“Yes, but you have forgotten the rest of the crew, haven’t you?”
“Great Scott, I had for a moment. Do you think they are in league with him?”
“I don’t know, but they are bound to find out his plight sooner or later and we shall have to reckon with them. We’re in a tight place, Bill.”
Captain Hoeseason began to stir. He rolled his eyes uneasily, and the next moment discovered that he was tied fast.
“You young imps,” he roared in stentorian tones, “cut me loose instantly, or when I do get free I’ll have such a vengeance on you as will——”
“It won’t do you any good to rave like that, captain,” declared Jack, “and, moreover, we——”
The sentence was never finished. The fabric of the Barley Rig seemed to heave suddenly upwards and then rush apart. There was a burst of blinding flame, and a report that drove the ear drums in. The next instant, as it seemed to them, there was an inrush of water on the tide of which the boys were swept out into the darkness of the raging seas.
The trawler vanished almost as quickly as the terrific flash of flame from the mine that she had struck, and which had ended her career for all time.