"Help! help!" shouted the fisher-boy with all the strength of his lungs. "Thieves! Robbers! Mur—"
"Jerusalem!" ejaculated Will Atkins, alarmed by the noise; and, seizing Bob by the shoulders, he plunged his head under the water to silence his shouting.
"Choke him loose, lads!" said the chief, trying to unclasp the fisher-boy's fingers from his hair. "That's it! Now, Tommy, hand me that ar rope, an' you, Jack, ketch him by the shoulders an' stand by to h'ist him into the boat when I give the word."
"Are you going to drown me?" gasped Bob, struggling to keep his head above the water. "Let go your hold, Bill Stevens!"
"Easy there, with that tongue of yours!" replied Sam, "or down you go again! Have you got a good hold on him, fellers? Now, then," he continued flourishing the boat-hook above his head, "one word out of you, Bobby Jennings, an' I'll give you a taste of this. I aint one of them kind as stands much nonsense. Haul him into the boat, lads."
Jack Spaniard and Friday exerted all their strength, and in a moment more the fisher-boy had been pulled into the boat, where he was at once thrown upon the bottom and held by three or four of the band, while Friday and Sam tied his hands behind his back with the rope. All this while Bob had fought desperately for his freedom. He did not hope to escape from his enemies, who so far out-numbered him, and held him at such great disadvantage, but he had resisted simply because it did not come natural to him to surrender upon the demand of any such fellows as Sam and his band. But all his struggles were useless now. They could do him no good, and might be the cause of bringing him bodily harm; and, knowing that it would be very poor policy to raise the bully's anger, he submitted to his captors with as good a grace as he could command, and permitted them to tie him hand and foot.
"Now, then," said the chief after he had satisfied himself that Bob was securely bound, "put out that light, an' we'll go back to the cave. If you have raised any of them fellers in the harbor by your hollerin' an' yellin', you'll be sorry for it, Bobby Jennings. I guess you won't go round in your fine skiff, drivin' honest boys away from their work any more."
Sam had traveled the road so often that he could find their hiding-place in the dark quite as readily as by the aid of a lantern. Presently he ran the bow of the yawl upon the shore, and, after listening a moment to make sure that no one in the harbor had been alarmed by the fisher-boy's shouting, he ordered his followers to carry the prisoner into the cave. Bob bore their rough handling without a word of complaint, and in a few moments he found himself lying on his back in the middle of the cave, where he speedily aroused a new enemy, in the shape of the bull-dog, which made desperate attempts to get at him, and whose chain was almost long enough to allow him to reach the prisoner. Bob several times heard his teeth snap like a steel-trap, within an inch of his ears, but when he tried to move farther away from the brute, he was instantly pounced upon by two of the band, who seemed to be afraid that, bound hand and foot as he was, he might still succeed in effecting his escape.
"Now, shut the door and light that lantern, somebody," commanded the chief. "Friday, knock that dog down agin."
Jack Spaniard fumbled around in the dark for a moment, and then struck a light, which revealed a scene that filled every boy in the cave with excitement. Friday, in attempting to obey the governor's order, had got himself into trouble. He had attacked the dog with the boat-hook, which he had kept in his hand, to resist any attempt that the fisher-boy might make at escape, but the brute, being determined to bite somebody, and probably cherishing a grudge against Friday for the beating he had given him but a short time before, turned fiercely upon him, and, fastening his teeth in his arm, threw him to the floor; and when the light from the lantern illumined the cave, he was shaking him as if he had been a large rat.