Crash!
The lamp struck the opposite wall, and was shattered into a thousand fragments. Instantly the place was plunged in darkness, total and absolute. At the same instant a sharp report sounded. It seemed doubly loud in the tiny place. The fumes of the powder filled it reekingly.
“Don’t shoot!” roared Stonington Hunt. “Guard the door and window. Don’t let them get away.”
“All right, dad,” the boys heard Freeman Hunt cry loudly, as he scuffled across the room.
“Keep the doorway and the window,” shouted Stonington Hunt. “I’ll have a light in a jiffy. We’ve got them like two rats in a cage.”
As he struck a match and lit a boat lantern that stood on a shelf, a low groan came from one corner of the room. Hiram was horrified to perceive that it was Tubby who uttered it. The shot must have wounded him, fired at haphazard, as it had been. The man who had aimed it, the bearded member of the gang, stood grimly by the doorway.
Almost beside himself at the hopelessness of their situation, Hiram gazed about him. All at once he noticed that on Tubby’s chest a crimson stain was slowly spreading. The stout boy lay quite still except for an occasional quiver and groan. Without a thought as to his danger, Hiram disregarded Stonington Hunt’s next injunction: “Don’t move a step.”
Swiftly he crossed to his wounded comrade. He sank on his knees beside him.
“T-T-T-Tubby,” he exclaimed, “are you badly hurt, old man?”
To his amazement, the recumbent Tubby gave him a swift but knowing wink, and then, rolling over on his side again, resumed his groaning once more. Mystified, but comforted, Hiram was rising, when a rough hand seized him and sent him spinning to an opposite corner. It was the burly form of the bearded man that had propelled him.