Chapter 25

OFF SANDY HOOK.

Levi did not learn that the great enemy had been captured till he went up in the morning to relieve the steward; but the news was spreading rapidly, and it came to his ear before he reached his station. He hastened to the house of Mr. Watson, where Constable Cooke and the steward still kept vigil over the fallen foe. The officer evidently did not relish his employment; but Mr. C. Augustus Ebénier had proved that he was a first-class tiger, as well as an exquisite of the first water.

Mr. Watson had another interview with the wretch as soon as Levi arrived; but Dock Vincent was as obstinate as a mule. He took no pains to conceal the fact that he enjoyed the distress of the suffering father and the intense anxiety of Levi. The prisoner was to be examined before Squire Saunders during the forenoon, and it was hoped that some development of the plan of the conspirator would be obtained.

By the morning train came Mr. Gayles. The steamer sent in pursuit of the Caribbee had returned to Boston in the night. Of course she had not seen or heard of the vessel, which had gone through Vineyard Sound, while the steamer followed the track of ships bound round the Cape of Good Hope.

"Has he been searched?" asked Mr. Gayles, when he had reported the result of his mission to his employer.

"No; I proposed it to Mr. Cooke, but he declined to do it until a warrant had been obtained," replied Mr. Watson.

"It should be done at once;" and Mr. Gayles hastened to attend to this important duty.

Dock blustered, and attempted to resist the indignity, as he termed it; but the constable was determined, and heeded not the prisoner's protest or his struggles. On his person was found a variety of papers, and among them the letter which Captain Gauley had written in the cabin of the Caribbee. But this document had no signature, and was hardly more satisfactory than the letter which Mr. Watson had received from Bessie; at least it contained no accurate information. One sentence, however, was sufficiently definite to make a beginning upon. "We are somewhere inside of Sandy Hook, ready to go to sea at a moment's notice," Captain Gauley wrote. "You know where to leave a letter in New York, when you are ready to go on board; and one of us goes up to the city every day now."

"It's no use," said Dock, maliciously. "You can't find the Caribbee. Mr. Watson, I may rot in jail; but you will never see your daughter again if you go on with this matter. If you want to get her back, pay me the money I ask, let me go, and you shall have her in a week."

"I will not pay you a dollar," replied Mr. Watson, firmly.

"All right," added Dock, with a sneer. "You will wish you had in the course of a year or two. I know what I'm about this time."

Mr. Watson, Mr. Gayles, and Levi went to another room to consider the situation, leaving Constable Cooke in charge of the prisoner.

"Cooke, do you want to make a hundred dollars easy?" said Dock, in a whisper.

"I don't know," replied the officer. "I can't compromise myself."

"You run no risk," added Dock, as he wrote with a pencil, on half a sheet of note paper, the letter which Captain Gauley received just before the Caribbee sailed. "Put this in an envelope, direct it to Captain John Gauley, care of E. G. Baines & Co., No. ---- Maiden Lane, New York, and put it into the post office. That's all; and here is a hundred dollars."

Constable Cooke took the note and the money. Dock wrote the direction for the letter on a piece of paper. He thrust the whole into his pocket. He had his doubts, as well he might, about the propriety of mailing the letter.

Levi, from the information obtained, was satisfied that the Caribbee was at anchor in one of the secluded inlets below New York, waiting for Dock to join her. It was not likely that she would go to sea without her owner, whose family were on board of her.

"Dock says she will go to Australia, whether he joins her or not," said Mr. Gayles.

"She will not sail till those on board have heard from Dock. We must take care that he does not send any letter or message," added Levi.

"Perhaps it would be better to let him do so, if we could only stop the letter at the post office."

"But we don't know who has charge of the vessel. It is plain that he has a captain on board of her; but he does not sign his name to the letter we found upon Dock," interposed Mr. Watson.

"Don't let him send any letters," persisted Levi. "Then the Caribbee will stay where she is till we find her."

"That is the better way," replied Mr. Watson.

"Perhaps it is," said Mr. Gayles. "But it would do no harm to ask the postmaster to stop any letter to Mat Mogmore, for instance."

"Mat Mogmore did not take that vessel round to New York," added Levi. "There is a bigger man than he on board of her, and we don't know his name. We can't do anything in this way, unless we stop all the letters directed to the vicinity of New York."

"Doesn't this man's name appear in any of Dock's papers?"

"No; I have looked in vain for it."

"Mr. Watson," said Levi, suddenly springing to his feet, "I am sure I can find Bessie."

Both Mr. Watson and Mr. Gayles looked at him with interest. He had done a similar work once before, and his confident expression was entitled to respect.

