“Well, we’ve got his dory, anyway,” said Cap’n Crumbie. “Let’s go back for her.”
They towed the craft back to Garnett and Sayer’s wharf, where the watchman lighted a lantern and examined it.
“Huh! It’s Joe Whalen’s dory,” declared Cap’n Crumbie. “The old man’s been in bed with rheumatism for over a week, and he wouldn’t hurt nobody, anyhow. This chap that attacked you must have swiped it. And there ain’t a dog-gone thing in it, neither, ’ceptin’ the oars. Knew too much to leave his things behind, he did.”
“I’m afraid I shouldn’t have got off so well if I hadn’t thought of using a string to trip him up,” said the boy. “He would have had me at his mercy in my bunk if I’d been asleep. Why, what on earth—”
The lad stopped at the entrance of the sloop’s cabin, the lantern in his hand illuminating the scene of the struggle. Then he stooped and picked up something that was lying on the floor, half covered by the overturned table. It was beveled like a chisel at one end.
“That yours?” asked the watchman, puzzled.
“I’ve never seen it in my life before,” replied Jack. “It must have been dropped by that brute.”
He weighed the bar in his hand, and passed it over to Cap’n Crumbie.
“I admit I was a bit scared,” he said, “being awakened so suddenly that way and finding a man under my feet as soon as I jumped out, but I should have been a good deal more scared if I’d known he had a thing like that in his hand!”
Cap’n Crumbie ran his fingers through his hair and sat down on the edge of one of the bunks.