Knight Templar by Leslie Charteris

Author:Leslie Charteris [Charteris, Leslie]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781558820104
Publisher: Amereon Ltd
Published: 1930-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

4

HE DUMPED the quartermaster beside the third officer, and went quickly down the companion to the upper deck. There he found a plentiful supply of rope, and cut off as much as he required. On his way back he reentered the cabin in which he had found the girl, and borrowed a couple of towels from the bedchamber section beyond the curtains. That much was easy. He flitted silently back to the bridge, and rapidly bound and gagged the two unconscious men with an efficient hand; the task called for hardly any attention, and while he worked his mind was busy with the details of the job that would have to be done next—which was not quite so easy. But when his victims lay at his feet giving two creditable imitations of Abednego before entering the hot room, the Saint went back to the upper deck without seeing the girl again.

On his first trip he had located one of the most important items in the catalogue—the boat in which Sonia Delmar had been taken to the ship. It still hung over the side, obviously left to be properly stowed away the next morning; and, which was even more important, the gangway still trailed low down by the water, as a glance over the side had revealed.

"And a lazy lot of undisciplined sea-cooks that makes them out," murmured the Saint when he had digested all this good news. "But I'm making no complaints to-night!"

But for that providential slackness, the job he had to do would have been trebly difficult. Even so, it was none too easy; but it had come to him, during part of the buccaneering business on the bridge, that there was no real need to look forward to any superfluous unpleasantness on the return to Saltham, and that a resourceful and athletic man might very well be able to rule that ship's crew out of the list of probable runners for the Death-or-Glory Stakes. That was what the Saint was out to do, being well satisfied with the prospect of the main-line mirth and horseplay that lay ahead, without inviting the intrusion of any imported talent en route; and he proceeded to put the first part of this project into execution forthwith, by lowering the boat gingerly, foot by foot, from alternative davits, until it hung within a yard of the water. Then, with a rope from another boat coiled over his shoulder, he slid down the falls. One end of the rope he made fast in the bows of the boat; and then he spent some time adjusting the fenders. The other end of the rope he carried back with him on his return climb, stepping off on the main deck; and then, going down the gangway, he made that end fast to a convenient stanchion near the water level. Then he went back to the upper deck and paid out some more rope, even more gingerly at first, and then with a rush. The tackle creaked

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