The Black Star’s man was within a dozen feet of the boat before the engineer was aware of his approach, for he was busy with the searchlight. He turned when he heard the man splashing through the mud at the edge of the river, and before he could ask a question he received a shot from a vapor gun and collapsed in the bottom of the boat, unconscious.
The searchlight had been playing on the bridge approach. The Black Star’s man swerved it aside for a moment, and then back into position, thus notifying his master that his work had been accomplished.
Down through the brush crept the Black Star and his men, carrying their two prisoners. They reached the launch and boarded it, and the master criminal’s engineer hurried to his machinery. The police engineer had been tossed out on the shore.
But the escape was not to be made without trouble. There was a captain in charge of the police squad who thought quickly. When the two empty automobiles reached the bridge, and the questioning of the chauffeurs began, this captain ordered half his men to return to the launch and go back up the river to look for traces of their quarry. They broke through the brush just as the launch’s engineer was put on the shore.
The mere sight of men aboard the launch was enough to tell the police what had occurred. They charged forward, shooting wildly and yelling alarms to their companions up on the bridge. Bullets smashed into the sides of the craft as it backed slowly away from the shore. The engineer was doing his best, but he could not turn and put on speed until safely away from the shallows.
It was a perilous moment for the Black Star and his men. The criminals returned the fire, but made no attempt to hit their targets, for the master crook’s orders always stood against inflicting wounds or causing death, unless it was absolutely necessary. Crouching in the bottom of the launch, they waited for the engineer to back out into the stream. More police were hurrying down from the bridge, and soon would be firing at the launch. And they would be able to keep up their volleys until the launch was some distance away, endangering the Black Star and his men and prisoners every moment of the time.
But the master criminal, it appeared, though he pretended to abhor all violence, was no physical coward. He sprang to his feet, away from the protection of the bulwarks, and jumped forward to the searchlight. While bullets rained around him he reached the light and turned it. It flashed straight into the faces of the foes on the shore, blinding them at that short range, making them easy targets, and rendering them incapable of aiming at the men on the launch.
Some continued firing in the path of light; others sprang for cover in the brush, expecting the men on the boat to fire a volley. The laugh of the Black Star rang out; he continued playing the light on them. The launch was out in the stream now and turning; a moment later the engineer gave her the maximum amount of speed, and she dashed beneath the bridge and toward the city.
“Too bad our prisoners could not have been conscious and enjoyed this little battle,” he told his men. “Really, Muggs and Verbeck are not in the thick of it at all to-night. Generally they cause a part of the trouble, but to-night all our trouble has come from others.”
He chuckled as if well pleased with himself.