“Ahoy, there! Back water and stay where you are! What do you want?”
The rhythmic beat of the oars continued, rapidly lessening the distance.
“Halt, or we’ll shoot! If you don’t want to get sunk and have your carcasses filled as full of holes as a pepper-box, you’ll sheer off!”
This had its effect. The oars were held and pushed to check the motion. No word came in reply, but Gus plainly saw an object that resembled a gun barrel come from a vertical to a foreshortened position. This was sufficient for drastic action, though the boy was averse to compelling a tragedy. With careful aim he sent a load of shot just over the heads of the boatmen, then instantly fired another into the water at one side. Almost immediately a shot came in reply, the bullet glancing from the cabin roof.
Gus slipped in two more shells and coolly waited, knowing that there was only a remote possibility that the shots from the dory would do any great harm, but intending, if the rascals fired again, to give them a real taste of buckshot firing, at the bow of their boat first, to splinter and sink it gradually; then at the men if they persisted.
The dory turned about quickly. The oarsman was evidently in haste to get away. Then came a hail:
“Say, you! What you do in thata boat? That our boat! Get out, I say to you! We want to come aboard and go on away!”
Gus had heard that voice before. It belonged to one of the Malatesta. Did they have Tony with them? Were they making a terrible effort to escape in this way from the peninsula, and get to sea again? How then would they secure the hoped for ransom? Or were they merely going to hide the X-Ray, expecting to use her if their scheme fell short? Bill had sensed the situation.
“Your boat, is she? You’ll find her back at Hawk’s Bill where she belongs, and in a little while you’re going to find yourself in jail. Beat it now while the water’s fine!”
The oarsman was nothing loath. Either he was not the bravest in the party, or else he had the keenest appreciation of the odds against an exposed position. In a very few minutes the dory was a mere gray wraith on the water, but there it hung. Evidently the rower was overruled by others less cautious, or of the certain conviction that at the distance the yacht was a better mark than a rowboat.