"Stay right where you are, Sixty!" shouted the captain. "Make another move like that and you'll do it at your peril. If those men with you know when they're well off, they'll help Dick Ferral get his chum into one of the boats and bring him over here to us."
"They'll do nothin' o' the kind!" shouted Sixty. "If you blow us up, you're goin' to blow up Motor Matt's friends along with us."
But the nine men with Sixty were of another way of thinking. Their only hope had been the schooner, and, now that she had mysteriously taken to flight, their next best plan was to fall in with the desires of their captor—the gray-haired man in the submarine.
Together the nine swarthy sailors started toward Carl. Sixty endeavored to drive them back, but they pointed revolvers at him and brandished dangerous-looking knives. Baffled, and held at bay by superior numbers, Sixty could only watch like an enraged panther while Carl was picked up and lowered by means of a rope into one of the boats.
Dick, before he dropped over the side, ran into the cabin after the log and manifest. Then, while Dick was getting down the side of the derelict, another unexpected thing happened.
A trim launch, manned by six of Uncle Sam's sailors and carrying four marines and a lieutenant, shot in between the brig and the submarine.
"Back, all!" shouted the lieutenant, and six oars pushed against the rushing water in perfect unison, bringing the launch to a halt.
"What's going on here?" asked the lieutenant, standing up, his amazed eyes wandering from the rowboat in which were Dick and Carl, then to the panic-stricken men on the derelict, and finally to the submarine.
Captain Nemo, Jr., and Matt had climbed from the conning tower to the deck of the Grampus, in readiness to give Dick a hand with Carl.