The dog, which had crawled away in a seemingly dying condition, had struggled again to its feet and appeared to be meditating another attack on Hodge.

"I've got an eye on him," Hodge called back. "Look out for your man!"

Merriwell released the fellow he had overthrown, and the man climbed dazedly and sullenly to his feet. Inza hurried toward him, shrieking and making motions with her hands. The man did not understand her. It began to seem that both of them contemplated an attack on Bart and Merry.

"Wait a minute!" she cried. "Don't strike them, Frank, Bart, if you can help it!"

"I think I'm awake," growled Hodge, as if he wanted to pinch himself to make sure of it.

The scene was certainly a strange one--as strange as if taken from a comic opera. The fishing-sloop rocking on the long swell, the dog cowed and uncertain, one deaf man doubtingly flashing the lantern in the face of Bart Hodge, and the other swaying unsteadily on his feet, as if he contemplated making a blind rush at Merriwell. In less than a minute Inza reappeared from the cuddy. She held in her hand a piece of paper on which she had hastily written some explanatory sentences. This she thrust beneath the nose of the man who held the lantern.

The effect was magical. The lantern came down, something that sounded like an attempt at words gurgled in his throat, and he made a signal to the other fisherman, whose att.i.tude also changed instantly.

"It's all right now!" Inza laughed, though the laugh sounded a bit hysterical.

"Well, I'm glad that it is!" said Merriwell. "But an explanation would be comfortable."

"These men rescued me from the piece of broken boat to which I was clinging," Inza hastily explained. "I was knocked overboard by the collision. They are fishermen, and are now anch.o.r.ed on their fishing-grounds."

"So I see. But what about one of them chasing you, when you ran out of the cuddy this afternoon? You tried to jump overboard!"

"The men both thought me deranged by what I had pa.s.sed through, and I suppose I may have acted strange. I saw you and Bart on the raft, and I tried to make the men see you. But they thought I was going to jump overboard, and I was carried bodily into the cuddy and locked in. I didn't know at the time that they could read writing, or I should have tried that; though I was kept locked in the cuddy so long that it would have done no good!"

Then she began to motion to the men; and one of the fellows came toward Bart in a sheepish way and held out a hand. Bart hesitated about taking it, fearing a trick; but the man's intentions were honest. Having made this advance, the way to an understanding was so fully paved that within less than ten minutes thereafter both Frank and Hodge, having wrung out their clothing in a contracted place below deck, were warming themselves and trying to get dry by the cuddy stove, while Inza was rattling on with the story of her adventures.

"I really don't know yet whether I am awake or dreaming!" said Bart.

"This about knocks everything I have ever seen!"

"Just fishermen," said Inza. "They would have picked you up, no doubt, if they had seen you--they couldn't hear you; or if I had been able to make them see you. It must have been an hour or more after that when I found that they had writing-material in the little desk over there, and I wrote them a note. But the fog was so thick then that it was no use for them to make a search."

"Why didn't they run back to New York with you?"

"Simply because they thought they had done their duty by me, and that it would pay them better to come out to the fishing-grounds and take me in on their return. I promised them money, but----"

She laughingly held up a little purse.

"I had just ten cents in that, and you see I couldn't convince them of the fabulous wealth of my father and my friends by exhibiting that. They said they would take me when they went in, and I could not get anything else out of them."

"Perhaps a little money--as much or more than they can make out of this fishing-trip--will induce them to take us right in. That is, as soon as the wind rises. We're not only anch.o.r.ed, but we're becalmed now."

Frank was thinking of Elsie and of the others who had been on the _Merry Seas_. His heart was aching with anxiety. Bart and Inza were scarcely less distressed.

The cabin or "cuddy," which had been surrendered to them by the fishermen who were now outside, was a diminutive place, smelling unpleasantly of fish and burnt grease. On two sides were bunks. Near the center was the rusty stove about which the three friends were gathered.

Its heat caused their wet clothing to emit a cloud of steam. At one side was the writing-desk, fashioned by clumsy hands, and scattered about was a miscellaneous a.s.sortment of odds and ends, consisting of sea-boots and oilskin coats, nets, and fishing-tackle.

"Not a ladies' parlor," Inza admitted, glancing about "But I tell you I was glad to get into it."

"And you don't know anything about the people on the _Merry Seas_?"

