“Now, here’s a go!” exclaimed Bab, in great amazement.
“Yes; and there’ll be a worse go than this if you don’t let me out,” replied the prisoner, savagely. “Push up the hatch, Tom.”
“The revenue captain was right in his suspicions after all, wasn’t he?” said Walter, as he and Wilson advanced and wrested the hatchet from the sailor’s hand. “I don’t think that your attempt to reach Cuba will be very successful, my friend.”
“That remains to be seen. Push up the hatch, Tom. If I once get on deck I’ll make a scattering among these young sea monkeys. Push up the hatch, I tell you.”
This was the very thing the man below had been trying to do from the first, but without success. The hatchway was small, and was so nearly filled by the body of the prisoner, who was a burly fellow, that his companion in the hold had no chance to exert his strength. He could not place his shoulders against the hatch, and there was no handspike in the hold, or even a billet of wood strong enough to lift with. He breathed hard and uttered a good many threats, but accomplished nothing.
“I wish now I had given that captain time to muster his men,” said Walter. “This fellow is a deserter from the cutter, of course; but he shall never go to Havana in our yacht. Bab, go on deck and bring down three handspikes.”
Bab disappeared, and when he returned with the implements, Walter took one and handed Wilson another.
“Now, Perk,” continued the young captain, “take a little of your weight off the hatch and let that man go back into the hold. We’d rather have him down there than up here.”
“I know it,” said Perk. “But just listen to me, and I’ll tell you what’s a fact: Perhaps he won’t go back.”
“I think he will,” answered Walter, in a very significant tone of voice. “He’d rather go back of his own free will than be knocked back. Try him and see.”
Perk got off the hatch, and the sailor, after taking a look at the handspikes that were flourished over his head, slid back into the hold without uttering a word; while Bab, hardly waiting until his head was below the combings, slammed down the hatch, threw the bar over it and confined it with a padlock. This done, the four boys stood looking at one another with blanched cheeks.