“It made about as good a signal, as one could want,” responded Rob warmly, “but now tell us about your capture, Joe, how did it happen?”

“Why, you see,” exclaimed the lad, his voice growing stronger as he proceeded, “I was just thinking it was about time to wake my relief when I heard a rustling noise in the bushes back of the camp.  I walked up there to investigate, for I thought it might be some animals—­maybe the captain’s pigs.”

“Keel haul them lubberly swine,” from the captain.

“But, as you shall hear, I was mistaken.  Hardly had I reached the edge of the dark shadows than I was seized and a hand put over my mouth.  I had only time to let out one yell for help.”

“The one that woke me,” put in Merritt, in parenthesis.

“That was it; I guess,” went on the small lad, “well, I was picked up and carried some little distance to where they had a boat, and thrown into it.  Then the three men who were in the boat rowed to an island with a tent on it and there two of them got out.  The other, a fellow with a big beard and very dirty, then rowed over to this place with me and, after putting some bread and a bottle of water inside the door, closed and locked it.

“I carried on like a baby, I guess.  I cried for a long time and shouted, but no one came.  Then I grew quieter and tried to find some way of escape but the shutters were all fastened and the door was too strong for me.  I tried to clamber up the chimney once but I had to give it up.  Then suddenly the thought of making a smoke came to me and then I improved on that idea and used the Morse code that Rob has been drumming into me.  I never thought that I might be able to use it to save my life maybe—­or at least a lot of hunger and misery.”

“Could you recognize the men who took you if you saw them again?” asked Rob earnestly.

“I’m not sure,” responded the small lad, “one of them I would know—­the one with the beard.  The other two wore masks.  But I think their voices sounded like Bill’s and Jack’s.  I’m sure of the man with the beard though.”

“Hank Handcraft,” exclaimed Merritt.

“Oh, that’s who it was,” cried the small lad, “I thought somehow the voice and something about the man seemed familiar.  He’s that old beach comber who lives outside Hampton.”

“That’s the son uv a sea-swab,” roared the captain, “oh, if I could only get my hands on him, I’d—­”

The fate the captain had reserved for Hank was doomed not to be known, for as he was speaking Paul Perkins gave a sudden shout: 

“Look—­look there!” he cried, pointing.

Sneaking up to the tented island was the familiar outline of Sam Redding’s hydroplane.

CHAPTER XXII

THE ESCAPE OF THE BULLY

The group standing about the newly rescued lad on the veranda of the deserted bungalow galvanized into instant action.