The Corner House Girls Growing Up Part 15

"Do you want to say something to me, Sammy Pinkney? For if you do, you can."

"Hist! Keep quiet," ordered the pirate chief. "They're--they're in the offing."

"Wha--what's a offling?" she demanded. "We're orphans--Ruthie, and Aggie, and Tess, and me. So's Mr. Luke and Cecile. And so's Neale O'Neil," she added thoughtfully. "Is an offling like an orphan?"

"Keep still!" hissed the boy. "They're nearer."

"Who's nearer?"

"Shall I make 'em heave to when they come near 'nough, or shall we let 'em go on and give chase?"

"Goodness me, Sammy!" cried Dot, greatly puzzled. "You'd better come right down here. If anybody's coming we don't want to get into trouble.

You _know_ we didn't ask the man if we could come into this boat, and perhaps he don't like pirates."

This idea appealed to Sammy, too, as the mules and the little company with them drew near. He slipped over the edge of the hatchway and came down the ladder.

Overhead a threatening black cloud had obscured the sun. Thunder muttered in the distance. A tempest would probably break soon and neither Sammy nor Dot liked thunder and lightning.

"And we didn't bring any umbrella, Sammy Pinkney!" gasped Dot.

"Aw, we won't need one down here. We'll be dry enough," the boy declared.

Just then a drawling voice said: "Lowise, you better pull over that hatch right smart. It's agoin' to pour cats and dogs in a minute."

"You get the mewels. .h.i.tched on, Pap," said a shriller and younger voice.

"Where's the key to the house? Give it here. And you, Beauty, come aboard. Ain't no rabbits fur you to chase so near town as this."

"Oh," whispered the little girl below in the hold, "they have come on to our boat!"

"Hist!" said Sammy, shakingly.

"Do--do people do that to pirates?" demanded Dot, anxiously. "I--I thought we were going to--to get on to other people's boats and make them walk over a board."

"_Walk the plank!_" hissed Sammy.

"And aren't we?"

"Wait!" commanded the pirate chief in a most threatening tone.

They waited. By and by somebody came along and kicked the hatch-cover into place and the light was suddenly shut out of the hold. At the same time big drops of rain began drumming on the deck and the thunder burst forth in a rolling reverberation overhead.

"I guess we _will wait_, Sammy Pinkney!" gasped Dot, nervously. "They've shut us up down here!"

CHAPTER XI

AFLOAT ON THE Ca.n.a.l

Dot Kenway might have been much more frightened, shut into the ca.n.a.lboat hold in the dark, had it not been for two things. She was more afraid of the thunderstorm raging overhead than she was of the dark. Secondly, she had Sammy Pinkney with her.

That savage pirate might shake with nervousness, but he certainly could not be afraid!

"Don't you mind, Dottie," he said to her. "They don't know we're here yet."

"And if they do find out?" she asked.

"Why, if they _do_-- Well, ain't we pirates?" demanded Sammy boldly. "I guess when they find that out they'll sing pretty small. Besides, there's only one man and a dog."

"But isn't there a girl!" asked Dot doubtfully.

"Pooh! what's a girl!" demanded Sammy loftily. "Girls don't count. They can't fight."

"No-o. I s'pose not," admitted the smallest Corner House girl, who knew very well that she could not fight. She was willing to cook, wash and keep house for pirates; but Sammy must do the fighting.

However, Sammy Pinkney was to learn something about the ca.n.a.lboat girl that would open his eyes. Just at this time something occurred that startled both runaways so greatly that they even forgot the thunder that rolled so threateningly.

The ca.n.a.lboat began to move!

"Oh, dear me! what can have happened?" gasped Dot as the boat rocked and swayed in being poled out from the bank by the boatman, and the mules started along the towpath.

"Je-ru-sa-lem!" murmured Sammy.

"Oh, Sammy!"

"We're going," said the boy, gulping down his first surprise.

"But where are we going, Sammy Pinkney? You know very well Ruthie will be scared to death if I'm not back to supper. And your mother--"

"Huh!" exclaimed Sammy, with returning valor, "didn't I tell you if we ran away to be pirates that we couldn't go home again?"

"Yes! but! you! didn't ever _mean_ it!" wailed Dot, with big gulps between her words.

"Of course I meant it. Aw, shucks, Dot! What did I tell you? Girls can't be pirates. They're always blubbering."

"Not blubbering!" snapped Dot, too angry to really cry after all.

"Well, you started in to."

"No, I never! Just the same I don't want to be shut up in this old boat--not after it stops thundering and lightering," declared Dot, who, as Tess was not present, felt free to misuse the English language just as she pleased.

Certainly Sammy Pinkney had something more important to think of than the little girl's language. Here he was, a pirate chief, on a buccaneering expedition, and somebody had come along and coolly stolen his piratical craft, himself, and his crew!

If anything would rouse the spirit of a pirate chief it was such an emergency as this. He looked around for something with which to attack the villains who had boarded the _Nancy Hanks_, but he found not a thing more dangerous than his pocketknife and the fishhooks.

"And that's your fault, Dot Kenway," he declared, stricken by this startling discovery. "How am I going to fight these--these pirates, if I haven't anything to fight 'em with?"