“I’d like to see how near I could come to putting that old hulk out of the way,” he remarked, waving his hand seaward to where the black hull of the wrecked Vesper lay, her two masts stretched up like appealing hands.
“Drop a bomb on her, you mean?” asked Tubby, with round eyes.
“Yes. She’d make a fine mark. A good thing to have her out of the way, too. I think I’ll try to see if the department can’t have it arranged.”
“It would be a great sight!” agreed Rob. “I’d like to see it. I suppose one of your projectiles would blow her to bits, if you hit her fair and square.”
“Well, there wouldn’t be much left to bother over,” admitted the lieutenant.
While this conversation was going on between the boys and the friendly young officer, a vastly different scene was transpiring in a room at the Southport Hospital, which was situated some miles from Hampton. In a private room there, Jack Curtiss and Bill Bender were seated by the bedside of a gaunt, pallid man, who had evidently just recovered from a severe illness. The man was Hank Handcraft, but so emaciated was he that any one would have had some difficulty in recognizing him. He had collapsed from the strain of his life since escaping from the prison in the west, and had become so ill that Jack and his cronies had found it necessary to have him removed from the small cottage belonging to Jack’s father, in which they had hoped to hide him till the time was ripe for investigating the wreck.
A problem had then faced the lads which was not solved till Stonington Hunt was taken into the secret. He possessed some influence at the hospital and on his word that Hank Handcraft was a reputable man named James Smiley, the former beach-comber had been admitted there. Stonington Hunt was not influenced by philanthropy in this matter. His main desire was to see Hank get well speedily so that he could guide them to the location of the money on the wrecked Vesper.
On this spring afternoon Jack and Bill had visited the hospital and were readily admitted to the sickroom.
“But I must warn you, gentlemen, that James Smiley is a very sick man, and you must not bother him or excite him,” the house surgeon had said, as they left the office in charge of a nurse.
“Has he been delirious lately, Miss Jones?”