第12章

No sir, Mr.Harding, there's something queer here--I don't like the looks of it.Why just take a good look at the faces of those men.Did you ever see such an ugly-looking pack of unhung murderers in your life, sir?""I must admit that they're not an overly prepossessing crowd, Norris," replied Mr.Harding."But it's not always either fair or safe to judge strangers entirely by appearances.

I'm afraid that there's nothing else for it in the name of common humanity than to take them aboard, Norris.I'm sure your fears are entirely groundless.""Then it's your orders, sir, to take them aboard?" asked Captain Norris.

"Yes, Captain, I think you'd better," said Mr.Harding.

"Very good, sir," replied the officer, turning to give the necessary commands.

The officers and men of the Halfmoon swarmed up the sides of the Lotus, dark-visaged, fierce, and forbidding.

"Reminds me of a boarding party of pirates," remarked Billy Mallory, as he watched Blanco, the last to throw a leg over the rail, reach the deck.

"They're not very pretty, are they?" murmured Barbara Harding, instinctively shrinking closer to her companion.

"'Pretty' scarcely describes them, Barbara," said Billy; "and do you know that somehow I am having difficulty in imagining them on their knees giving up thanks to the Lord for their rescue--that was your recent idea of 'em, you will recall.""If you have purposely set yourself the task of being more than ordinarily disagreeable today, Billy," said Barbara sweetly, "I'm sure it will please you to know that you are succeeding.""I'm glad I'm successful at something then," laughed the man."I've certainly been unsuccessful enough in another matter.""What, for example?" asked Barbara, innocently.

"Why in trying to make myself so agreeable heretofore that you'd finally consent to say 'yes' for a change.""Now you are going to make it all the worse by being stupid," cried the girl petulantly."Why can't you be nice, as you used to be before you got this silly notion into your head?""I don't think it's a silly notion to be head over heels in love with the sweetest girl on earth," cried Billy.

"Hush! Someone will hear you."

"I don't care if they do.I'd like to advertise it to the whole world.I'm proud of the fact that I love you; and you don't care enough about it to realize how really hard I'm hit--why I'd die for you, Barbara, and welcome the chance; why--My God! What's that?""O Billy! What are those men doing?" cried the girl.

"They're shooting.They're shooting at papa! Quick, Billy! Do something.For heaven's sake do something."On the deck below them the "rescued" crew of the "Clarinda"had surrounded Mr.Harding, Captain Norris, and most of the crew of the Lotus, flashing quick-drawn revolvers from beneath shirts and coats, and firing at two of the yacht's men who showed fight.

"Keep quiet," commanded Skipper Simms, "an' there won't none of you get hurted.""What do you want of us?" cried Mr.Harding."If it's money, take what you can find aboard us, and go on your way.No one will hinder you."Skipper Simms paid no attention to him.His eyes swept aloft to the upper deck.There he saw a wide-eyed girl and a man looking down upon them.He wondered if she was the one they sought.There were other women aboard.He could see them, huddled frightened behind Harding and Norris.

Some of them were young and beautiful; but there was something about the girl above him that assured him she could be none other than Barbara Harding.To discover the truth Simms resorted to a ruse, for he knew that were he to ask Harding outright if the girl were his daughter the chances were more than even that the old man would suspect something of the nature of their visit and deny her identity.

"Who is that woman you have on board here?" he cried in an accusing tone of voice."That's what we're a-here to find out.""Why she's my daughter, man!" blurted Harding."Who did you--""Thanks," said Skipper Simms, with a self-satisfied grin.

"That's what I wanted to be sure of.Hey, you, Byrne!

You're nearest the companionway--fetch the girl."At the command the mucker turned and leaped up the stairway to the upper deck.Billy Mallory had overheard the conversation below and Simms' command to Byrne.Disengaging himself from Barbara Harding who in her terror had clutched his arm, he ran forward to the head of the stairway.

The men of the Lotus looked on in mute and helpless rage.

All were covered by the guns of the boarding party--the still forms of two of their companions bearing eloquent witness to the slenderness of provocation necessary to tighten the trigger fingers of the beasts standing guard over them.

Billy Byrne never hesitated in his rush for the upper deck.

The sight of the man awaiting him above but whetted his appetite for battle.The trim flannels, the white shoes, the natty cap, were to the mucker as sufficient cause for justifiable homicide as is an orange ribbon in certain portions of the West Side of Chicago on St.Patrick's Day.As were "Remember the Alamo," and "Remember the Maine" to the fighting men of the days that they were live things so were the habiliments of gentility to Billy Byrne at all times.

Billy Mallory was an older man than the mucker--twenty-four perhaps--and fully as large.For four years he had played right guard on a great eastern team, and for three he had pulled stroke upon the crew.During the two years since his graduation he had prided himself upon the maintenance of the physical supremacy that had made the name of Mallory famous in collegiate athletics; but in one vital essential he was hopelessly handicapped in combat with such as Billy Byrne, for Mallory was a gentleman.