CHAPTER XXIX--THE FAILURE TO SURPRISE “WATER CASTLE”
Amos and Abner were each in the hands of half a dozen troopers in less time than it takes to relate. Then, as terrified screams burst from Muriel and Jenny, Abner gave vent to a howl that seemed hardly human and gasped affrightedly:
“They are ghosts, ghosts, ghosts! We are lost, Amos!”
“We are indeed, you fool!” spluttered his brother, struggling frenziedly now to free himself from the dozen muscular hands clutching him, “for you ’ave betrayed us.”
Then a gag was forced into the mouth of each of the two young desperadoes, and their hands were dragged behind their backs and handcuffed so.
“Stop your screaming, girls! Hold your tongues or we shall be forced to gag you also,” cried Inspector Medhurst.
At this threat Jenny was silent, save for a loud, terrified panting. Muriel had only uttered one involuntary scream upon the rush of the police.
“What is the meaning of this, policemen?” she now demanded, hoarsely. “Sergeant Dick, have you all gone crazy that--that you attack us--make prisoners of my cousins in this way and that you--you have disguised yourself in that way--are personating old Mr. Seymour?”
“Miss Arnold, an explanation is certainly due to you and your cousin Jenny,” replied Dick, sorrowfully, as he put his pistols back in his belt. “You have both been cruelly deceived by your relatives. It grieves me very much to have to tell you, Miss Muriel, that your two cousins there, as well as their brothers and father, are members of the dreaded White Hood Gang.”
“Impossible!” gasped Muriel, while Jenny stood as if transfixed. “Oh, that is too absurd!”
“It is true, Miss Arnold,” put in Inspector Medhurst. “Your cousin yonder took us for ghosts, and his brother cried out that he had betrayed them. So he had, for it was fairly good proof--his taking us for ghosts--that he believed we had all been killed by a horrible trap set for us by him and his brothers and the two Seymours up among the hills.”
“Oh, it is impossible--impossible! I cannot believe it of them,” panted Muriel, sinking helplessly upon the seat under the bulwark of the scow.
“You will oblige us, ladies, by going inside the cabin and keeping silent,” continued Inspector Medhurst. “If your uncle and cousins _are_ innocent, Muriel Arnold, they will be afforded every chance of clearing themselves by the law of the land, provided they submit quietly. Haverty and Leclere, bring the Seymours aboard. Then we will draw out and make for the ‘castle.’ Sergeant, will you take the tiller, and steer?”
Gasping hard and staring wildly at each other, the two girls passed inside the after-cabin, then stood embracing for mutual support, while the police-troopers brought the Seymours aboard and hauled on the anchor-rope, pulling the ark off-shore.
Amos and Abner had been thrown helplessly handcuffed and gagged into two of the bunks in the fore-cabin. Bud Seymour was put in another bunk and his wife was bound to the mast inside the cabin.
As the ark drew near “Water Castle,” Sergeant Dick and his fellow-policemen saw that the gate in the “dockyard” palisading stood wide, just as they expected it would be. The way in up to the verandah or landing-stage was clear.
But standing half within, half without the door of the “castle,” peering out anxiously, was old Alf, rifle in hand, while faces were visible at two of the windows facing them. There were no lights showing in the place; all had been extinguished, and most of the windows in sight appeared to be shuttered.
“They heard the girls’ screams, and are on their guard, sergeant,” Inspector Medhurst called in a low voice from the after-door of the ark.
“I’m afraid so, sir. Sound travels far over water, and this lake is famous for its remarkable echoes,” Sergeant Dick answered as cautiously, turning the ark’s nose a degree so as to skirt the palisading to the open gate.
“Ark, ahoy! Anything wrong? That you, Amos--Abner?” Old Man Alf bawled to them.
Sergeant Dick was still wearing “Bud” Seymour’s hat and coat, and again mimicking that old reprobate’s voice, shouted back:
“Of course, it’s Amos and Abner, and ‘Bud’ Seymour, too, a-comin’ to see you, ole hoss! What do you think’s wrong?”
Old Alf evidently consulted with others of the garrison, but he still seemed suspicious as he called out again:
“Amos, Abner, are you there? What did them there screams mean? We heerd them right enough. Muriel--Jenny, is it all right wi’ you?”
