"With our fists, too, confound the luck!"
They were now rapidly overhauling the yacht. It was with throbbing
pulses that Captain Jack Benson steered the "Pollard" up alongside.
CHAPTER XVI
FIGHTING A MUTINY WITH THREATS
Hal Hastings came springing out of the conning tower with a megaphone.
Jack, with a final swing of the wheel, brought the "Pollard" in on a
course parallel with the steam yacht, and not more than two hundred feet
away from the other vessel's port rail.
At the same moment Benson rang the signal bell for reduced speed, so
that the sterns of the two craft were kept almost on a line with each
other.
"Ahoy, yacht!" bellowed the commander, through the megaphone. "Any
trouble aboard?"
"Mutiny!" hoarsely shouted the white-haired man, turning his head only
enough to send the word.
"It looks like it," agreed Commander Ennerling. "We are United States
Naval officers, aboard a torpedo boat. The mutiny must stop. Shut off
your speed, and send a boat over here. My order is addressed to the
mutinous crew."
Two of the mutineers were hiding behind a mast, three more behind the
forward end of the after deck house. Just how many more there were,
could not be clearly made out by those on board the "Pollard," for some
had undoubtedly crouched below the deck bulwarks.
But one man among the mutineers possessed the rough courage to advance
to the rail, shouting in a husky voice:
"You go on your way, and mind your own business, Mr.
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