“You take a boat, and a good pilot. You have ze good boat and pilot?”
“No,” said Vince, who had hard work to be calm, with a great fear coming over him like a cloud; “but you will set us ashore, please.”
The captain laughed in a peculiar way, and he was about to speak, when one of his men came up and said something.
“Aha!” he cried, “but it is good. You go, my young friends, and stay behind my cargo zere. You vill not come till I say you sall.”
He pointed to the upper part of the cavern, but Vince said firmly:
“We cannot stay any longer, sir. We must go now.”
The captain turned upon him savagely, and the next moment a couple of the men had seized the boys and run them up behind the pile of bales, and then stood on either side, with drawn cutlasses, to act as guards.
“What are we to do, Vince?” said Mike.
“I don’t know. It seems like nonsense, and playing with us; but we are prisoners, and— Who’s that?”
They both listened in wonder, for they heard their names mentioned angrily by the captain, who was speaking threateningly to some one who replied in a tone that they recognised directly.