When the boy had noted these things, some scraps of the conversation he had overheard between Walter and the revenue captain came into his mind. These men were deserters from the cutter, and he had discovered them just in time to prevent mischief. They were preparing to make an immediate attack upon the Banner’s crew, and had provided themselves with weapons to overcome any opposition they might meet. If they were allowed to come on deck they would take the vessel out of the hands of her crew, and shape her course toward Havana, where the Cuban privateer was supposed to be lying. Perk did not object to the men joining the privateer if they felt so inclined—that was the revenue captain’s business, and not his—but he was determined that they should not assume control of the Banner, and take her so far into the Gulf in such a gale if he could prevent it.
“Avast, there!” exclaimed the sailor, in a savage tone of voice, placing his hand against the hatch to keep Perk from slamming it down on his head. “We want to come up.”
“But I want you to stay down,” replied the boy; “and we’ll see who will have his way.”
The sailor made an upward spring, and Perk flung down the hatchway at the same moment, throwing all his weight upon it as he did so. The result was a collision between the man’s head and the planks of which the hatchway was composed, the head getting the worst of it. The deserter was knocked over on the opposite side of the opening and caught and held as if he had been in a vise, his breast being pressed against the combings, and the sharp corner of the hatch, with Perk’s one hundred and forty pounds on top of it, falling across his shoulders.
“Now just listen to me a minute, and I’ll tell you what’s a fact,” said the boy, who, finding that the enemy was secured beyond all possibility of escape, began to recover his usual coolness and courage; “I’ve got you.”
“But you had better let me go mighty sudden,” replied the sailor, struggling desperately to seize Perk over his shoulder. “Push up the hatch, Tom,” he added, addressing his confederate below.
All these events, which we have been so long in narrating, occupied scarcely a minute in taking place. Walter sprang toward the companion-way the instant Perk’s wild cry fell upon his ears, and pale and breathless burst into the cabin, followed by Bab and Wilson. When he opened the door he discovered Perk in the position we have described. A single glance at the uniform worn by the man whose head and shoulders were protruding from the hatchway, was enough to explain everything.