The Pirate Shark Part 16

CHAPTER XIII

RECAPTURE

Bob departed without protest, after one wondering look, and Mart set himself to wait as patiently as might be. His own nerves, as well as those of the men, were on edge; they were all under a tremendous strain, for none of them expected ever to see Jerry alive again, so deeply was the fear of the Pirate Shark ingrained in them all by the happening of the morning.

Borden went on paying out the lines, and gradually the flicker of the copper helmet died away and merged with the green of the water. Even Yorke had forgotten to keep an eye out for the shark, and stood craned over the bulwarks, gazing down awesomely into the green depths below.

To Mart it seemed that an age pa.s.sed. He knew that down beneath the water old Jerry could hear the strokes of the air-pump, and he wondered if the shark were anywhere around the wreck. Both boys had been given a very thorough knowledge of diving by the old quartermaster, from a theoretical standpoint, and had it not been for the Pirate Shark, Mart would have liked nothing better than a descent.

But just at present he had something else in mind. Down below on the gangway landing were Borden, Birch and Dailey, unarmed except for revolvers, and lined to the landing was one of the yacht's boats, lowered that morning. A dozen feet away, with his back to Mart, stood Yorke, absolutely absorbed in the scene below.

Mart knew exactly how big that huge elephant gun would look to four startled men, and he also knew that without Jerry's quick brains the rest were not to be feared. Suddenly he saw Dailey point to the gauge in the front of the pump, and at the same instant Borden ceased paying out line; Jerry had reached bottom!

"Here you are, Mart," came a soft voice behind him, and Mart whirled, nerved up to the action on which he had decided, and took the empty elephant gun from Bob's hands.

Slowly he raised the huge gun until it half-rested along the rail, pointing square at the head of Yorke. Then, speaking in a tone loud enough for Yorke to hear, he addressed Bob.

"Holly, go and take that rifle away from Yorke. He ain't safe to hold it."

The men below did not hear him, but Yorke did; and as he had expected, the seaman turned his head. As he looked full into the huge muzzle, Yorke's twisted, ever-leering face went pasty white and he submitted to Bob's relieving him of his rifle without a word.

"Hands up, Yorke!" commanded Mart, still softly. "Bob, get his revolver."

Bob obeyed, and still Yorke stared into the muzzle of the elephant gun with fear-stricken eyes and a ghastly pallor on his face, as he reached for the sky.

"Now get down on the landing," ordered Mart, and with that shifted his gun over the rail so that it pointed straight at the three men below. So far, they had heard nothing. Mart knew that he might be endangering Jerry's life, but he did not hesitate, and jerked his head for Bob to follow Yorke, who had started down the ladder.

"Get after him and take their guns, Bob."

The other boy obeyed, entering at once into Mart's plan. Yorke, paralyzed with fear, kept his hands in the air as he descended, and when his shadow fell across the landing, Dailey was the first to glance up in surprise.

"Hands up, you men!" commanded Mart sternly, though he felt a quiver in his throat. Would they call the bluff of that empty gun? "Quick about it, there!"

Into the one-eyed face of Birch flashed an evil anger mixed with fear; Dailey promptly stuck up his hands, as did Borden, who still clung to the lines, but Birch only continued pumping, though he looked up fearfully.

"I ain't a-goin' back on Jerry," he growled.

Mart read indecision in his tone, however. He knew that Jerry would be in no danger from a momentary cessation of pumping, just as he would be in no danger were his air hose to break, as the helmet valve would in that case close automatically and Jerry would have enough air left in his dress to last him for some minutes.

"Up with 'em, you pirate!" cried Mart, shifting his big gun a trifle so that Birch's glittering black eye looked full in the muzzle.

"Don't shoot, ye fool!" gasped Birch, flinging up his arms, and Mart knew he had won.

The men stood looking up, evil-eyed, panting with their exertions at the pumps, while Bob swiftly emptied their revolver-belts of weapons and knives and was up the ladder to the deck again, flinging down his load.

"You ain't a-goin' to murder poor old Jerry!" cried Dailey sharply. Mart winced.

"Bob," he returned, "you'll have to go down and keep those pumps going.

Hurry up, now!"

His chum, rather pale-faced and flurried, hastened down again and began turning the double handle of the pumps, while the four men crowded beyond the ladder.

