“You?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Who are your owners?” demanded Captain Hampton, much astonished by Tom’s quiet assurance.
“I’m captain and half-owner of the ‘Restless,’ sir,” Halstead continued, still smiling at the other captain’s very evident astonishment. “The other owner is the engineer, Joe Dawson, my chum.”
Captain Hampton swallowed something very hard. Several of the passengers were smiling. A man who has followed the sea for years knows the capacity and efficiency that boys often display on shipboard, but it is unusual to find a boy acting as master of a yacht.
However, there was the “Restless,” and there was Tom Halstead in the captain’s uniform. These were facts that could not be disputed.
“You have a passenger, a Mr. Clodis, that you want to have me take off?” resumed Tom.
“Yes; you have come for him, then?”
“Not only that, but Mr. Seaton, the gentleman who has our boat in charter, has very urgently ordered us to bring Mr. Clodis ashore; also his baggage complete, and any and all papers that he may have brought aboard.”
“You have a comfortable berth on your boat?”
“Several of them,” Tom answered.
“Then I’ll have some of my men make the transfer at once. Our ship’s surgeon, Dr. Burke, will also go over the side and see that Mr. Clodis is made as comfortable as possible for his trip ashore.”
“Steward Butts will show your men to the port stateroom, aft, sir.”
A mate hurried away to give the order to Dr. Burke. A boatswain was directed to attend to having all of Mr. Clodis’s baggage go over the side.
“Come to my stateroom, sir, if you please,” requested Captain Hampton, and Tom followed.
“When you take a man with a fractured skull ashore, the authorities may want some explanation,” declared the ‘Constant’s’ sailing master, opening his desk. “Here is a statement, therefore, that I have prepared and signed. Take it with you, Captain–”
“Halstead,” supplied Tom.
The motor boat boy glanced hurriedly through the document.
“I see you state it was an accident, Captain Hampton,” went on Halstead, lowering his voice. “Our charter-man, Mr. Seaton, intimated that he believed it might have been a deliberate assault. Have you anything that you wish to say on this point, sir?”
“I don’t believe it was an assault,” replied the ship’s master, musingly. Halstead’s quick eye noted that Hampton appeared to be a sturdy, honest sea-dog. “Still, Captain Halstead, if you would like to question the steward who found Mr. Clodis at the foot of the main saloon companionway–”
“Have you made the investigation thoroughly, sir?”
“I think so – yes.”
“Then nothing is likely to be gained, Captain, by my asking any questions of a steward you have already questioned.”
The mate came back to report that Mr. Clodis had been carried over the side, and that his baggage had been taken aboard the “Restless.”
“I know you don’t want a liner held up,” Tom went on, slipping Captain Hampton’s report of the accident into his pocket. “I’ll go over the side, sir, as soon as you can ascertain whether Mr. Clodis had any papers that ought to be sent ashore with him.”
“There are none in the injured man’s pockets,” replied the steamship’s sailing master, “and none were deposited with the purser. So, if there are any papers, they must be in Mr. Clodis’s trunk or bag.”
“Thank you, sir. Then I’ll bid you good-bye and hurry over the side,” said Halstead, energetically.
As they stepped out of the stateroom a passenger who had been lingering near stepped up.
“Oh, one moment,” said Captain Hampton, suddenly. “Captain Halstead, this gentleman is Mr. Arthur Hilton. Since leaving New York he has received some wireless news that makes him anxious to return. He wants to go ashore with you.”
Arthur Hilton had stepped forward, holding out his hand, which Tom took in his own. Mr. Hilton was a man of about thirty, smooth-faced, with firm set jaws. Though evidently not a Spaniard, he had the complexion usual to that race. His dark eyes were keen and sharp, though they had a rather pleasant look in them. He was slender, perhaps five feet eight inches tall, and, although his waist and legs were thin, he had broad, rather powerful looking shoulders.
“You can set me ashore, can’t you, young man, for a ten-dollar bill?” inquired Hilton.
“Certainly, if Captain Hampton knows no reason why you shouldn’t leave the vessel,” Tom answered.
“Mr. Hilton has surrendered his passage ticket, and there is nothing to detain him aboard,” replied the steamship’s master.
“Your baggage ready, sir?” asked Tom.
“Nothing but this bag,” laughed Hilton, stepping back and picking up his hand luggage.
“Come along, then, sir.”
As Tom Halstead pressed his way through the throng of passengers gathered on deck, he heard several wondering, and some admiring, remarks relative to the youthfulness of the skipper of so handsome and trim a yacht.
Hilton followed the young skipper down over the side. Tom turned to help him to the deck of the “Restless,” but Hilton lightly leaped across, holding his bag before him. Tom Halstead, as he turned, got a good look at that bag. It was one that he was likely to remember for many a day. The article was of dark red leather, and on one side the surface for a space as large as a man’s hand had been torn away, probably in some accident.
“Here’s the passage money, Captain,” said Hilton, passing over a ten-dollar bill. Murmuring his thanks, the young skipper crumpled up the bill, shoving it into a trousers pocket, then hurried aft.
Clodis was a short, almost undersized man of perhaps forty-five, stout and well dressed. His head was so bandaged, as he lay in the lower berth of the port stateroom, that not much of his face was visible.
“He’s unconscious, and probably will be for hours,” stated Dr. Burke, as Captain Tom appeared in the doorway. “If he comes to, I’ve left some medicine with your steward, to be given the patient. Of course you’ll get him ashore and under medical care as promptly as possible, Captain.”
“Surgeons are on the way from Beaufort to meet us,” the young skipper nodded.
“Then I’ll return to my ship,” declared Dr. Burke, rising. “But I’m glad to know that Mr. Clodis is going to be met by a friend.”
As the doctor hurried over the side, Hilton turned to walk aft.
“Stay forward, if you please, sir,” interposed Captain Tom. “No one is to go into the cabin until the patient has been removed under a doctor’s orders.”
There was a frown on Hilton’s face, which, however, almost instantly vanished. Joe brought a deck arm chair and placed it for Mr. Hilton on the bridge deck.
“Good luck for you and your patient, sir,” called down Captain Hampton over the rail, as he prepared to get under headway.
“Thank you, sir,” Tom acknowledged. “We’ll take the best care of Mr. Clodis that we know how.”
With Hank on duty in the cabin, Tom Halstead had to cast off and make his own start as best he could. He managed the double task neatly, however, and, as he fell away the “Constant’s” engine-room bell could be heard for half-speed-ahead.
The little auto-whistle of the “Restless” sounded shrilly, to be answered with a long, deep-throated blast from the liner’s steam whistle. With this brief interchange of sea courtesies the two craft fell apart, going on their respective ways.
“Full