“No, father, it isn’t,” shrilled Jenny on the instant, rushing to the edge of the squared bow. “The police are here, and they are after you and the boys. They’ve got Amos and Abner, and the two Seymours, prisoners in the cabin. Those you see are police wearing their hats.”
She shouted the words rapidly--all in one breath.
Muriel gasped in dismay and ran and clapped a hand over her mouth, too late. She fought to free her mouth and shout something more, as Inspector Medhurst and three of the troopers rushed forth from the cabin and seized and dragged her and Muriel within it again.
“Oh, Jenny! Why were you so foolish? They will fight to the bitter end now. I know they will--your father and brothers. You have sealed their doom.”
“She has that, for, as I said, if they resist, we will show no mercy--we cannot show any,” exclaimed Inspector Medhurst. Then he stepped to the door again, and called out:
“Surrender, Arnold! Submit quietly, and you will all have the benefit of a fair trial. Refuse, and resist us at your peril! You know the penalty of defying us--the police.”
Old Alf had vanished within the door, which was now closed, and the other faces were no longer visible at the windows. All the windows in sight presented only their armored, loopholed screens.
Suddenly one of the screens was thrown open, and Aunt Kate’s voice boomed forth, even as the bow of the ark scraped one of the gate posts in the palisading, and the clumsy vessel swung slowly round to enter the gate.
“Let my two sons and daughter whom you have prisoners come on to the verandah and talk to us, and we’ll think about surrenderin’.”
Inspector Medhurst did not reply, but stepped back inside the fore-cabin. He called through the after one for the two troopers with Sergeant Dick to keep close behind the tiller-shield, with him.
“Stand on up to the house and lay us alongside the verandah, sergeant,” he added.
“Do you hear me, you policemen?” roared the lion-like old woman again. “Give my sons and daughter their liberty, let ’em join us, and we’ll then talk about surrenderin’.”
“Your two sons aboard with us are prisoners, and as such they will remain,” Medhurst answered, after another moment or two’s pause during which Sergeant Dick ran the scow swiftly and deftly alongside the verandah. “I will hold no further parley with you than to ask you once more, ‘Do you surrender or do you not?’”
“Curse you, we will fight to the death!” roared out the voice of Aaron.
An automatic pistol cracked rapidly from the open window, and bullet after bullet from the weapon clanged against and ricocheted off the steel tiller-shield, behind which Sergeant Dick and Troopers Bell and Watts were standing huddled, showing not as much as an elbow, fortunately for them.
“Hold your fire, troopers! Hold your fire!” bawled Inspector Medhurst. “Within the ‘castle,’ there! Alf Arnold, listen to me. I have no wish to fire on the house, as you have women with you. Let them come out--your wife and two daughters-in-law--then, if you men will not surrender, so much the worse for you. Send the women out, anyhow, first of all.”
Abel, the other son in the house, had been quick to join in the firing at the ark. But both desperadoes now ceased shooting, and a silence intervened, broken at length by Aunt Kate’s voice, calling out:
“No, no! Let Deb and Bella go, but my place is here. I will not leave you, Alf, nor my brave lads.”
“They only want you to open the door so’s they can make a rush in. Don’t be gulled, men,” shrilled the voice of Bella, Abel’s wife.
“We will take no such advantage of you,” the inspector bawled back, “but, if you doubt my word, lower the women through your trapdoor into a canoe.”
Another longish pause, broken only by murmuring voices within the “castle”; and then old Alf Arnold called out:
“Very well, we will send the women out through the trapdoor.”
Aunt Kate and her daughters-in-law could be heard still fiercely protesting against quitting their husband’s sides. But the men’s arguments evidently prevailed, for presently the occupants of the ark could hear noises under the “castle,” which told them the women were being put into one of the canoes.
Sergeant Dick and Troopers Bell and Watts, by stooping and peeping round the side of the tiller-screen, could see, through the piles and cross-timbering under the verandah, the three women being lowered in turn through the trap in the central passage of the “castle” into a canoe drawn up under it. There were two other canoes moored close by.