"I am as sure as I want to be that the Caribbee is anchored somewhere in New York Bay. Dock's letter says so. He sent her there, intending to join her as soon as he had collected his black mail. The facts and the theory agree with each other."

"Admit what you say," added Mr. Watson, "and there is no doubt of it. What shall we do?"

"I will go to New York in The Starry Flag. I can tell the Caribbee as far as I can see her, by night or by day. I will stand off and on by Sandy Hook, so that she cannot pass me. You and Mr. Gayles shall go to New York to-night, charter a small steamer, and explore all the inlets and bays below the city till you find her."

"She may escape before you get there," suggested Mr. Gayles.

"No; she will wait till she hears from Dock."

"It may get into the newspapers."

"We will see that it does not."

Various objections to Levi's plan were considered; but it was adopted without material alteration. Mr. Watson thought it would be better to charter a steamer in New York for Levi's use; but he preferred the yacht. She would be under his control, and at the critical moment would not be out of coal, or her machinery out of order.

Levi determined to sail as soon as the examination of Dock Vincent was finished. He engaged three extra hands, and put provisions and water enough on board to meet any emergency, in case the cruise should be unexpectedly prolonged. He was confident that his plan could not fail; and if Constable Cooke had not been unfit for a place of trust, probably it would not have failed, either in whole or in part.

Mr. Fairfield was arrested, and at ten o'clock both he and Dock were arraigned for examination. The old man was dreadfully alarmed. With the arrest of Dock his fondest hopes had gone out in darkness. Not only was the rich reward he had been promised forever lost, but his neighbor's note for ten thousand dollars was not worth the paper on which it was written. Though the conspirator did not yet believe that his plan had failed, the old man did.

Dock was held on a complaint of kidnapping Bessie Watson, and an attempt to extort money from her father. The evidence, including Dock's letter and the absence of Bessie, was more than enough to hold him, and he was committed for trial. The testimony was strong enough to hold Mr. Fairfield, and he also was committed; but Mr. Watson, out of consideration for the poor old man, procured bail for him. It was in vain he protested that he had nothing to do with the affair, and knew nothing about it. His midnight meeting with Dock Vincent condemned him.

The deputy sheriff bore Dock to the jail; for Mr. Gayles suggested that Constable Cooke's fingers were slippery, though he did not know that they had already been soiled by a bribe. Levi hastened on board of the yacht as soon as the case had been disposed of, where his crew had made every preparation for the intended cruise--how long it was to be they knew not then. The wind was blowing a smashing breeze when she sailed, and in forty hours she was off Sandy Hook. Mr. Watson and Mr. Gayles arrived a day earlier, but did not deem it prudent to commence the search till the next day, fearful that the Caribbee might slip away before the yacht arrived; but they were not idle. They visited all the small ports in the vicinity; but Captain Gauley kept the vessel away from any harbor.

Constable Cooke could not settle his mind in regard to the letter in his pocket, and he kept it there till the day after the examination. Mr. Watson and Mr. Gayles had both neglected, and even snubbed him. They did not ask his advice; they did not employ him to assist in the search. They had gone off without him, and he saw no chance to make any money with the information in his possession. If Mr. Watson wanted Mr. Gayles to do his business for him, he might employ him. Mr. Cooke enclosed the pencilled note, directed it, and then mailed it in Gloucester.

Mr. Watson commenced his search in the steamer he had engaged for the purpose. He went a dozen miles up North River, examining every vessel in the stream, passed down the bay, through The Kills, up Newark Bay, through Staten Island Sound to Amboy, scoured Raritan Bay and River, without success, and thus used up the first day of the search. The next day--that on which Mat Mogmore went to the city and brought off the letter--she followed East River to Throg's Point; ran into Harlem River, Flushing Bay, and all the inlets, examining the Long Island shore as far as Rockaway, but with no better results than on the preceding day. Off Coney Island she spoke The Starry Flag. The captain of the steamer was confident that the Caribbee was not in the vicinity; it was more probable that she had come through the Sound, and put into Cow Bay, or some other waters beyond Throg's Point; and the steamer returned to the city, to renew the search on the third day.

Captain Gauley changed his anchorage every day or two. On the first day he had been behind Coney Island, but had moved over to a point south of Staten Island that evening, and thus, by accident, escaped discovery.

Mat brought the letter to him, and the Caribbee went to sea instantly; but it was only to encounter The Starry Flag, lying in wait for her. The quick eye of Levi immediately recognized her, and his orders to come about were given in sharp, quick tones. He was excited; Bessie was almost within hail of him; indeed, he saw her standing on deck, with Mrs. Vincent and the children. The wind was fresh, and the Caribbee had spread every inch of her canvas. Levi arranged his plan to cut her off while she was still nearly half a mile distant from him.