Wood’s Hole is a quaint, sleepy little seaport village. The main life, in summer, comes from the passing through of steamboat passengers for Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket. The night air is so quiet and the sea scent so strong that even the city visitors at the little hotel find it difficult to stay up as late as eleven o’clock.
On this night, or rather morning, at one o’clock, there were but two honest people in the whole place awake. Over at the Marine Biological Laboratory, Curator Gray and an assistant were still up, bending drowsily over a microscope in one of the laboratory rooms. But that building was too far from the “Meteor’s” pier for the scientists to have any hint of what might be happening near the motor boat.
It was the night before the new moon. The stars twinkled, but it was rather dark when the figures of two men appeared at the land end of the pier. On their feet these men wore rubber-soled canvas shoes. Not a sound did they make as they started to glide out on the pier.
But Bouncer woke up.
“Gr-r-r-r!” the bull pup observed, thrusting his head up, his hair bristling. All this required but a few seconds. In another instant Bouncer was at the rail, his nostrils swelling as he took a keen look down the length of the pier. Then an angrier growl left his throat. It ended in a bound and Bouncer landed on the pier. His short legs moving rapidly under him Bouncer rushed to meet the soft-shoed gentlemen.
That last, angrier note from the bull pup roused Tom Halstead as a bugle call might have done. He leaped to his feet, snatching at his trousers. Joe stirred, half alertly. When he heard his chum’s feet strike the engine-room floor Dawson, too, sprang up.
“Mischief, just as we thought!” breathed Tom.
Down at the land end of the pier there was a sudden mingling of startled human voices.
“Por la gracia de Dios!” sounded an excited, appealing wail.
“Get away, you beast, or I’ll kill you!” roared another voice in English.