"Well, they were stolen. I have just seen Custrin in the forest. He obviously took the yacht's launch to come ashore and join his employer...."
"His employer?"
"El Cojo!"
Then I told him about my meeting with Grundt and of the previous history of the man, of Custrin's attempts to get me to show him the message and of the opiate he had put in my drink. Garth listened without interruption but his eyes began to bulge and his cheeks to redden in an ominous way.
"Dang it!" he burst out at length, and the northern burr crept into his speech as it did when he got angry, "I'll see this club-footed man and learn him to send his spies on to my yacht. A German, too! I'll talk to him. I'll...."
I observed that they were fourteen to three.
"It will be at least six days before the Naomi calls for us," I pointed out, "and for that time we are practically at their mercy...."
"And to think that those damned doctors wouldn't let me have the wireless on the yacht!" exclaimed the baronet. "Wait till I get a cable-instrument. If I don't have a warship here within a week...."
"We've got to do something now, Sir Alexander!" I broke in. "If Grundt realises that he has been tricked before we are out of his clutches all a British warship can do is to give us a military funeral. Do you understand me? Now I had thought of withdrawing our guns and stores to the upper part of the island and trying to find a safe hiding-place there until the Naomi comes back. But the sight of the launch has given me a better idea than that. By the way, where did you find her?"
"About half a mile down the coast, under some branches she was!" said Carstairs. "I was having a bit of a look round and I came upon her. She'd had a rough time, by the look of her. There was a lot of water in her afore I baled her out. I brought her round and beached her...."