Consequently, as the sailor rushed at him, the lad merely caught the man’s outstretched arm, and, by a trick that he had learned from Nat, gave it a sudden twist.
“Ouch!” grunted the fellow, and, without making any more fuss, he writhed almost double and fell in a heap. But as he did so, Captain Lawless spied what was going forward. In the haste with which the plans to capture the Motor Rangers and their friends had been made, the fact of Ding-dong Bell’s existence had been temporarily forgotten by the rascally skipper and his mate. This sudden appearance, then, of one of the Motor Rangers, alive and intensely active, was very disconcerting to them.
“Confound you, boy; where did you spring from?” roared Lawless, as he dashed at Ding-dong like an angry bull.
“Fer-fer-f-from under a go-go-gooseberry bush,” sputtered Ding-dong, giving an agile backward jump, which brought him upon the deck of the Motor Rangers’ vessel.
At the same instant came a thunderous sound from the cabin door beneath, which, as we know, the imprisoned party were pounding and rapping.
The sound told Ding-dong the whole story as plainly as if it had been put into words.
“What have you done with my friends?” he demanded.
“Never you mind. Just throw up your hands and come on board this schooner or it will be the worse for you.”
“No, thank you,” parried Ding-dong, his speech quite distinct in his indignation and excitement, “I guess I know when I’m well off.”
“You brat, I don’t propose to be thwarted by such a whipper-snapper as you. Come on board at once, I say!”