While Bayard was making his observations, Seth and Will, who were impatient to get a glimpse of the captain of the smugglers, ran their eyes along the shore as far as they could see it from the window, and presently discovered the object of their curiosity, who was leaning against a tree, engaged in whittling a switch with his knife. His back was turned partly toward them, and his hat was drawn over his forehead so that they could not see his features; but they were certain that he was no stranger to them, for there was something about him that looked familiar. Just then the yawl pushed off from the schooner, and as it approached the bank where he was standing, the man straightened up and turned his face toward the boys at the window, so that they had a fair view of it. Could they believe their eyes? They gazed at him a moment, while an expression of blank amazement overspread their countenances, and then dropping the curtain they drew back from the window with as much haste as though the captain had suddenly levelled a revolver at them.
“What’s the trouble now?” snarled Bayard. “Anything else wrong?”
“Come here,” said Will, in reply, “and tell me if you think that is the man who is the captain of this band of smugglers.”
Bayard stepped to the window and looked out; but after he had taken one short glance at the figure who was just then stepping into the yawl, he sprang back into the middle of the cabin and gazed about him as if he were searching for some avenue of escape.
“It’s my father, as sure as the world,” said he, with a gasp.
“I thought it was Uncle David,” exclaimed Will.
“I was certain I couldn’t be mistaken,” chimed in Seth.
“And I would rather it was anybody else on earth,” continued Bayard. “I wouldn’t have him catch me here for any money. Why it doesn’t seem possible, and I can’t understand it at all,” he added, stepping to the window again and looking cautiously out. “But it must be that he belongs here, for he has got into the yawl and is talking to Coulte’s boys.”
Bayard’s surprise, perplexity, and terror were almost unbounded, and he did not wonder now that Coulte was alarmed when he knew that the captain was standing on the bank waiting to be brought on board the vessel. What would Mr. Bell say to him and his cousins if he should chance to find them in the cabin, and what would he do? This was something that Bayard did not like to think about. He kept one corner of the curtain raised, so that he could observe the movements of the yawl, while his cousins sank helplessly down upon the sofa, listening intently, and scarcely daring to breathe, lest their uncle should hear it. In a few minutes the boat reached the schooner, and Bayard heard his father clamber over the side. One of Coulte’s sons also sprang out, and the other dropped the yawl astern and made it fast there in such a position that the painter hung down directly in front of one of the windows.
“That’s the idea!” said Bayard approvingly. “The way of escape is open to us now. You listen at the door, Will, and tell me when you hear any one coming down the ladder, and I will open the window, so that we can crawl out at an instant’s warning.”