One thing he saw clearly during the few moments of the dory's trip between bark and schooner—the fact that his charge was a woman must be kept from Captain Kitchell. Wilbur knew his man by now. It could be done. Kitchell and he would take the “Lady Letty” into the nearest port as soon as possible. The deception would have to be maintained only for a day or two.
He left the girl on board the schooner and returned to the derelict with the axes. He found Kitchell on the house, just returned from a hasty survey of the prize.
“She's a daisy,” vociferated the Captain, as Wilbur came aboard. “I've been havin' a look 'round. She's brand-new. See the date on the capst'n-head? Christiania is her hailin' port—built there; but it's her papers I'm after. Then we'll know where we're at. How's the kid?”
“She's all right,” answered Wilbur, before he could collect his thoughts. But the Captain thought he had reference to the “Bertha.”
“I mean the kid we found in the wheel-box. He doesn't count in our salvage. The bark's been abandoned as plain as paint. If I thought he stood in our way,” and Kitchell's jaw grew salient. “I'd shut him in the cabin with the old man a spell, till he'd copped off. Now then, son, first thing to do is to chop vents in this yere house.”
“Hold up—we can do better than that,” said Wilbur, restraining Kitchell's fury of impatience. “Slide the big skylight off—it's loose already.”
A couple of the schooner's hands were ordered aboard the “Lady Letty,” and the skylight removed. At first the pour of gas was terrific, but by degrees it abated, and at the end of half an hour Kitchell could keep back no longer.
“Come on!” he cried, catching up an axe; “rot the difference.” All the plundering instincts of the man were aroused and clamoring. He had become a very wolf within scent of its prey—a veritable hyena nuzzling about its carrion.
“Lord!” he gasped, “t' think that everything we see, everything we find, is ours!”
Wilbur himself was not far behind him in eagerness. Somewhere deep down in the heart of every Anglo-Saxon lies the predatory instinct of his Viking ancestors—an instinct that a thousand years of respectability and taxpaying have not quite succeeded in eliminating.