A bunch of armed men came pouring over the side of the ship, and then disappeared below, only to come up again in a few minutes carrying a number of wooden boxes, which they lowered into the boats alongside. They worked with the efficiency of well-trained sailors, and I found myself cursing aloud. For I knew what was inside those boxes, and was so utterly helpless to do anything. And yet I couldn’t help feeling a sort of unwilling admiration; the thing was so perfectly organized. It might have been a well-rehearsed drill, instead of a unique and gigantic piece of piracy.
I stepped back a few paces and looked up at the bridge. The skipper and his three officers were there—covered by another of the parsons. And the fifth member of the party was the Reverend Samuel Longfellow. He was smiling gently to himself, and as the last of the boxes was lowered over the side, he came to the edge of the bridge and addressed us.
“We are now going to leave you,” he remarked suavely. “You are all unarmed, and I wish to give you a word of advice. Should either of the gunners on my yacht see any one move, however innocent the reason, before we are on board, he or both of them will open fire. So do not be tempted to have a shot at me, Captain Kelly, because it will be the last shot you ever have. You will now join your crew, if you please.”
In silence the skipper and his officers came down from the bridge, and the speaker followed them. For a moment or two he stood facing us with an ironical smile on his face.
“Your brother in the church thanks you for your little gift to his offertory box,” he remarked. Then he turned to one of the other parsons beside him. “Is it set?” he asked briefly.
“Yea,” said the other. “We’d better hurry. What about that woman up there?”
“Confound the woman!” answered the Reverend Samuel. “A pleasant journey, Captain Kelly.”
He stepped down the gangway into the second boat, and was pulled away toward the yacht. And, feeling almost sick with rage, I glanced at the skipper beside me. Poor devil! What he must be feeling, I hardly dared to think. To be held up on the High Seas and robbed of specie and pearls the first time he was carrying them was cruel luck. And I was prepared to see anything on his face, save what I did see. For he was staring at the bow of the ship, with a fierce blaring excitement in his eyes, and instinctively I looked too, though every one else was staring at the yacht.
