Dave Darrin After The Mine Layers Part 33

"Then inform your mates that this craft has been seized as lawful prize of the United States Navy. Where is your boatswain?"

"That's me," said the same speaker, gruffly.

"Very good. Deliver my message to the crew. Then make sure that all hands are on deck. If you deceive me you will be held sternly to account for trickery."

"All here," reported the boatswain, after a quick count, "except the cook and his helpers."

"Send for them, and tell them to report here at once."

When the ship's force had been summoned, save for the two sailors known to be dead on the starboard side of the ship, Darrin continued:

"There were some wounded men."

"Two," said the boatswain.

"Where are they?"

"Below. One is badly hurt. The other is binding his wounds."

Dave had by this time walked down on to the deck. There was a forecastle large enough to hold the crew, and he ordered all of the men into it, except the boatswain, whom he sent with three of his own men to find the wounded. These latter two were brought to the captain's cabin. The two dead seamen, after Darrin had gained their names from the boatswain, were picked up and thrown overboard into the sea. The boatswain was then sent to join the prisoners.

"Four of you men come with me, and we'll search the rest of the cabin part of the ship," Darrin directed.

Off the dining room were four doors that Dave believed opened into sleeping cabins. The first door that Darrin tried proved to be locked.

One of his men carried a sledge-hammer that had been found in the wheel-house.

"Batter down the door!" Dave ordered.

Ere this order could be carried out the door flew open. A tall young woman, barely more than twenty years of age, stood in the doorway, her head thrown back, cheeks flushed, her look proud and disdainful. In her right hand she held a revolver.

"Go away from here!" she ordered. "Else I shall kill you!"

CHAPTER XIX

THE GOOD WORK GOES ON

"YOU will have to lower that pistol, young lady," warned Dave, calmly, as he walked toward her. The sailors had drawn back to either side of the doorway, but the young woman stood where she could aim at anyone in the American party.

The seaman nearest the revolver glanced quickly at Darrin, as if to inquire whether he should make an attempt to seize her pistol wrist and wrench the weapon away.

But Dave ignored the man's glance as he stepped up, eyeing the young woman coolly.

"Lower the pistol," he warned, again. "If you tried to use it, it would tell against you hard, before an English court, and these are wartimes, you know."

He was now within two feet of the weapon, which was pointed at his head.

"I shall kill you if you try to come near me," the young woman insisted desperately.

But Dave took another step. She pulled the trigger. There was a bright flash, a loud report.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Lower that pistol!"]

Dave, however, had been watching that trigger finger. As he saw it stiffen he dropped suddenly almost to his knees, the bullet pa.s.sing over his head and embedding itself in woodwork across the cabin.

Darrin sprang up unharmed. His cap had caught a powder burn; that was all. He gripped the woman's wrist in a hand of steel. With his other hand he coolly took the pistol away from her, then dropped her wrist.

Bursting into a fit of hysterical weeping the woman drew back, endeavoring to close the cabin door. But Darrin's foot across the sill defeated her purpose.

"You are a brute!" she panted, frantically trying to close the door.

"At least," he a.s.sured her, "I have saved you from a crime that would have cost you your own life. Look out, please, for I am going to throw your door wide open."

"You--you coward!" she panted, and struggled to close the door.

"Stand back! I am sorry to have to use force, but you compel it."

As she refused to give ground Darrin gave the door a push that forced her back, crowding her against a berth. Then he stepped into the little cabin.

In a lower berth lay a middle-aged woman whose piercing black eyes snapped as she surveyed the young naval officer.

"You are a wretch, to intrude here!" cried the older woman.

"One must often do disagreeable things in the line of war duty," Darrin answered, gravely. "For one thing, I must place you both in arrest. Then I shall be obliged to have your cabin searched."

"Oh, if I but had a weapon!" cried the older woman.

"If you had, and were quick enough," Dave a.s.sured her, "you might succeed in killing me, but that would not affect our duty here, for there are other officers at hand. Madam, I perceive that you are fully dressed, so I must ask you to rise and leave this cabin, for a few minutes, at least."

"I shall not do it," she snapped.

"Then you will oblige me to call my men in, and they will remove you, using no unnecessary violence, you may be sure, yet employing force just the same."

"You coward!"

The younger woman, too, started in to berate him, but Dave remained calm.

"Will you, at least, not leave the room until I have risen?" demanded the older woman.

Darrin, who had a notion that the women wanted to conceal or destroy something, nodded his a.s.sent, but signed to two of the seamen to enter.

Under his instructions they took the door off its hinges, carried it outside and laid it on the floor of the dining cabin.

"Now, ladies," Dave called, as he stepped outside, "you will be good enough to come out at once."

"We will come at our good convenience!" snapped the older woman.