Then, picking Mark up, as if he was a baby, the man slung him over his shoulder and carried him to the living room. There Mark saw Jack, the professor, Washington, and the others similarly bound.
“Do you realize what you are doing?” asked the professor angrily of his captors. “You are mutinying, and are liable to severe punishment.”
“If they ever get us,” added one of the men. “We’ve got the ship now, and we mean to keep her. You’ll have to run her or show us how.”
“Never!” cried the professor.
“I guess he will when he feels this,” said one of the men, as he dragged from a recess two wires. “I happen to know something of electricity, and when he feels these perhaps he’ll change his mind. I’ll start the dynamo.”
The sailor showed that he was acquainted with machinery, for soon the hum of the electric apparatus was heard.
“Now to make him tell!” the man with the wires exclaimed, advancing toward the professor, who turned pale.
“Stop! You must not torture the old man!” cried a voice, and the mate of the Good Hope stepped in front of the sailor with the electrified wires.
“Who’s going to stop me?” asked the man.
“I will. It’s not necessary,” the mate went on quickly. “If we make him weak we may kill him, and he can not tell us what we want to know. One of the boys can tell us how to run the ship.”