On into the night it roared, a fusillade of bullets from Ned’s friends spattering harmlessly about it as it thundered on.
CHAPTER XVII.
A SURPRISE PARTY WITH A VENGEANCE.
For what Ned judged to have been half an hour, or possibly a little longer, the car plunged along. Then, as suddenly as it started, it came to a stop. The conversation of the occupants of the car was now perfectly audible, and Ned’s heart beat wildly as among them he recognized the tones of Channing Lockyer. The inventor had then recovered his senses, which, as the boy knew from what he had overheard, must have been lost following the blow from Gradbarr.
“Look here, Ferriss,” Ned from his hiding place could hear Mr. Lockyer saying, “what you are doing is not only dastardly, but senseless. I tell you now once and for all that whatever you may do to me, I shall never sign any paper or make any agreement with you concerning the submarine.”
“We’ll see about that,” a gruff voice, which Ned supposed must be that of Ferriss, responded. “But I warn you now, Lockyer, not to give us too much trouble. You are absolutely in our power. We are about to take you to a lonely island where we could hide you for ten years without any one being the wiser. We shall keep you there till you have had time to reflect whether it is better to accept our terms for your craft, or to let her rot uselessly while you are reported missing.”
“Missing!” gasped Lockyer.
“Yes. Your friends will all believe that you have been drowned. You don’t think that we are such simpletons as not to have provided for that, do you? We have set the boat in which you were rowed ashore to-night adrift. She is bottom up, and any one finding her will imagine that she has capsized. Under one of her thwarts we have placed your hat, so that there will be no doubt as to your fate. Your friends will mourn you for a time as drowned, and then both you and the Lockyer boat will be forgotten.”