“Maype ve ton’t besser trink dot vater,” suggested Hans. “I ton’t vont to vake up teat in der morning, ain’t it!”
“Can the water be poisoned?” asked Tom.
They poured some in a glass and held it close to the light. It looked good and Dick tasted it cautiously.
“Baxter said to beware of what the others gave us to eat and to drink,” said Sam. “Evidently something is in the air.”
All sniffed of the water and tasted it, yet each was afraid to take a regular drink. While they were deliberating they heard the hatch being raised again. Then Sack Todd and Gasper Pold appeared once more.
CHAPTER XXV
ONE PLOT AND ANOTHER
“We’ve got the water for you,” said Sack Todd. “We don’t know as you deserve it, but we don’t want to be mean.”
As he spoke he and Gasper Pold held down a jug containing not more than two quarts.
“Not a very big supply,” grumbled Tom. “We’ll want a good deal more down here. This is a regular sweatbox.”
“You don’t have to stay any longer than you wish,” answered the ex-counterfeiter, with a sickly grin.
“Ven do ve git somedings to eat?” asked Hans.
“In the morning.”
This was all those above said, and soon the hatch was shut down and fastened and Todd and Pold walked slowly away.
“They didn’t seem to care much whether we surrendered or not,” remarked Sam.
“That makes me more suspicious than ever,” answered Dick. “Boys, Dan Baxter may have been acting on the square after all.”
“Catch Dan doing that!” retorted Tom. “Why, it isn’t in him, Dick.”
“I don’t know about that. He is bad, I know, but he may not be as much of a villain as these men are. I am going to examine the contents of this jug.”
All gathered around while Dick cleaned out the tumbler and then filled it with the liquid from the jug. The water looked fairly clear, although presently something like oil began to float on top. Dick put his tongue to this and found it sweetish-bitter.
“This has certainly been dosed,” said the eldest Rover. “I wouldn’t take a drink of it for a good deal.”
“Then Baxter must have told the truth,” said Sam. “I think I know how the matter stands. Baxter got scared at what the men wanted to do, and so started in to head them off. I believe I’ll take a small drink of that other water.”
He did so, and the others followed, nobody, however, drinking more than half a tumbler of the liquid. This served to quench the worst of their thirst.
“Later on, if the water doesn’t affect us, we can drink more,” said Tom. “If Dan Baxter really did mean well it’s a great credit to him, no matter how bad he is otherwise.”
All sat down and talked in low tones. The night was now well advanced, yet nobody felt like sleeping. Suddenly Dick leaped up, considerably excited.
“I’ve got it, fellows! Maybe we can outwit them at their own game,” he cried.
“How?” asked the others.
“Perhaps that water was drugged and was given to us to put us to sleep. If we pretend to be overcome it may throw them off their guard, and that will give us another chance to gain possession of the vessel. What do you say if we lie down and pretend to be asleep when they open the hatch?”
“All right, I am willing,” answered Tom. “There is no excitement in being cooped up in this hot place. Tell you what I’ll do, to force matters. You lie down and begin to snore and I’ll pull the whistle. Then, when they come, I’ll demand to know what is wrong with you and pitch over myself. Then we can see what happens next.”
So it was arranged, and half an hour later Sam, Dick, and Hans stretched out on the engineroom floor as if completely dead to the world. Then Tom gave the whistle half a dozen sharp tugs. This brought Todd, Pold, Jeffers, and Dan Baxter to the hatchway in a hurry.
“What’s the row?” demanded Gasper Pold, looking down curiously.
“My brothers,” came thickly from Tom, as he reeled around. “What did you—you—do to them? My head—like—top! You—must—must—Oh!” And then Tom sank down on a bench, slipped to the floor, and lay beside Sam.
“He’s poisoned!” shrieked Dan Baxter, and his face grew as white as a sheet.
“Shut up!” muttered Sack Todd. “The dose won’t kill him.”
