dyck sitting at the table and calmly smoking his pipe, the ship's noises took new forms. There was much tramping up and down the saloon stairs, a rattling of keys in locks, opening and shutting of doors, and the like. Again and again the motor launch repeated its short trips, and between two of them there were voices raised in the adjoining saloon; Ingerson's in savage and profane protest, and Mrs. Van Tromp's in tearful inquiry as to what had been done with Mr. Van Dyck. In due course of time our own turn came, and it was Lequat who unlocked and opened our door.
"Ze momment ees come," he announced, with a bow and a smirk. "Ze anchor ees—vat ees it you say?—hove short, and ze launch ees wait' for you zhentleman. You vill come peaceab'?—or ees it that ve have to asseest you?"
It was now or never, if we meant to try conclusions with this little scoundrel, and I looked to Van Dyck for the answer. He had put on his cap, slung a cased field-glass over his shoulder, and was closing and locking the drawers of the writing-table. As I have said, it was his final chance for making some show of resistance, and he was weakly letting it go.
When we reached the deck, guarded closely by four or five of the mutineers, it became evident that we were the last of the ship's company to be summoned. The night was fine, with a sickle of a moon in its first quarter, and the sea undisturbed by so much as a ripple. The Andromeda was at anchor a short distance from one of the many cays with which the southern Caribbean is dotted; a long, low-lying island plumed with palms and densely jungled with tropical undergrowth. The yacht lay within a stone's throw of an outer reef, and the reef enclosed a broad lagoon reflecting the shadows of the palms like a silver mirror under the shimmering moonlight; and the shadowy background of foliage was made blacker by contrast with a ribbon of white sand beach.
Though there was a passage through the reef just opposite the Andromeda's temporary berth, the mutineers had apparently been too cautious to try to enter it with the yacht. They had merely felt their way with the sounding line to within bottoming distance on the outside of the reef, and dropped the anchor. There was little question now as to their intention. They were stopping only long enough to get rid of us.
In ominous silence Van Dyck and I were herded toward the accommodation ladder, at the foot of which lay the electric launch. Up to the final moment I was hoping to see Bonteck reassert himself, at least to the extent of protesting against the high-handed crime these scoundrels were committing. When it became apparent that he was not going to say anything, I took a chance for myself.
"I suppose you know what you are doing, Lequat," I barked, after we had taken our places in the launch. "This is piracy on the high seas, and you don't have to be much of a sailorman to know what that means."
"You vill not be trouble you'self 'bout me, Mistaire Preb'," he returned politely. Then, as the man at the ladder foot pushed us off: "Bon voyage, M'sieu' Van Dyck. Bon soir, and—how you say it?—G-o-o-d-by!"