Chapter VIII: Nick Wins a Point

“This is a tangle all around,” he said to himself. “Who the deuce is this fellow, getting ready to lay out our friend Miguel? Can it be----”

He did not finish the sentence. At that instant some unexplainable impulse made Miguel swing around in his chair.

He saw the tall figure standing there, and, without hesitation, he picked up the deck chair on which he had been sitting and flung it full at the head of the other man.

Nick Carter saw the man put up his hands to protect his head. Then the chair smashed into him and he reeled backward across the cabin roof, holding the chair in front of him.

In the darkness, Nick was unable to see whether the chair had struck him in the face or not. Certain it was that it had taken him off his balance, and that he seemed to have been weakened in some way.

He staggered backward across the roof and fell hard against the low railing. For an instant he tried to save himself.

But he had nothing to clutch at, and could only go. Turning almost a complete somersault, he went off the roof and down into the water with a loud splash.

“A good thing he didn’t strike the deck on his head. That would have settled him. Even in the water he may not be altogether safe.”

This last thought made Nick let himself down quickly from the block and sent him scurrying to the stern of the yacht, where he could get to his skiff.

It was not an easy task to get down without being seen, for the noise of the scuffle had attracted three men who slept forward, and were part of the deck crew of the vessel.

But Nick reached his skiff, and, as he heard a gasping cry for help some distance out in the river, he rowed rapidly in that direction.

He was only just in time. In the faint moonlight he made out a ghastly white face--it was Prince Marcos’. Nick saw that he was swimming on his back almost unconsciously.

There is little doubt but that, if Marcos had not been a magnificent swimmer, he would have drowned before the detective reached him.

As it was, his arms and legs moved practically of their own volition. They had been used so often in swimming that they went through the motions mechanically so long as he had strength enough to use them at all.

As Nick Carter reached for him, the nearly unconscious man grabbed at the boat, while the water gurgled in his throat and seemed to be choking him.

It was an unfortunate grab. The skiff tipped over, and before the detective could save himself, he was in the water with the man he had come to rescue.

Now began one of those awful struggles that good swimmers dread so much, and yet which may come to any of them at any time.

Nick Carter knew it would be useless to expostulate with the drowning man. He must try to beat him off. It would be the only way to save both their lives.

But Marcos was strong, and in the water he could use his strength to the disadvantage of his would-be rescuer, even though Nick was much the more powerful of the two.

At the first collision, they went down together. Here was Nick Carter’s chance. The detective had often practiced holding his breath for long periods, so the ducking was not so trying to him as it was to Marcos.

For this reason Nick deliberately stayed below the surface as long as he could, with the object of taking all the life out of the other man. It would be possible to handle him if he were unconscious.

But Marcos had good lungs, and though they were under the water long enough to have rendered many a person unconscious, they came up without any material change in the condition of either.

Marcos had recovered somewhat from the blow of the chair, which had been the main cause of his dazed condition. The water had revived him to some extent, but he hardly knew what he was doing.

He fought wildly with Nick, trying to hold to him, and down they went again.

This time, however, the detective contrived to loosen himself a little. Getting to the surface with a frantic effort, he delivered a jolt under the chin of Marcos that knocked him out entirely.

“I’m sorry for that,” muttered Nick. “But I had to do it. There was no other chance for either of us. Now, how am I to get him to shore?”

He got the senseless man across his shoulder, and struck out vigorously in the general direction of the launch and away from the yacht.

“Hello! They’ve lowered a boat from the yacht. They are not going to let their man drown, if they can help it, I suppose. Well, they don’t get him.”

A boat with three men in it had left the yacht, and Nick could just make out its dark outline as he looked toward the half-lighted sky in the vicinity of the dull moon.

“If they get this fellow, we shall be just where we were before,” was the detective’s reflection. “I’ve got to prevent that. It will be a hard swim to shore. But I believe I can make it if I am not interfered with.”

The boat was rowing swiftly toward him, and soon there came a long flash of white light across the water which struck him squarely in the face.

