“You must learn that for yourself,” said Beere, firmly. “I can give you no information.”
A curse dropped from Dooley’s lips. He took a step toward the prisoner, saying menacingly:
“We’ll find a way to open your mouth. Before I’ve done with you you’ll be glad enough to talk.”
But Nicodemus was not to be intimidated, though the situation was a serious one for him. He refused to say anything.
But the villains organized a trailing party and followed his footprints backward along the beach. When they had reached a certain angle they looked up and beheld the air-ship.
It was an astonishing spectacle to them.
They managed to creep up near enough to the Spectre to see three men aboard her, one of them colored, and then they returned to their camp.
It was easy for Dooley to decide upon a move.
“We must capture that hurdy-gurdy,” he said; “how in the world it got away up there on that shelf of rock, I do not know.”
The villain did not know that the Spectre was an air-ship. He had fancied it some sort of water craft.