“Come!” he whispered. “It will never do for us to remain here. They will be bringing their spoils aboard presently, and we must be well concealed before that time.”
“Are you going to remain here?” asked Kane also in a whisper.
“Sure! What do you suppose I took all that trouble to get here for?”
“Why, to have it out with the pirate—to have a scrap with him at once, capture his ship and cargo, and all that.”
“We will do that later. Just now we have other axes to grind.”
He glided rapidly aft toward a door he saw in the bulkhead, opened it cautiously, and peered through. But instantly he started back, and, seizing Chick and Kane with either hand, forced them underneath the long table behind them.
And they were not a moment too soon. The door which he had partially opened was thrown wide ajar this time, and a woman appeared on the threshold. She paused there for a moment, and the detective, from his position under the table, could see her plainly.
His mental comment at that moment was that it would not do to say that she was beautiful, merely because her face was too strong for that adjective; but she was certainly handsome. She was tall and well formed, and her hair and eyes were as black as night, while her skin was as white as that which you often see on people with red hair.
For a moment she stood there in the doorway, while her great, round, black eyes took in every detail of the cabin she was surveying.