When the battle did begin, it was over before the two men on deck realized what was happening. Nick and Drago, coming up the ladder, met them both at the gangway, and the swiftness and dexterity with which these two seamen found themselves bound and gagged remained a matter of wonder with them for the remainder of their lives. “Now, gentlemen!” whispered Nick. “The fo’c’s’le! There must be half a dozen men in there. Close the hatch for the present, so that they can’t get out. We’ll deal with them later.” They fastened up the cubby-hole forward where the men slept, and had trapped seven men before they awoke. In fact, it was an hour afterward before any of them realized that they were prisoners. When they did, they found the door so well secured that they feared they could only wait until somebody should come to let them out. All this had been carried out so quietly that the officer of the deck--who was the second mate, Morgan--did not know till he emerged from the chart room that the _Idaline_ was in possession of an invading party. Just as he poked his nose out of the chart room--where he had been enjoying a nap on a softly cushioned locker--he was seized by two strong pairs of hands, his mouth stopped with a handful of oakum, and a rope thrown around his arms with the scientific precision that proclaimed it the work of an experienced sailor. It was Nick Carter who had knotted the rope, while Lord Vinton, acting under orders, had shoved the oakum into the astonished mate’s mouth. Drago held him by the arms while the detective bound them. Nick was a yachtsman himself. There was not a rope or a bit of canvas that he did not know on a full-rigged windjammer. Having deposited Morgan again on the locker--but not so comfortably as before--and lashed his hands behind him, Nick directed Drago to tie him to the leg of the solid table which was screwed to the floor. “There he is,” he remarked, when Drago had finished the task. “You’ve done that well. He may perhaps get himself loose in the course of an hour or so, although I don’t think he will. But by that time we shall have things arranged so that we shall not care. Come down to the cabin. There is a man there I want to see.” They went below, the three of them, and when Captain Latell had been caught in his stateroom and made a prisoner before he realized what was going on, Nick went to another cabin. Here, pistol in hand, he used the barrel to poke a burly man, who lay on his back in the wide berth, snoring in perfect contentment. The well-built man started up to a sitting posture. The detective promptly knocked him down again. “Lie where you are, Mr. Spanner!” commanded Nick. “What does this mean?” spluttered the indignant occupant of the berth. “Who are you, sir?” “Nick Carter!” replied the detective coolly. “What?” This monosyllabic inquiry came with a shriek of amazement, tinged with indignation and fury.