“Great Scott!” exclaimed Lester, when they were fairly under way; “I never saw a gun like that before. How long is it, and how much do you suppose it weighs?”
“It is ten feet long, and weighs a hundred and sixty pounds,” snarled Enoch, who was fully as angry as he expected Barr to be when he heard the report they had to make. “Say, Jones, did you notice how quickly those officers stopped talking, and how hard they looked at us when Egan spoke to them?”
“I did,” was the reply; “and it struck me at once that he was telling them something that he would not dare say to our faces.”
“That was, and still is, my opinion,” continued Enoch. “Now, the only way we can get even with him for that is to make out as bad a case against him as we can when we report to Barr.”
“Why can’t you take his punishment into your own hands?” inquired Lester. “You can do as much damage as you please, and unless you are surprised and caught in the act, it will all be laid to Barr’s account.”
“I say,” exclaimed Enoch, gazing admiringly at Lester, “your head is level yet, isn’t it? That is a proposition worth thinking and talking about at some future time. Now, then, here we are.”
The Firefly was by this time almost within hailing distance of the sink-boat. She had two occupants now, for the “partner” of whom Barr had spoken, and who had been hailed by Enoch and sent up to the sink-boat, had pushed his canoe through the decoys, and was talking earnestly with his companion in guilt, while waiting for the captain of the schooner to come back and make his report.
“Now, then,” exclaimed Barr, as soon as he could make himself heard, “is your news good or bad?”
“Bad enough,” was Enoch’s reply. “The Magpie sent a boat ashore and gobbled up that big gun of yours.”
The “partner” looked incredulous, but Barr saw no reason to doubt the truth of the report. He jumped to his feet with so sudden and strong an impulse that he came within a hair’s breadth of losing his balance and going headlong out of the sink-boat; and when he had recovered his perpendicular, he found relief for his feelings in a volley of the heaviest kind of oaths. If swearwords could have sunk the Magpie (that was the name of the police-boat), the officers who captured his big gun never would have seen Baltimore again.