Simultaneously, the man who sat in the bows, looking ahead, called out, in a gruff tone:

“Pull hard! And you, at the helm, steer toward the shore a little. I see him right ahead!”

“Aye, aye, sir!”

Nick Carter was quite aware that he could not beat the boat to shore. Even if he had been unencumbered, he could not have expected that he would swim faster than a husky man could pull a light boat containing only three persons.

But it was not the habit of the detective to yield until he was overcome by the enemy. “Fight to the end,” was his motto, and he had won many a seemingly hopeless battle by adhering to this determination.

“I wish you could swim a little yourself,” he said, in a gasping whisper, to the unconscious man who now weighed so heavily across his shoulder. “I’ll have to get you in some other position, I am afraid, or you’ll drag both of us under.”

He began to shift his burden a little, but without much advantage, when suddenly there came to his ears the low chugging of the launch.

“She hasn’t got all the power on,” he muttered. “But, by Cæsar, she is moving it a little. I always knew that girl was better than the average. She’s as good as a man in many things that you wouldn’t expect a girl to know much about.”

His quick ear had told him just what had happened. Claudia had loosened the launch from the landing stage, and putting on some of the power, was coming rather slowly to his aid.

“If she can get to me before the skiff, it will be a good thing,” he muttered. “I wish she’d hurry up that engine a little. What a pity I did not give her a lesson while we were coming up the river! However, it’s too late now. I’ll have to be grateful that she can do as much as this.”

It soon resolved itself into a three-cornered race, with the chances about equal.

If the launch were to get to Nick and the unconscious Marcos first, the probability was that the men in the boat would be circumvented. There was still another chance. Even if Nick could swim away in the darkness, so that the searchlight could not pick him up, it would not be bad.

On the other hand, if the boat got to him before the launch, then the whole purpose of the expedition up the river would be frustrated at once.

It was soon apparent to the detective that Claudia was handling the launch very well so far as the steering was concerned.

She did not quite understand the engine. Therefore, she hesitated about opening the throttle too wide, with the result that her speed was less than it need have been.

On came the boat, while the launch bored her way forward steadily in the other direction.

Nick Carter never allowed his exertions to flag for an instant. Whatever the boats might do, he knew that it would be better for him to get as near shore as possible.

“There he is!” exclaimed the gruff voice he had heard before, as the small white light sought out his face again. “He’s swimming for shore. We’ve got him now!”

“Have you!” muttered Nick, quickening his stroke. “I’m not so sure of that, my friend!”

He saw that the launch was about the same distance from him on one side as the skiff was on the other.

Allowing for the difference in speed--for the launch was coming much faster than the rowboat, even without the full pressure of her engine--Claudia ought to get to him a minute or so sooner than the skiff.

Once he could get Marcos on board the launch, the detective was not afraid of anything that might happen to himself.

He did not believe the men on the yacht would know that he had been their assailant at the ball, and he was satisfied that when they knew who he was, the power of his name, as that of a detective who had been heard of even in Joyalita, would be his protection.

“If that is not enough protection,” he told himself grimly, “then I have a pair of active fists that have never failed me yet.”

He increased his efforts, but was swimming now straight for the launch, rather than for the shore, although in a general way he was going shoreward, too.

“Stop!” bellowed the gruff voice.

Nick Carter did not answer, but the girl, trying to increase the speed of the launch, somehow got her hand on the valve that governed the whistle, and a mocking scream was the consequence.

The detective grinned. It was a good answer to the skiff, he thought, although he was rather surprised that the girl had hit on it so opportunely.

“She’s learning the launch pretty fast,” he told himself. “It’s made them mad, I guess.”

“If you don’t give up, it will be the worse for you, Marcos!” came from the gruff man in the skiff, as he waved his light about.

“Marcos, eh?” thought Nick. “This is the right man I have here, after all. I thought I recognized him. Well, he isn’t going on board that yacht again, if I know myself--and I think I do.”

He felt a thrill of satisfaction as he saw how the launch was cutting through the water, faster than at first.

