Some half hour later Dayton and Morello, carrying the heavy box between them, reached the wharf where the boat they had already mentioned was in waiting. The rest of their rascally companions were there already, impatiently awaiting the word to "shove off." The boat was one of the schooner's own and in the stern sheets sat Captain Nelsen himself.
"So the boy never wakened," Colonel Morello said, with a low chuckle, as they neared the wharf.
"No," rejoined Dayton, in a sinister tone, "and if he had, it would have been mighty unhealthy for him. Luckily, though, he had evidently fallen asleep while he was sitting up in a chair guarding the stuff. It was no trick at all to get it out from under the bed, where they had it stowed, and lower it to you by that rope fire escape."
"Well, all is well that ends well," said Morello, as they stepped down on the landing place. "But I confess that I was nervous while you were in that room. Now, captain, if you are ready, we will embark without further delay."
"Budt I am nodt retty, by der greadt Horn Schpoon," sputtered Captain Nelsen, in whose stolid mind suspicion had for some time been waxing strong. "It looks to me, by Dunder, dot der vos some dings crooked here, alreatty yedt. Vot for you vant to gedt off by der schooner adt midnighdt? Vot you godt in dot box?"
Without waiting for an answer to his questions, he thrust his hand into his breast pocket and fished out a battered wallet.
"Here," he said, "I gif you back your moneys. I dond't vant to be mixed up in noddings dot looks so suspicibrious as dis sort of vork. You can' haf no monkey business by my schooner. I——"
Before the honest captain could say another word a coat was thrown over his head by one of the men in the boat and he was violently thrown down on the thwarts. But if they thought they were going to subdue Captain Nelsen without a struggle, Morello's rascals were mistaken. The mariner, with muscles hardened in many a blow and time of stress at sea, battled like a wild cat. But, at last, sheer force of numbers outgeneraled him, and he was compelled to lie quiet at the bottom of his own boat.
"I'd have silenced him with an oar if that had kept up any longer," commented Dayton grimly. "We've lost a lot of valuable time already. Come, boys, tie that fellow up, and then give way for the schooner, lively. We'll—— What's that?"
As he uttered the abrupt exclamation, from the direction of the town there came a sound of shouting and uproar.