Into the boats tumbled the swarm of ruffians. Discipline had gone by the board. During Cain's regime every evolution had been performed with man-of-war smartness. Now Jack was as good as his master.
Alongside the stranded Bronx City ran the boats. Armed men, cursing and frantically brandishing their automatic pistols, swarmed up her sides. Without any ceremony, Captain Hiram Adams was made to hand over the keys of the strong-room. The American crew were driven for'ard and secured in the forepeak. Then the work of looting began. There was no method about the procedure. The pirates rifled indiscriminately. The strong-room door was forced and the gold-dust taken on deck, but not before a large quantity of the precious metal had found its way into the pockets of individual members of the Alerte's crew. The ivory being in bulk and too large to be conveniently hidden by the finders, was dumped into the boats. The American officers' quarters were invaded and their belongings either stolen or strewn all over the deck. The passengers were insulted, threatened and robbed; while, to make matters worse, the pirates broached several casks of rum, and having drunk as much as they could carry—and more—they wantonly allowed the rest of the spirit to run to waste.
"Best batten the Yanks down and fire the ship," suggested one drunken rascal. "Dead men tell no tales. How about it, Cap'n Pengelly?"
Pengelly objected. He shrank from work of that kind, not because he possessed any strong degrees of humanity, but because he feared the consequences.
"They gave us no trouble," he said. "The ship's hard and fast aground. She can't signal to any vessel in the offing. Let her alone. We'll get the stuff up the river and hide it."
Unsteadily, the besotted pirates dropped into the two deeply-laden boats and rowed back to the Alerte.
Cain, who had been left in charge of Barnard and a couple of hands, had recovered consciousness. Pengelly, after giving one furtive glance at his former partner, ascended the bridge ladder.
"Look alive, lads!" he shouted. "Get the booty aboard!"
"What for?" bawled one of the crew. "If we've got to land the swag what's the use of unloading the boats and loading 'em up again? Useless work, I calls it."
Instead of insisting upon his orders being carried out, Pengelly began to explain the reason.