Something put out the dim flame of the lamp, and there was the sound of a heavy, creaking footstep in the room. The next moment Nita was torn rudely from her husband's arms, and her head and face muffled in something dark and heavy, and she was borne swiftly away from the yacht.
[CHAPTER XX.]
A GHOST ON BOARD SHIP.
Quite close to the yacht Nita was moored a trimly built, compact little sailing vessel of which Jack Dineheart, the sailor, was master. It was toward this little bark that he bore Nita after his daring exploit in kidnaping her from the Rhodus house.
He had lain at anchor near the island two days, and was getting ready to sail that night when, upon starting on an errand to the house of Fisherman Rhodus, he had been startled by seeing Nita's face behind the barred window as she watched her husband's yacht in the bay with sorrowful eyes of love and longing.
After his brief, angry conversation with the girl, Jack Dineheart had forgotten all about his errand, and rushed away toward the yacht with murder in his heart toward Dorian Mountcastle.
Upon nearing it, and seeing several men upon her deck, his wrath became tempered with prudence, and he retreated toward his own vessel, where, after fortifying himself with several glasses of liquor, he concocted the scheme of kidnaping the imprisoned girl and carrying her to sea with him, and perhaps back to Pirate Beach to the grim guardianship of his mother, old Meg Dineheart, the fortune-teller.
Laughing in fiendish glee at the discomfiture of the deceived Lizette, the sailor bore Nita away in his strong arms, his heart leaping with joy.