“I wonder if they’ve—” Rod began in a whisper; whereupon Jack silenced him with an imperative gesture. The sloop looked as though she had been abandoned, but as there was no small boat in which the men could leave her, that was obviously not the explanation. By signs only did Jack now communicate with his friend. Like a wraith, the dinghy slid under the Sea-Lark’s bow. Motioning Rod to keep the little craft from bumping against the side of the sloop, Jack placed his hands on the deck and slowly drew himself up until he was aboard the Sea-Lark again, on his hands and knees. Still nobody challenged him. His pulse was beating a shade faster than usual as he crawled cautiously down the little alleyway between the deck-house and the low rail, for there was no disguising the fact that he was inviting trouble. There were two armed men, evidently entirely unscrupulous fellows, to contend with. If they suddenly saw him creeping along the deck, it was the most likely thing in the world that one of them would blaze away with his revolver.
Jack came near to the port-hole let into the side of the deck-house. By looking through there he would be able to see the inside of the cabin. But unfortunately those inside the cabin stood an equally good chance of seeing him, with consequences distinctly unpleasant, if not painful. He could hear them now. They were evidently engaged in some dispute, for Hegan’s raucous voice was raised in protest more than once, and he heard Martin say: “Well, hurry up, then.”
There came, also, a peculiar sound as of dull blows and the straining of woodwork.
A wild hope had come into Jack’s head, but in order to execute the plan which he hastily formed it became necessary for him to pass before the port-hole.
Cautiously he leaned forward until his eyes fell on the forms of the men inside. They had their backs turned toward him, and were intent on some work of destruction. In his hand Hegan held a short bar of steel, just such an implement as Jack had found on the cabin floor after the midnight struggle. With it he was tearing away one of the boards that formed the sheathing of the cabin. Several such boards had already been ripped off and lay in splinters on the floor.
“I tell you it’s gone!” Martin exclaimed in an angry voice.
“And if it’s gone,” retorted Hegan, turning toward his companion, with the bar of steel held menacingly in the air, “there’s only one person who could have taken it.”
“What d’you mean?” demanded Martin.
“I mean just what I say. If you’ve double-crossed me you won’t get away with it. You’ll have me to reckon with. I know now why you didn’t want to come off in the sloop to-day. I thought at first it was just because you were naturally scared o’ anything bigger than a chicken. Now I got you!”
“I tell you I don’t know a thing about it,” Martin protested in whining tones. “Maybe it’s there, after all. Smash another board off.”