“Reckon they are all laid out,” was Gasper Pold’s comment, as he peered down the hatchway. “I’ll go down and make sure.” And he passed down the iron ladder, pistol in hand.
“How about it?” came from the mate of the Dogstar.
“Stiff as corpses,” was the brutal answer. “I tell you, that dope did the business.”
“Are any of them dead?” asked Dan Baxter, hoarsely.
“I don’t think so,” was the careless answer. “No, they are all breathing,” went on Pold.
Sack Todd came down, followed by the mate of the Dogstar, and all gazed coldly at the four youths lying on the hard floor around the machinery. Dan Baxter remained at the top of the ladder, shaking as if with the palsy.
“How long do you calculate they’ll remain in this condition?” asked Todd, turning to Pold.
“Ten or twelve hours at least,” was the answer. “And maybe they won’t get over it for twenty-four.”
“Any bad effects?”
“Well, sometimes that dope paralyzes a man’s tongue for six months or a year.”
“Phew! That’s pretty rough.”
“Once in a great while the paralysis doesn’t go away at all.”
“In that case, these boys will have it in for you,—if they ever get their hands on you,” said Sid Jeffers, with a wicked leer.
The men talked among themselves for several minutes and then agreed to take the boys up on deck and place them in two of the staterooms off the cabin.
“They’ll have to have more air than here,” said Gasper Pold. “Otherwise they’ll surely die on our hands.”
Dan Baxter was called on to assist, and did so with his knees fairly shaking together. He thought that our friends had surely drank of the dosed water and were in a stupor next to death.
“And if they die, they’ll say I was as guilty as the rest!” he groaned to himself. “Oh, I wish I was out of this!”
It was no easy matter to get the three Rovers and Hans on deck and to the staterooms. Here our friends were placed two on a berth, and, for the time being, left to themselves.
“Boys, we have had a narrow escape,” whispered Dick, when he at last thought it safe to speak.
“That’s the truth,” came from Sam. “And we have Dan Baxter to thank for it!” he added. “I can’t understand that part of it.”
“I think I can,” answered Tom. “Baxter is bad enough, but he didn’t go in for poisoning us. I am glad to know he isn’t quite so heartless as that.”
“Dem fellers ought to be all hung, ain’t it!” was Hans’ comment.
“The question is, What are we to do next?” asked Tom.
“That question is not so easily answered,” returned his elder brother. “I know what I should like to do.”
“What, Dick?” asked Sam.
“I’d like to make all of the gang prisoners.”
“Exactly!” exclaimed Tom, in a low voice. “But can it be done?”
“I don’t know. For the present let us play ’possum and find out.”
“Vot kind of a game vos dot possum?” asked Hans innocently. “I ton’t dink we got dime to play some games,” he added, seriously.
“Dick means to lay low,” explained Sam.
“Vot, lay under der peds?”
“No, keep quiet and watch out.”
“Oh! All right, I done me dot kvick enough,” said Hans, and fell back on the berth and shut his eyes.
“You fellows
keep quiet while I investigate,” said the eldest Rover. “It is so late some of the crowd may have gone to sleep. If so, we may have a chance to capture the others first.”
So it was arranged, and making certain that his pistol was still in his pocket, Dick slid from the berth, tiptoed his way to the stateroom door, and, opening it slowly and cautiously, peered out.
One look into the cabin of the Mermaid told him the apartment was empty. There were two more staterooms, connected, as were those the boys were occupying. With a heart that beat rather violently, Dick stepped to the door of one of these staterooms. From within came a deep and regular snoring.
“Somebody is asleep in there,” he mused. “Who can it be?”
With great care he peered into the room. On the berth rested one of the sailors from the Dogstar and on the floor rested the other, both evidently much the worse for liquor.
The door to the second stateroom was wide open and Dick caught sight of a form on the berth in there. It was Dan Baxter. The bully was not asleep but was tossing about, as if in either mental or physical distress. As Dick looked at him he suddenly started up, turned around, and stared.