“She’s getting the hang of it,” he muttered. “Hope she won’t run us down. I can’t do much dodging with about a hundred and seventy pounds of Joyalita prince on my back. Whew! He gets heavier every second.”

In another minute he saw there was no doubt about the outcome of the race. The launch was gaining rapidly.

The man in the bow of the skiff recognized this fact, and he was swearing in Spanish with such gusto that it might be wondered where he had learned so many oaths.

“He’ll have to swear in another tongue if he keeps on,” laughed Nick. “The Spanish language won’t be rich enough for him much longer. Why doesn’t he give us a few of those in English? Or in Chinese? That’s a language with good profane possibilities.”

If it may seem strange that Nick Carter could laugh under such circumstances, let it be said that it was the way of the detective to enjoy himself when things were coming his way, no matter how great might be his peril.

It was his disposition to see the humorous side even of a very serious situation that accounted for much of his success.

“Marcos!” called out Claudia.

“All right!” responded Nick. “Come along! Look out you don’t run us down!”

“Thank Heaven!” she gasped, with unmistakable fervor.

The girl had learned a great deal about the launch even in the short time in which she had been guiding it from shore, and it was with considerable skill that she reduced its speed now, preparatory to running alongside of the two men in the water.

When she had been talking about the resemblance of Nick Carter to Prince Marcos, she had mentioned the fact that their voices were so much alike that it would be easy for one to be mistaken for the other.

Now, when Nick called out to her to come on, in response to her cry of “Marcos!” she supposed it was her cousin calling.

“Here, Marcos!” she said, as she came near. “Climb into the boat. I’ll hold it as still as I can.”

“I’m afraid we shall have to lift him in, Miss Solado,” suggested Nick. “He isn’t able to help himself!”

“Oh, Mr. Carter!” she replied. “Is it you I am talking to? But you have my cousin--haven’t you?”

“Yes. He’s here. But he is not quite as well as he might be. Steady! Keep the boat where it is, and we can get him in. Never mind about that man in the rowboat. He can’t get to us in time. Let him blow.”

The gruff-voiced man had never ceased his torrent of profanity and threats. They came rumbling across the water as violently as ever. In fact, they increased now that he saw there was a boat by the side of the swimmer and his charge.

“Stop, Marcos!” he bawled. “You’d better, if you know what is to your advantage. We won’t stand any more of this nonsense.”

“Let him talk!” said Nick Carter, in a low tone, to the girl. “Can you get hold of Marcos’ shoulder? That’s right! Catch him by the coat lapel and pull, just as I give him a heave!”

“Oh! We must save him!” panted the girl. “But you, Mr. Carter! What will you do if----”

“Never mind about me. Up with him!”

It was with an almost superhuman effort that the detective managed to get the upper part of Prince Marcos across the gunwale of the launch.

Fortunately, the craft was strong and firm in the water, so that it did not tip much.

“Can you push a little more, Mr. Carter?”

“I’ll try!”

Getting underneath the unconscious Marcos, Nick gave another tremendous heave. Claudia pulled with all her strength at the same moment, and the helpless man lay across the launch. His legs were hanging over the side, but not enough to drag him out.

“Swing the boat around!” called out Nick. “Put your wheel over to the left as hard as you can! That’s right! Make a wide circle! You’ll get there all right!”

The girl maneuvered the little craft neatly until it was headed downstream.

Nick saw it with strong approval.

“That’s the way! Now put on all the power you can and hustle down to New York! We’ve fooled them, after all!”

“But, Mr. Carter!” she called out.

“Go ahead!” was all he said. “Get to New York! That’s all you have to do!”

Claudia Solado would have liked to stay and pick up the detective. But she was a girl of real sense, and she knew better than to fly in the face of a man who had saved her cousin against almost overwhelming odds.

So she opened the throttle wide, and, with the unconscious Marcos lying across the boat--his head on a mat at her side, and his feet occasionally dipping in the choppy waves as she raced along--she soon left Nick Carter and her pursuers far behind.

She had not gone far, however, before the skiff ran up to where the detective was swimming hard toward the shore.

With an oath the gruff-voiced man seized him by his water-soaked coat collar.