Frank asked.

A look of pain swept across the dark, handsome face.

"Not a thing! I am worried to death about all of them, especially father. But I hope for the best. If any others went overboard, the tug was right there to pick them up, and we can believe, until we know otherwise, that it did. We have been so very fortunate ourselves!"

"More than fortunate!" Merry observed, with a thankful heart. "Now, if we can only get to the city without delay! Call in the fishermen and perhaps an offer of money can do something. If not, we can capture the sloop and take it in ourselves!"

"But there is no breeze," Bart reminded.

"That is so. But call in the fishermen. We may get some opinions out of them."

Jabez and Peleg Sloc.u.m, the deaf-mute owners of the fishing-sloop _Sarah Jane_, of Sea Cove, New Jersey, were what one might call "queer ducks"; a thing not so much to be wondered at when the fact that they had been deaf and dumb from infancy is taken into consideration, with the further fact that the greater part of their fifty odd years had been spent in the lonely and precarious calling of Atlantic fishermen. They were rough and gnarled and cross-grained, like the sloop whose deck they trod; yet, in spite of all, like that same sloop, they had some good qualities.

To them fishing was the end and aim of existence. Hence, as soon as Merriwell, with the aid of pencil and paper, began to talk of being taken straight to New York, the fishermen shook their heads. They had work to do out there on the fishing-banks. It was probable they reasoned that it was not their fault that these young people had fallen in their way. They had dutifully rescued them from watery graves--or, in the case of Hodge and Merriwell--had permitted them to rescue themselves. And thus, whatever obligation they may have been under as fellow human beings had been fully discharged. They did not want Merriwell's money--and they certainly did not desire to run to New York. It was not their habit to visit New York. Sea Cove was their home, and, whenever they pulled up their rusty anchor for a run from the banks, they returned to Sea Cove invariably, unless blown out of their lat.i.tude by a storm, as sometimes happened.

Finally one of them wrote:

"See in morning."

"And now we'll have something to eat!" Inza declared. "Both of you are famished. You are getting thawed out and dry, and if your stomachs are strong enough to stand the odor of things, I'll go ahead and get some supper for you. I know where everything is in the--what do you call it?--locker? Peleg, that's the taller one, showed me."

"Peleg must be sweet on you," remarked Frank, laughing.

She picked up a "spider" and shook it at him.

"Don't trouble the cook, Mr. Merriwell, if you expect to get anything to eat!"

"I was just going to remark that I admired his taste. He is a man of most excellent judgment!"

"How is your taste, Mr. Hodge?" Inza calmly queried. "Do you think you can eat fish?"

"I could eat a whale. I'll gobble up this fish-basket pretty soon if you don't hurry and serve something."

"Very well. Fish-baskets on toast. There are fish in a box back there.

And there are crackers in this box. And over there I found some pretty nice canned goods."

Merriwell smiled. Inza's manner was like a break of sunshine.

"Your talk makes me simply ravenous."

That they were ravenous they showed when they fell to on the supper which Inza prepared as best she could from the materials available.

There were many things that might have been improved. They might have gone out on the deck, for one thing, but the wet fog had come down again, with a chill that went to the bones--a chill that was simply horrible to Frank and Bart in the damp condition in which their clothing still remained.

The fishermen did not seem to mind the fog, however, but walked the deck and smoked, garbed in oilskins and sou'westers. They talked, too, by signaling to each other with their hands. Merry, Hodge, and Inza sat up until a late hour, going over and over again all the points of the day's experience, with the many conjectures and unanswerable questions which grew out of it.

The fact that the sloop belonged in Sea Cove, the village near which, according to the newspaper report, Barney Mulloy was killed, was a matter of intense interest, even though the fishermen could in no wise enlighten them on the subject of Barney's murder. Frank continued to hope that a breeze would spring up, and that he could induce the Sloc.u.ms, by a liberal money offer, to set him and his friends ash.o.r.e at the nearest point without delay. In the event of a refusal, the temptation to take the vessel in himself would have been strong, but he knew that such a course would hardly do in these modern days. It smacked too much of piracy. Money was the lever he hoped to use, and when the breeze came he intended to make the lever sufficiently strong to move even these placid souls.

But the breeze did not come. The fog seemed to grow thicker and damper.