For a breath absolute silence reigned. Nat, who had looked up at the sudden shout of the Swede and seen the latter's shock head peering down at him, kept still because he felt that it was useless to do anything else. Morello and the others were tongue-tied temporarily from sheer, crass, amazement.
They had confidently believed that when they sunk the boat they had likewise sunk all on board her, or, failing that, had at least shaken off all pursuit. But here, confronting them like a ghost, was the form of the boy they most hated and detested. Morello's eyes fairly snapped delight as he beheld Nat thus thrust into his power. The evil glint of his black orbs found an answering expression of joy in Dayton's. The rascals could hardly believe their luck. Morello was the first to gain his voice.
"So," he snarled, with his sinister sneer more marked than ever, "we meet again, Señor Motor Ranger. But the circumstances are rather different to what they were in the cañon."
"Yes," rejoined Nat calmly, "there, if I recollect rightly, you all were running for your lives."
"You forget the old proverb, Señor Trevor: 'He who fights and runs away will live to fight some other day.' However, you see now that it is verified. Here are we with a fine schooner under our feet, your sapphires in our possession, and the world before us. While you—— Well, I would not be in your shoes for a good deal."
He chuckled in an ominous manner as he spoke. Nat said nothing. He felt it would be utterly useless to reply to the man. Wholly in the power of the merciless ruffians, as he knew himself to be, he felt that his best policy lay in not irritating them any further than possible.
"Are you coming on deck, or would you prefer to be thrown into the sea?" sneered Ed. Dayton savagely, casting a look of hatred on Nat.
"I'd prefer to come on deck," responded Nat, determined not to show a trace of the real fear that he felt. "If you'll throw me a rope, I can scramble up."
"Oh, we'll throw you a rope fast enough," grinned Morello maliciously. "Maybe it will be a rope to hang yourself with."
Nevertheless, in a few seconds a rope with a noose in the end of it came snaking down, and Nat, fastening the noose under his armpits, was drawn up over the bow and an instant later he stood on the swaying foredeck of the "Nettie Nelsen" in the midst of his enemies.