Francis Lynde

“ I had no more than time to drop to the floor of the engine hold before Dorgan was yelling down to me to start the motor and at the same moment I heard the motor boat backing away. Since flight would mean a prolonging of my captivity I made delay as I could, half minded to dart up the ladder and try my luck at reaching the departing messenger boat before it should get out of reach. There was a light land breeze blowing and I could hear Brill cursing the Minorcans for their slowness in making sail. ”

“ Retaining the twisting hold on my wrist the giant ran me ahead of him through the stinking hold, the short man following with the lantern. Through a bulkhead door I was thrust into the after hold where a heavy-duty motor was thumping away at its task of screw twirling and where the bilge stench was thinned—or thickened—with the reek of gasoline.
“There's your job,” said my captor, giving me a final shove in the direction of the laboring power producer. “You keep that baby turnin' over for what little it's worth. And you'd best keep awake on the job, at that. ”

“ How much they knew or cared about the legality of the business in which their vessel was engaged—her name was the Vesta, as I learned by seeing it painted on the bow of the whaleboat—was never made apparent to me. They obeyed orders and asked no questions. ”

“ It was pitch dark when Dorgan came to turn me out and from the racket on deck I gathered that Brill and the Minorcans were preparing to get the schooner under way. With brittle gruffness the giant ordered me down into the engine hold where the dangerous lantern was already lighted and hung, and I was told to start the motor. ”

“ From the fact that I speak of these things calmly it must not be supposed that I was taking all this “lying down,” as the phrase goes. On the contrary, long before the final load of liquor cases was ferried across to the Vesta I was so furious that I couldn't see straight. To say nothing of the sandbagging and the brutal manhandling that had followed it the time had now passed when I had promised to meet Alison. She needed me and my promise was broken. Somebody was going to pay; either the giant or his accomplice or Jeffreys—or all three. ”

“ A very cursory examination of the little den of a cabin soon convinced me that I couldn't break out of it while there were four men on deck to take the alarm. But as to that, there was nothing to be gained by trying to acquire any larger liberty while the schooner was at anchor in the islet bay. ”

“ The gasoline feed has a trick o' jogglin' loose by times and if it springs a leak and sets us afire you'll be the first one to get cooked, d'ye see?”
With no more talk than this the pair left me, climbing a short ladder to disappear through a hatch through which, before it was closed after them, I had a glimpse of the stars. Whatever was to come afterward I was a prisoner for the time being, and if my jailers were not gallows birds of the most unmistakable sort their plumage certainly belied them. ”

“ All the same, you've got to work your passage on this hooker. You're an ingineer, they're tellin' me. Get along aft and dry-nurse that pusher ingine for a spell. 'Tis long since she's had a granduit ingineer to wait on her. ”