“All right,” came the same voice again. “We’ll drop a boat to get you!”
“Never mind,” Tom said. “I can come aboard.”
He disappeared down the hatch and soon maneuvered the jetmarine alongside the Primrose. When the craft had been lashed, Tom and Bud climbed a Jacob’s ladder to the yacht deck. A tall, slender man in uniform greeted them.
“I’m George White, skipper of the Primrose,” he said, as the rest of the crew stood by.
Tom acknowledged the introduction. Then he scanned the faces about him in the gloom.
“Where are my father and Mr. Foster?” Tom asked anxiously.
The skipper hesitated.
“What happened?” Bud insisted.
KIDNAPED! 151
Captain White cleared his throat. “They were kidnaped,” he said finally, his voice shaky.
“By the pirates?” Tom questioned.
“Yes,” Captain White answered.
“You were right, Tom,” Bud said, “they beat us to it.”
“We thought you were part of the gang coming back,” the skipper explained.
“That’s why we fired on you. We were sure that it was another trick.”
“Hoxv did they attack you?” Bud asked, knowing that with a distorter aboard, the blackout ray would not work.
“They didn’t use a plane or a sub,” Captain White answered. “That’s why we fell into their trap.”
He said that the pirates had approached the Primrose in a small motor launch. Their leader had called up to the deck of the yacht, saying that they had been lost in a squall, were nearly out of fuel, and asked for transportation to the nearest port.
“Like fools we invited them on board,” Captain White said, shaking his head sadly. “Then they knocked us out and tied us up. We just got loose an hour ago.
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