“Dick Rover!” he screamed. “Are you alive, or is it a—a ghost?”
CHAPTER XXVI
TURNING THE TABLES
“Be quiet, Baxter,” said Dick, softly but firmly. “Don’t you dare to make another sound.”
“I—I thought you were—were—asleep,” faltered the former bully of Putnam Hall. “That you—”
“That he had drank the poisoned water, eh?”
“Ye—es.”
“We did not. We took your advice and left it alone.”
“Then when they brought you up out of the engine room—”
“We were shamming, that’s all. But I haven’t got time to explain everything, Baxter. Where are the others?”
“On deck, or down in the engine room, I guess—all but the two beasts in there,” and Baxter pointed to the overcome sailors.
“What brought you in here? Were you going to sleep?”
“Sleep! I—I couldn’t sleep, Dick; honestly I couldn’t!”
“Why?”
“Because I—I—But what’s the use, you won’t believe me.” And Dan Baxter hung his head for a moment.
“Maybe I will. Tell me why.”
“I came away from them because I was sick of their doings, that’s why. I—I am sick of all of it,—sick in body and in mind, too.”
“You didn’t want to see us doped, as they call it?”
“No! no!”
“And that is why you warned us and gave us that good water?”
“Yes.”
“Dan, you’re a little bit more of a real man than I thought you were. I thought you were willing to do anything against me and my brothers.”
“Well, I was once, but now—But what’s the use of talking, you won’t believe me. And why should you? I’ve been against you ever since we first met.”
“That’s the straight truth, Dan, and you’ve done some pretty mean and desperate things.”
“I don’t know why I did them, Dick—honestly I don’t. Lots of times I knew you and your brothers were right and I was wrong. But the Old Nick got in me and I—well, you know how I acted. Now I’m an outcast—nobody decent wants to have anything to do with me. Even my own father—” Dan Baxter stopped short.
“See here, Dan, I haven’t time to talk now,” said Dick, after a short and painful pause. “I didn’t expect this of you. The whole question just now is this, Are you going to fight or keep quiet?”
“Are you going to fight those others?”
“Yes, if it becomes necessary.”
“I don’t want to fight any more.”
“Then will you keep quiet?”
“I will. But, Dick—”
“Well?”
“If you capture those men, are you going to hand them over to the police?”
“Certainly.”
“And hand me over, too?” And again Dan Baxter hung his head.
“Don’t you deserve it?”
“I suppose so. And still I—er—I thought you might give me another chance. Oh, that’s what I want, another chance! You know how my father has reformed. I want to reform, too. I want to go away somewhere and begin all over again.”
“Dan, come with me.”
“Where to?”
“To the others. You can talk with them while I take a look on deck.”
The former bully of Putnam Hall demurred but Dick insisted, and soon the pair had joined Sam, Tom, and Hans.
“Talk to him,” said Dick. “I’ll be back soon,” and then he left and made his way up the companionway to the deck of the steam yacht.
His heart was in a strange tumult. That Dan Baxter should want to reform was a surprise of which he had never dreamed. Could the former bully be playing a part?
“He’s sly enough,” he reasoned. “And yet his eyes had a look in them that I never saw before. He looked like a worried wild animal, that doesn’t know how to turn or what to do. He’s down here all alone among strangers, and evidently he has found out that Sack Todd and the rest aren’t his sort. Well, if he wants to reform I shan’t put anything in his way. But I am not going to give him too much rope—just yet.”
Having gained the deck of the vessel, Dick looked around cautiously. It was a dark night, the stars being hidden by clouds. He crept along slowly.
“Well, you’ll have to give me a pointer or two about the engine,” Dick heard Sack Todd exclaim. “I thought I knew how to run it, but I reckon I was mistaken.”
“Oh, why not let that go just now,” growled the mate of the Dogstar in return. “We’ve got to make sure of those boys first, and get some sleep, too.”
