The Rover Boys Down East/Chapter 23
CHAPTER XXIII
ABOARD THE MARY DELAWAY
"Hold on there, you!" bawled Jerry Koswell.
"Why, it's the Rovers!" ejaculated Bart Larkspur. "How did they get here?"
"They are following us, that's what!" stormed Koswell. "And I won't have it!"
"What do you want?" asked Dick, as he walked to the end of the tug nearest to the motor boat.
"I want to know what right you've got to follow us?" returned Jerry Koswell, sourly.
"Who said we were following you?"
"Oh, I know you are. Didn't you follow us to Boston, too? I want to know what it means?"
"Maybe it means that we are going to have you arrested," put in Tom, with a side wink at his brothers.
"Arrested!" gasped Larkspur, and turned pale. "You shan't do it!"
"I want you to stop following us," went on Koswell.
"Go ahead—don't talk to them any more!" whispered Larkspur, uneasily. "Let us get away as soon as we can."
"I am not afraid," answered Koswell, boastfully.
"But they may have us locked up!"
"What's the row about?" asked the young man who was at the wheel.
"Oh, it was a row we had at college, Alf. Those fellows were in the wrong, but they made the Head believe otherwise, and we had to—er—resign," answered Jerry Koswell. "Well, go ahead, if you want to," he added.
"Where are you going?" asked Tom, as the motor boat commenced to move from the dock.
"We are bound for" began the stranger.
"Don't tell them, Alf!" begged Larkspur. "Go ahead—let's get out."
"If you don't tell us where you are going" began Sam, when Dick stopped him.
"Let them go—we haven't time to bother with them now," said the eldest Rover boy. "We have other fish to fry."
"As you say, Dick. But we ought to scare the wits out of them if nothing else."
"We'll do—it some day," put in Tom.
As the motor boat swept past they saw that the craft was named the Magnet. Soon some other boats coming in hid it from view.
On going ashore, the Rover boys made diligent inquiries concerning the Mary Delaway and at last learned that the schooner was expected by a certain transportation company some time that afternoon, to take on a cargo of lumber for Newark, New Jersey.
"I don't know what we can do excepting to wait," said Dick.
"Let us go down the harbor to meet the schooner," said Tom. "Then Sobber and Crabtree and the others won't have any chance to land in secret."
"Do you think they'll try to land here, Dick?"
"Honestly Tom, I don't. It is more than likely the captain of the schooner will land that crowd on some island before he comes into Portland."
"Slay's Island?"
"Yes—if there really is such a place."
The steam tug left the dock and ran down to the neighborhood of Portland Light. Here they cruised around for nearly two hours, when old Larry Dixon gave a shout:
"I see her! I see her! There's the Mary Delaway!"
"Where?" asked the three Rovers, excitedly.
"There!" And the old sailor pointed with his hand. "I know her by the two patches on her mainsail and the slit in her jib."
The steam tug was headed in the direction of the incoming schooner, and before long the two craft were within hailing distance of each other.
"Aboard the schooner!" cried Dick.
"Aboard the tug!" was the answering hail.
"I want to talk to the captain."
"I'm the captain. What do you want?"
"I want you to lay-to and let me come on board."
"What for?"
"Business."
"I'm in a hurry," snapped the captain of the Mary Delaway, and the Rovers saw that he was a hard looking individual.
"You can suit yourself, Captain. But if you don't let me come on board I'll have you placed under arrest as soon as you reach your dock," said Dick, in the sternest voice he could command.
"Arrest!" roared the master of the schooner. "Don't you talk like that to me, you young whipper-snapper."
"I will talk like that to you and I'll do just what I said."
"Have me arrested! You must be joking."
"I am not."
'What for?"
"You know well enough."
"Honestly I don't. You have made some mistake."
"Are you going to stop and let me come on board, or not?" went on Dick, as calmly as he could. "If you don't, it's arrest and nothing less. You can take your choice."
"I don't know what you are talking about," growled the captain. "But I suppose I'll have to let you come aboard, to avoid worse trouble."
The schooner was brought around, and not without difficulty Dick leaped aboard, followed by Tom and Sam. The captain of the schooner when he saw that they were only young men, glared savagely at them.
"Now then, explain yourselves!" he snapped, shortly.
"I want to know what you have done with Mrs. Stanhope?" said Dick, thinking it best to come directly to the point.
"Mrs. Stanhope? Who is she?"
"The lady who was abducted by Tad Sobber and Josiah Crabtree and taken on your schooner at Boston."
"Never heard of any of the people you are talking about, young man. You have got hold of the wrong boat."
"No, there is no mistake. You left Boston yesterday afternoon, and you had on board Mrs. Stanhope and her abductors. I guess you are old enough to know what the punishment is for abduction," went on Dick, pointedly.
"Abduction? I ain't abducted nobody, I tell you. You've got hold of the wrong boat. You can search us if you want to."
"Oh, I don't suppose the lady is on board now, I want to know what you did with her."
"Don't know her—never saw her."
"You took her on board, and you were seen doing it," put in Tom.
"Seen!" cried the captain, and gave a start.
"Yes," put in Sam. "Oh, we've got you dead to rights, and the best thing you can do is to tell us at once where she is."
"Say," said the master of the schooner, slowly and thoughtfully. "You tell me the particulars of this matter and maybe I can put you on the track of something. I never heard of any lady being abducted." He saw that he was cornered and that if arrested matters might go very hard with him.
In a few words Dick and his brothers told about how the Stanhope fortune had been stolen and how the lady herself had been abducted and taken to Boston. Then they said they had positive proof that the lady had been taken aboard the Mary Delaway.
"Where is the proof?" asked the captain, and now his voice was not as steady as it had been.
"Well, for one thing, there is a sailor on the tug who saw the lady on your vessel," said Dick. "In the second place I've got a letter, written by one of those rascals, and naming your boat"
"What! Did any of those lunkheads write it down in a letter?" roared the captain. "If they did" he stopped, in great confusion.
"Ah, so you admit the crime, do you?" said Dick, quickly.
"No, I don't admit no crime!" growled the captain of the schooner. "I promised to do a little job for two gentleman, that's all—and I did it—and got paid for it."
"What was the job to be?"
"If I tell you, you won't try to drag me into it, will you?" was the anxious question.
"If you don't tell us, you'll surely go to jail."
"I didn't know there was anything wrong, honest I didn't leastwise at the start, although I had some suspicions later. That feller Sobber and the old gent, Crabtree, along with a Mrs. Sobber, said they had an aunt who was a bit insane, and they wanted to take her to an island up here in Casco Bay, for rest and medical treatment. They hired me to do the job, and paid me well for it."
"And you took them to the island?"
"I did."
"What island?" asked all of the Rover boys.
"A place called Chesoque."
"Chesoque?"
"Yes. The old lobster catchers used to call it Shay's Island, after old Cap'n Shay, of the lobster fleet."