"Then you're in luck to find them. What was that shooting a while ago? It was that that brought us in this direction."
"Sixty and a boat's crew," explained Dick, "tried to get on the brig. My mate and I held 'em off with rifles, because we knew him for a treacherous swab who had thrown our raggie, Motor Matt, over the rail of the _Santa Maria_----"
"Did Sixty do that?" cut in the officer, sternly.
"Go on," proceeded the officer, laconically, turning to Dick.
"Well," went on Dick, "when Sixty found he couldn't board the brig, he went back to the schooner. They had a bow chaser, and another small cannon over the stern. They let drive at us, then rounded in on the other side and let drive again, covering the movements of two boats' crews who laid us aboard. The last shot splintered the bulwarks and brought down my chum here."
"How badly is he hurt, Dick?" queried Matt.
"A nice sort of schooner that is," muttered the officer, staring off to sea. "If we hadn't had such important work here we might have followed her and compelled her to heave to. You say there are rifles and ammunition in the brig?" he added, to Dick.
"Yes; and they don't appear on the manifest."
Dick held the documents out. At a word from the officer the launch was driven alongside the rowboat, and the papers changed hands.
"Up on deck," the lieutenant said to the marines, "disarm those scoundrels and make prisoners of them. Look well after Sixty. Two of you boys come with me."
Two of the sailors dropped their oars and there was a scramble for the brig's deck.
Dick, dropping down on a thwart, picked up two of the oars and pulled the boat in which he and Carl found themselves over to the submarine.
"I'd about given you up, old chap!" exclaimed Matt as he seized Dick's hand.
"There was a time, old ship," replied Dick, "when I'd about given myself up. But all's well that ends well. If Carl proves to be only stunned, as I feel sure he will, there's no great damage done for all Sixty's treacherous planning."
Carl was taken below, Matt and Dick lifting him through the conning-tower hatch, down the ladder, and then making him comfortable on the locker in the periscope room.
Carl had been unconscious for a long time, and it was two hours before Matt and Dick, working assiduously, succeeded in reviving him.