“It won’t take but a few minutes to explain about the engine,” said Gasper Pold. “I ran one once for six weeks.”
“Seems to me you have dabbled in a little bit of everything,” observed Sack Todd.
“So I have.”
The three men were near the pilot house, but came away and started for the hatchway leading down into the engine room. They had to pass close to where Dick was crouching and the eldest Rover hardly dared to breathe, so fearful was he of discovery.
Presently Dick saw the three men go down the iron ladder, one after another. As they did this, a sudden idea came into his head.
“I’ll do it!” he told himself, and sneaked forward with the silence and quickness of a cat.
The hatch still lay beside the opening, with the hooks that had been used to fasten it down. It was heavy and Dick wondered if he could move and fasten it quick enough.
“I wish Sam or Tom was here to help me,” he thought.
As he started to raise the hatch a sudden puff of wind made the mast creak loudly. This alarmed the men below and Sack Todd started up the ladder.
“We ought to have somebody on guard,” he said, so loudly that Dick heard him. “I don’t trust that Baxter very much.”
“All right,” answered Gasper Pold. “You go to the cabin, and—”
He broke off short as a cry came from Sack Todd. The ex-counterfeiter had caught sight of Dick as the latter was raising the hatch to drop it in place.
“Hi!” yelled Sack Todd, and then let out a scream as the hatch hit him on the head.
“Down you go!” answered Dick and leaped on top of the hatch to force it into place. One of Sack Todd’s fingers was caught and pinched and he let out another yell. But he kept his footing on the iron ladder and thus held the hatch up several inches.
“What’s up?” came from Sid Jeffers.
“They are trying to shut the hatch! Help me!”
“What!” roared Gasper Pold, and sprang up beside the ex-counterfeiter.
“Tom! Sam! Hans!” yelled Dick, a
t the top of his lungs. “Help! Quick!”
He continued to call out and at the same time did all in his power to force the hatch into place. He was sprawled on top, and no sooner did he get one end down than the other bobbed up. Then he heard Gasper Pold cry out:
“Look out! I am going to fire!”
“Don’t hit me,” cautioned Sack Todd.
“If you fire, so will I,” answered Dick, “and you’ll get the worst of it.”
“Hang the luck! We didn’t disarm them!” muttered Pold.
By this time Tom was coming up on deck, followed by Sam. Hans was told to remain behind, to keep his eyes on Dan Baxter.
As soon as Sam and Tom saw the situation they leaped to Dick’s assistance. Tom saw Sack Todd’s shoulder under the hatch and gave it a vigorous kick. This caused the man to lose his balance on the iron ladder and he went down a step. At the same time Gasper Pold fired.
“Oh, I am hit!” groaned the ex-counterfeiter, and fell in a heap on the head of Sid Jeffers. Then the hatch came into place with a thud and in a twinkling the three Rovers secured it.
“We have them! We have them!” cried Sam, in delight. “Good for you, Dick! That was a clever move.”
“Run down and make certain that other door is fast,” said Dick, and away went Sam with Tom at his heels. They came back in less than two minutes.
“It’s fast,” said Tom. “We’ve got them in as tight a box as they had us.”
CHAPTER XXVII
DAN BAXTER’S REPENTANCE
The three Rover boys could scarcely believe their senses. Here they were once more in full possession of the Mermaid so far as the deck and cabin were concerned—and those who had sought to make them prisoners were prisoners themselves.
“This is where the biter got bit,” remarked Tom. “Say, I feel so good I could almost dance.”
“Sack Todd got shot,” said Dick. “I’d like to know if it is serious.”
“Well, I am not very sorry for him,” said Sam. “He’s a thoroughly bad egg.”
“We want to make certain of Dan Baxter,” went on the eldest Rover. “He may fool Hans.”
They walked toward the cabin and ran down the companionway. At the lower doorway they paused and then Tom grinned.
On one side of the room was Dan Baxter with his hands in the air. On the other side was Hans, with a pistol in each hand.
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