"Yes, that would perhaps be the best," Wallion agreed; "what is your opinion about the five men on the barge?"
"They belong to the wharf and they will give no trouble," said the captain. "I don't think any of the workmen on the wharf are particularly delighted with their employers."
"First rate. I propose that you will call your men to the chart-room and tell them to be quiet; it is not necessary for them to interfere. Dixon and his two associates are armed, but we shall get the better of them before they have finished their business down there."
All except Moreland left the cabin.
"Tom," said Wallion in a low voice, "in about ten minutes there will be a nice scuffle; you keep an eye on the barge whilst I help the captain to prepare the crew, and come up to the chart-room if any of our three friends make as though they meant to return to the yacht."
Tom leant over the rails on the bridge and looked down into the barge; he felt that never again in all his life would he find himself in such company or such a situation as this. He was calm and resolute, and his gaze was firmly fixed on what lay before him.
CHAPTER XXIII
GO SHARES ... THEN PART
The rays of the searchlight fell upon the deck of the barge, on the rude planks of which a strange scene was being enacted, In the background lay Fir Island, like a dark side-piece, and the water in the channel rose and fell in glittering, heaving billows. On the stage, below where Tom stood, were eight performers all told.
Dixon and Corman, in the center of the barge and still motionless, were smoking, and had lighted their cigarettes without exchanging a word; Toroni sat on the railing as close as possible to the spot where the ever-seething air bubbles in the water indicated the place where the diver was working on the wreck sixty feet below. Two men attended to the air-pumps, one looked after the tube and signal-rope, and two others stood ready by the stake, from which wire ropes hung down into the deep.