But, after all, Roy did not borrow a great deal of trouble on this score. His friends had never yet "gone back on him," and Roy did not believe they would do it now, when there was so much at stake.
While these thoughts were passing through his mind, the carriage, which had been driven at as high a rate of speed as the hackman thought he could venture upon without attracting the attention of the police, turned off the main thoroughfare into a narrow street, then into another, and finally into a third, which was so dark and gloomy that the street lamps looked as though they were shining through a fog. Presently it came to a standstill.
"Here we are," said Babcock, with alacrity. "Jump out. Not that side, but this one. Aha! You'll bear watching, won't you?"
But Roy could not have made his exit through the door toward which he turned, without bringing on a useless struggle with his captors: for the minute the carriage stopped, the man Willis clambered down from the box and appeared at the window.
"Rowe Shelly must be a slippery fellow," thought Roy, as he faced about and followed the detective, "and no doubt he has given these two men a lesson that they will not soon forget. They won't let me have the ghost of a chance to run."
When Roy got out of the carriage he saw that it had stopped at the end of a pier which jutted out into the harbor for a hundred feet or more. There was no possible chance for escape, unless he were reckless enough to jump into the water and trust himself to the tide, which was running out at a rapid rate, but his captors were so very much afraid of him, that they kept fast hold of both his arms while they marched him to the farther end of the pier, where they found a natty little yacht with steam up, ready for a start.
"Do you intend to take me away on this thing?" inquired Roy. "Well, before you do it, hadn't you better get a lantern and satisfy yourselves that you have made no mistake in the boy? I tell you I am not Rowe Shelly. If he has any good reason for running away from his uncle, I hope he is a thousand miles from here at this moment, and that you will never catch him. But if you don't quit fooling with me here and now, I'll make trouble for you as sure as I live to get ashore."
"I'm used to such talk as that," said Willis, with a laugh. "Yes," he added, in reply to a low question from a man on the forecastle who proved to be the captain of the yacht, "we've found him already. Had no trouble at all in tracking him. Are you ready? Then cast off and—"
"Hold on," interrupted the detective. "I want to say a few words to you in private, Willis. Captain, can this boy be locked in the cabin with any certainty that we shall find him there when we want him?"
The man appealed to said he was sure of it; whereupon Roy was conducted down the companion ladder, and into an elegantly furnished little room in the stern of the yacht. The hanging lamp gave out a brilliant light, and Roy, believing that the detective would never have a better opportunity to take a good look at his face, placed his hands on his hips and stood in such a position that the rays from the reflector fell full upon him.