This much Raxworthy noticed before he was carried aft, and then down a short ladder to a flat below the water-line. The doctor had already been unceremoniously dumped there.
“What’s the idea?” he inquired, as the midshipman flopped on the deck beside him.
Before Raxworthy could hazard an explanation a stuttering rifle-and machine-gun-fire opened from the junk.
“Hurrah!” he exclaimed. “One of our destroyers is butting in.”
VIII
“Then I hope to goodness they don’t send the old tub to the bottom. I don’t mind running risks from rifle-fire in the open, but dashed if I like the idea of being cooped up here if the junk’s sunk. It’s worse than being in a submarine.”
Raxworthy felt inclined to agree with his companion on that point. If the junk were sunk—and a six-pounder shell accurately placed would do the trick neatly and easily—they wouldn’t stand a dog’s chance, bound hand and foot as they were. Not that that mattered compared with the greater issue. Even if their limbs were free they were imprisoned in a stuffy box-like compartment below the water-line.
“Look here,” exclaimed the midshipman, raising his voice to make himself heard above the terrific din on deck, “we may just as well get rid of these lashings—just in case.”
Working in pitch-black darkness the midshipman succeeded in freeing the doctor from his bonds. Then, with hands at liberty, the latter quickly performed a like service to his companion.
By this time Raxworthy began to have doubts concerning the appearance of a destroyer. By various ominous sounds he knew that the junk was being hit again and again by small-arms projectiles—probably rifle and machine-gun bullets. A destroyer would have kept beyond range of such weapons and settled the argument with a warning shell across the junk’s bows and then, if that failed to bring about the desired effect, she would send the junk’s masts by the board. If that didn’t make the pirate surrender, sterner measures would be taken.