They were both stirred by a quick command from their visitor.
"I'll trouble you for the key to your stateroom," he was saying. "I'll have to lock you both in until I get safely away. Come across, quick."
Jay was inclined to parley, hoping to engage the fellow until help came.
"Don't imagine it is so soft for you," he sneered. "Just off the cove here lies a U. S. revenue cutter. They know all about you. I was aboard you myself to-night and saw you getting your treasure together in the cabin. We are equipped with wireless and we have the revenue cutter Marblehead right outside here waiting for you. You'll never get away."
The muscles of the intruder's face contracted at that, and his eyes bulged a bit at Jay's startling declaration. And then his finger sought the trigger of the revolver.
"If it were not for stirring up a fuss I'd plug you both full of lead before I leave," hissed the figure in the doorway. "As it is, you'll either give me the key to your stateroom immediately or I'll shoot you both and then take my chances on getting away. Come along smart now or I'll bore you both through with this shooter."
And he took a new grip on the revolver as he stepped menacingly forward.
But just then came an ominous growl on deck just outside the stateroom. It disconcerted the intruder for a second and he turned his head slightly as there came another growl. In that instant Dick leaped for his own revolver as the lean figure of a stalwart hound dog leaped through the air, launched fully and fairly upon the giant in the doorway.
"Fismes!" yelled Jay. "Get him! Get him!"
It needed no direction to tell this dog what to do. With a malignant howl of hatred the huge war dog dove for the body of the visitor and sank his teeth in the flesh of the thigh. Bang! went the revolver, but taken off his balance by the unexpected flank attack, the intruder shot harmlessly over the head of the boys in the stateroom. At the same moment Jay hurled himself in a flying tackle just as he had flung himself at many a foe on the gridiron at Brighton.