Now that it was too late, Jenkins saw the missing sailor lying close beside him, unable to move hand or foot, and he understood that the castaways had formed a very well-considered plan, which was already more than half successful.
“It’s time now to tackle that fellow at the wheel,” the leader of the party whispered. “I’ll lounge back there; he’ll think I’m the mate until it is too late to make any disturbance, and the minute I get him by the mouth you must close in.”
“Why not call up the captain first?” one of the crowd asked.
“Because then we should have two on hand at the same time, and there’s no knowing what them boys might succeed in doing. The easiest plan is the best, and so far you’ve got no call to kick at the way I’ve managed this business.”
“Go ahead; I won’t say another word until the schooner is in our possession.”
Mr. Jenkins struggled hard to make some noise, which would serve to alarm the man at the wheel, but his bonds and the gag had been tied too skillfully to admit of the slightest movement, and he was forced to remain inactive while the mutineers carried out their vile plot to the end.
In less than five minutes the helmsman was also a prisoner, and one of the scoundrels took his station at the wheel, but careful not to change the yacht’s course, in case the captain should chance to be awake watching the tell-tale.
Ten minutes later the leader of the mutineers, after ordering his men to creep aft, where they would be hidden from view by the deckhouse, entered the cabin and knocked lightly on the owner’s door.
“What is the matter?” the captain asked, awakening at the first sound.
“Mr. Jenkins wants to know if you will come on deck for a moment, sir,” was the whispered reply. “The wind is freshening, and he would like to haul around more to the westward.”
Without waiting for an answer, the fellow went on deck; but he stood close by the companion-way, after whispering to the man at the wheel:
“Have that belaying-pin ready to knock him down, if he doesn’t give me a fair chance of cutting off his wind.”
Then the sound of footsteps told that the captain had left his room, and twenty seconds later he appeared at the top of the ladder.
Coming suddenly into the darkness as he had, and unsuspicious that the summons was a false one, the work of making him a prisoner was exceedingly simple.