During nearly five minutes he stood there carelessly pushing the hatch back and forth, until the Mexican waved his hat, when the red-nosed man suddenly shut both doors, shoving into place the bolts which fastened them together.
The little party in the cabin looked up in surprise at this singular maneuver, but it was not until the sound of quick footsteps was heard on the deck as the man ran swiftly aboard the brig that any one thought of treachery.
"They've locked us in here so's they can steal the Bonita!" Bob shouted, as he leaped to the companion-way and began pounding on the bolted doors.
The oaken timbers were firm as a bulk-head, and, without a weapon, he might have worked there all day in vain.
Joe had sprung to the windows; but his efforts were quite as useless as Bob's. Heavy iron gratings, intended to keep out intruders and break the force of the waves, were screwed so firmly in the wood-work that they could not be removed from the inside save by the use of proper tools.
They were securely imprisoned, for the cabin had no outlet except at the companion-way, and two or three hours of hard work would be absolutely necessary before they could escape by the doors.
While Bob and Joe were darting from one possible point of vantage to another, shouting for help and uttering wild threats in the same breath, the boys had gathered at one of the port windows which looked directly on the brig's bulwarks.
"They ain't gettin' under way!" Jim cried, as if trying to persuade himself that the strangers were not intending to desert them.
"There's no need for the pirates to hurry," Bob said hoarsely, as he stood in the center of the cabin, his face convulsed by rage and trembling like one in an ague fit. "If I had jumped on 'em with the belayin'-pin when Joe held me back, all of that crowd wouldn't be able to get away. Come here, you cowards, an' give us a fair show! Open this hatch or I'll foller you till your lives won't be worth the livin'!"
"The hawsers have been cast off, an' now the brig is beginnin' to move through the water!" Jim reported, as he pressed his face close to the iron bars.
This information gave fresh impetus to Bob's wrath. He rushed from one corner of the cabin to another shouting the wildest threats, and behaving generally like an insane person.
Joe was quite as angry as the old sailor, but not to such an extent that his common sense had deserted him. While Bob strode back and forth he was working on the screws which held the bars in place. By breaking off the end of the largest blade in his pocket-knife quite an effective tool was made, and he had accomplished no slight portion of his task when Jim made the last report.
Rapidly as the engineer might labor, however, he knew it would be impossible to remove this one particular barrier to freedom before the Bonita would be beyond their reach. The promised wind had come sooner than it was expected, as could be told by the rapidly increasing speed with which the black bulwarks of the brig slipped past the window, and the task was not half completed when blue water could be seen as the vessel's stern swept by, leaving a wake which bubbled and danced merrily in the sunlight.
"There must be a pretty good breeze," Jim continued, speaking excitedly, as if the tears were very near his eyelids, "for the upper sails are all drawing. Now I can see that red-nosed bully at the wheel, an' he's wavin' his hat!"
Joe continued to work at the bars, and now, when it was too late to effect anything, Bob recovered from his anger sufficiently to make at least an attempt at assisting, while Harry and Walter stood near the companion-way, so thoroughly bewildered by this last blow of a cruel fate that speech was well nigh impossible.
The brig remained within Jim's range of vision but a few moments longer, and when she disappeared entirely he threw himself on a locker, trying to stifle with its cushion the sobs which convulsed him.
Without speaking, breathing like one after a long race, and heeding not the wounds on his fingers inflicted by the sharp edge of the knife, Joe worked on until the iron grating was held in place only by a couple of screws on one side. Then, standing on the locker, he used his foot as a battering-ram until the wood-work gave way, and the bars fell to the deck with a clatter and a crash that must have been heard by those on the brig.
