“I know that.”
“And here I permitted that fellow to come aboard, to take me by surprise, to compel me to call my wife and my guests to the deck, to give up my keys and my money to him, and to do a hundred different things to assist him in his robbery, and all that without one word of protest, and without offering the slightest resistance; but I said that before.”
“He had the drop on you, Kane.”
“Had the drop on me? I should say he did! He had the drop on me, and he had the sand all out of me, as well! That is what makes me so mad whenever I think about it.”
“Well, about his manner of coming aboard and leaving the yacht. You started to tell me about that?”
“When the pirate left us to walk forward, I noticed for the first time that there was a craft of some kind lying across our bow. I could see the two slender, tapering masts, but from where I was seated, here in this chair, I could see nothing of the hull.”
“The Goalong stands rather high out of the water. She has unusual freeboard for a craft of her size. That fact might account for what you tell me.”
“Sure! I understand that now. It did account for it—or, rather, it does account for it, as you shall see.”
“Well, go on.”
“Captain Sparkle was the last one of his crew to leave the deck of the yacht. He stood yonder in the bow until they had all disappeared. Then he turned, and, after waving his hand at us, he also jumped from the deck of the yacht and disappeared.”