"Drop those lines, Borden," ordered Mart sternly, and the old seaman obeyed without demur. "Now unfasten that boat and get into her! Pile in, the whole crowd of you! Do it lively now! That's right. Get busy with those oars and row over to that island. When you get there, shove out that boat and let her float off, or I'll pepper you with a load o'

buckshot."

"You ain't goin' for to maroon us there?"

"You're pirates and mutineers and I'm an officer o' this ship," replied Mart fiercely. "You step lively there or I'll send you where Jerry is, without any diving suit but with some buckshot in your back. Jump, now!"

Plainly, the men did not doubt either his intentions or his ability to fulfill his ferocious threat. While Bob continued his mechanical pumping, the four tumbled into the boat and pulled away without another word. Mart knew that once they were on the island, with the boat floated away, they were practically in prison. None of them would ever attempt swimming away to the mainland while the Pirate Shark was in the lagoon.

Mart stood at the gangway and kept the boat covered with his empty elephant gun, though now that the tension was relaxed and the victory his, everything blurred before his eyes and he felt weak with the reaction. The island was only a few hundred feet away, and the men pulled to the sandy beach without hesitation, tumbled out, and shoved the boat out again. Then they fled for the cover of the trees and bushes and were gone.

"By juniper!" breathed Bob from the landing below, as Mart flung the gun to the deck and leaned on the bulwark. "You look like a ghost, Mart!

Trot down here and give me a hand at this job."

"Well, we licked 'em!" exclaimed Mart, a surge of exultation rising within him as he slowly descended the ladder. "We licked 'em with an empty gun, old scout! Say, can you beat it? Think of us standin' off a gang o' pirates with your dad's old elephant gun! Did you see how white Yorke was?"

As he spoke, he relieved Bob at the pump wheel, and the latter leaned back and mopped his dripping brow.

"Well, I'd hate to have you come after me in earnest!" declared Bob with a laugh. "Say, you can sure talk like a bad man, Mart! You had me dead sure you'd land those pirates with a bullet!"

"I was scared!" admitted Mart with a grin. "I was so blamed scared, Holly, that I had to make 'em think I meant it. Here, get to work and quit talking."

"No sign o' Jerry, eh?"

Bob fell to work at the opposite handle, but mindful of the old quartermaster's lessons, they kept up a steady pumping, not too fast, but enough to maintain a good air pressure below.

Watching the lines as they worked, there appeared to be little motion; the two diving suits were not equipped with telephones or speaking tubes, but the boys knew the signals.

"Watch out!" cried Bob suddenly, as he caught at the lines that were slipping off at a jerk from below. "Keep turnin'--I'll 'tend to the ropes!"

He barely caught the lines and coils of air hose in time to save them, and Mart, watching as he pumped, saw four distinct jerks--the signal to pull up. In reply, Bob jerked the lifelines once, meaning "Are you all right?"

One pull came back, a.s.senting to the query, and without more delay Bob began to pull up Jerry. Mart cautioned him as to speed, and Bob nodded.

Jerry had not gone down by the usual "shot-rope," often used by divers, because the gangway landing was nearly exactly over the wreck.

It was no task to pull up the quartermaster until the heavy copper helmet rose to the landing. Then Mart came and lent his a.s.sistance, and between them they got Jerry up and over the side. He did not have the kris with him, and he lay stretched out, unable to rise because of his heavy clothes and weights.

This bothered the boys not at all. Mart sent Bob to get all the rifles safely locked up in the cabins, while he set to work uns.c.r.e.w.i.n.g Jerry's helmet. At first he felt some fear lest the old man had come to some harm, so motionless did he lie; but as he got the helmet unscrewed he heard Jerry's voice proceeding from within, and no sooner had he helped the quartermaster to sit up, gasping and blinking, than his fears were quite allayed.

"Ho!" cried Jerry, with wild triumph on his face as he flung back his white hair. "She's there, mates, she's there! Eight fathom down she is, and no Pirate Shark neither! Old Jerry found her, he did--eh? What--"

In his first transports the quartermaster had not observed that his mates were not around him, evidently. Then his eyes fell on Bob, coming down the ladder, and he gazed about blankly. Mart grinned.