Tom was at the bow of one of them and Cal at that of the other, to act as pilots. It was planned that these two boats should lead the way into the two entrances, the others closely following.
Silently the two fleets made their way to the two points of landing. The one which passed up the creek halted as soon as it came within sight of the landing where the smugglers were busily and noisily trying to get their loaded boats afloat, a task in which they were encountering much difficulty, as the lieutenant had foreseen that they must. It was the lieutenant’s plan that his boats should lie there, hidden by the darkness, until the men entering by the cove should land, march across the neck of swamp, and take the smugglers in the rear, thus cutting off all possibility of their escape into the bushes.
As soon as he saw the signal light that Tom showed to announce the readiness of the party he accompanied, the lieutenant rushed his boats ashore, and the two revenue parties, without firing a shot, seized and disarmed their foes, who, until their captors were actually upon them, had had no dream of their coming.
In the meanwhile, under the lieutenant’s previously given orders, the cutter had slowly steamed up toward the mouth of the creek, where, at a signal, she came to anchor.
Hurriedly the captured booty was loaded into the ship’s boats and carried to the revenue vessel. Then the smugglers’ camp was minutely searched to see if any goods remained there, and the hovels were set on fire.
While all this was going on that curiosity on Tom’s part, which had done so much already, was again at work. Tom wanted to know something that was not yet clear to him, and he set to work to find out. Detaching the lame smuggler from his companions, Tom entered into conversation with him. Fortunately the man was sober now, and had been so long enough to render him despondent.
“You’re not fit for this sort of thing,” Tom said to him after he had broken through the man’s moody surliness and silence. “With your game leg and the brutal way the others treat you, I should think you’d have got out of it long ago.”
“They’d ’a’ killed me if I’d tried,” the man answered.
“Well, they can’t do that now,” said Tom, “for they’re in for a term in prison.”