Instead of towing the Hetty clear of the doomed cruiser he promptly gave orders for the hawser to be cut, and at fifteen knots the Serena steamed off, leaving the remainder of the pirates to their fate.
It was the guard on the quarter-deck of the Independencia who first noticed the yacht's apparently erratic behaviour. For a time the men watched the rapidly receding Serena, till the thought flashed through their minds that there was something suspicious. The petty officer in charge, an Italian named Tito, bawled down the nearest hatchway the astonishing news. Quickly the intelligence that the yacht was steaming away spread the length of the lower deck, and seamen and stokers rushed up pell-mell from below.
"We're betrayed!" howled Tito. "Man the guns, and cripple her before she gets out of range."
Hurriedly the guns' crew ran to the quick-firers. The murmur of subdued astonishment rose to a roar of anger and baffled fury when the pirates discovered that the mechanism had been tampered with and the weapons rendered useless. Some of the exasperated seamen, snatching up their rifles, and elevating the back-sights to the utmost capacity, fired an irregular volley at the vessel that was bearing away their treacherous captain and his Spanish confrères. It was a useless act; the yacht was already out of range, and the rattle of the rifles was only suggestive of the last nail driven into the coffin of their dead hopes.
CHAPTER XX
THE RECAPTURE OF THE "INDEPENDENCIA"
"They're about to abandon ship!" exclaimed Cardyke, when the first boat-load of treasure was taken off to the yacht. "It's no idle threat this time. They'll scuttle the cruiser."
"Guess you're about right, sonny," said Hiram B. Rutter. "We must look to ourselves, and Old Nick take the hindmost."
"Sh!" admonished Fielding. "There's no necessity to alarm the others just yet. As soon as we find the ship is actually sinking we'll get the others through the ports without any fuss. She won't sink in a minute."