Page:Mistress Madcap (1937).pdf/132

 appalled silence there was, for a tiny space of time, not a sound, not one movement. Then with a crash of his overturned chair. Young Cy sprang to his feet, his e'es blazing like angry flames in his white face.

"I'd say no, sir—a thousand times, no!"

Again absolute silence drifted over the cabin. Then the boy pointed with shaking hand at the spyglass.

"Were you trying to bribe me with that, sir?" he asked, hot scorn in his voice.

Captain Jaffray smiled and now both his young guests saw, with terror, the cruelty underlying that smile.

"Putting it crudely—perhaps," he said. Charity, shrinking back, caught his eye. Like a panther, Jaffray turned upon her. "Perhaps you," he snarled, all suavity gone forever from his voice, "perhaps you know something o' the 'Jersey Blues.

But Young Cy interposed bravely.

"She knows naught," he said curtly. And Jaffray, convinced, for Charity's youth and frightened face spoke more than Young Cy's words, turned toward the hatchway. But before he had paced forward more than a foot or two. Charity, whose gaze had, by chance, come to rest upon one of the portholes, uttered a horrified shriek.

"Young Cy, the boat is moving! See, we are being carried away! I can no longer see the dock nor the shore! He is taking us away from Newark!"