"In his boat there, sir, with half a dozen other fellows. He has been on board the vessel; we caught sight of him just as he was climbing over the rail."
The officer was thunderstruck. The presence of their evil genius at that hour, and under such circumstances, boded no good to the yacht and her crew, and, for a moment, Jackson stood holding fast to the rail, imagining all sorts of terrible things. He would not have been astonished if the waters of the harbor had suddenly opened to swallow up the vessel and her sleeping company. He even thought he felt the deck rise under his feet, and held his breath, expecting to hear an explosion, and to find himself struggling in the water amid the wreck of the Storm King. But nothing of the kind happened: the yacht remained right side up; and if Tom Newcombe had placed a barrel of gunpowder in her, with a slow-match attached, intending to blow the vessel and her crew to atoms, there might yet be time to frustrate his designs.
"Quartermaster, spring that rattle!" shouted the officer, as if suddenly awaking out of a sound sleep—"Smith and Simmonds, lower away the jolly-boat."
Jackson ran below to report the matter to the first lieutenant; the sailors hurried off to execute their orders; and, before Tom Newcombe and his companions were out of sight of the yacht, they heard the rattle calling the crew to quarters.
"Wake up, sir," cried Jackson, roughly shaking his superior officer by the shoulder—"Tom Newcombe!"
The second lieutenant knew that the mention of that name would arouse the executive sooner than any thing else.
"Mercy on us!" exclaimed Harry, "you don't say so! Where is he?"
"In his boat, now, and going down the harbor at the rate of ten knots an hour. He has been on board this yacht doing some mischief, of course, and I am expecting every instant to find myself going to the bottom. His pirate crew is with him."
"The Crusoe band!" Harry almost gasped.
"There are several fellows with him, and I don't know who else they can be."