Barr jumped to the accommodation ladder and was aboard in a second, despite his apparent feebleness. His face was distorted with rage and cupidity.
"We have got to get out of here at once—now do you understand?" he roared, crazed with rage.
"I'll give a thousand dollars to the man that will get me out of this harbor and well off to sea."
"If it comes to that I guess I can take a chance of navigating the yacht even if I don't hold a master's ticket," replied the bos'n.
"But are you a navigator?" questioned Barr eagerly
"Well, Mr. Barr, I held a master's ticket once before drink got me and I piled my ship on a reef," was the answer.
"You're good enough for me!" shouted Barr overjoyed, "and now we'll up anchor and get away from this abominable coast."
He scanned the sky shoreward anxiously. He did not confide to his new captain, however, the fact that at any moment he expected to see swift vengeance in the shape of the Golden Eagle II pursuing him.
With the roustabout crew that had been shipped in New York from a West Street boarding-master it took some time to get the anchor broken out—the men going at their work sulkily. At last, however, it was "up and down" as the sailors say, and Luther Barr himself signaled on the engine-room telegraph "Full speed, ahead." The engines of the yacht begin to revolve and the crafty old pillager almost gave a cry of joy as he felt the vibration beneath his feet.
The Boy Aviators could not cross the Atlantic in the aeroplane and there would not be a ship leaving the coast for a month.