“But our ship!” cried Jack, anxiously. “What’s going to become of that?”
“Oh, that blamed contraption? Well, that can just as well go to the bottom as not, I guess. Take ‘em away, you fellows.”
Jack, half crazed at the last words of the rascal, was dragged helplessly off. Tom and Dick made a feeble show of resistance, but they, too, were speedily captured and hauled across the deck after him. Unarmed as they were, they had no chance of putting up any fight. And so, within an hour after they had set out to answer the call for assistance, they found themselves prisoners and their Wondership doomed to destruction. No wonder that their hearts felt like lead as their captors roughly shoved and pulled them along.
In this way they were propelled down a flight of steps leading, as soon became apparent, into the saloon of the yacht. From this chamber there opened off several smaller doors. One of these was open and through this and into a small cabin the boys were roughly thrust. Then the men who had made them captive went off without a word, first locking the door behind them on the outside.
The boys looked miserably at each other as the door clicked.
“Prisoners!” exclaimed Jack.
“And the Wondership to be cast away,” cried Tom despairingly, sinking down on the edge of a bunk. “There’s all our work and money gone for nothing,” he added bitterly.
Dick Donovan said nothing. He felt that of them all he was the only one who had no right to say anything. He was there by his own fault solely, and the freckle-faced boy felt that it would have been an impertinence on his part to have made any complaint.
“Well, this is a fine fix,” exclaimed Tom at length, after a long silence, during which they had heard a trampling of feet on deck but had noticed no vibration to show that the yacht was in motion.
“Yes; and that there is so far no explanation for our treatment doesn’t make it any better,” spoke up Jack wretchedly. “It’s the thought of the Wondership being cast loose that makes me feel worst, though.”