Once aboard the Lotus the men were put to work with those already on the yacht. The boat's rudder was unshipped and dropped into the ocean; her fires were put out; her engines were attacked with sledges until they were little better than so much junk, and to make the slender chances of pursuit that remained to her entirely nil every ounce of coal upon her was shoveled into the Pacific. Her extra masts and spare sails followed the way of the coal and the rudder, so that when Skipper Simms and First Officer Ward left her with their own men that had been aboard her she was little better than a drifting derelict. From her cabin window Barbara Harding had witnessed the wanton wrecking of her father's yacht, and when it was over and the crew of the brigantine had returned to their own ship she presently felt the movement of the vessel as it got under way, and soon the Lotus dropped to the stern and beyond the range of her tiny port. With a moan of hopelessness and terror the girl sank prostrate across the hard berth that spanned one end of her prison cell. How long she lay there she did not know, but finally she was aroused by the opening of her cabin door. As she sprang to her feet ready to defend herself against what she felt might easily be some new form of danger her eyes went wide in astonishment as they rested on the face of the man who stood framed in the doorway of her cabin. “You?” she cried. CHAPTER V. LARRY DIVINE UNMASKED “YES, Barbara, it is I,” said Mr. Divine; “and thank God that I am here to do what little any man may do against this band of murdering pirates.” “But, Larry,” cried the girl, in evident bewilderment, “how did you come to be aboard this ship? How did you get here? What are you doing amongst such as these?” “I am a prisoner,” replied the man, “just as are you. I think they intend holding us for ransom. They got me in San Francisco. Slugged me and hustled me aboard the night before they sailed.” “Where are they going to take us?” she asked. “I do not know,” he replied, “although from something I have overheard of their conversations I imagine that they have in mind some distant island far from the beaten track of commerce. There are thousands such in the Pacific that are visited by vessels scarce once in a century. There they will hold us until they can proceed with the ship to some point where they can get into communication with their agents in the States. When the ransom is paid over to these agents they will return for us and land us upon some other island where our friends can find us, or leaving us where we can divulge the location of our whereabouts to those who pay the ransom.” The girl had been looking intently at Mr. Divine during their conversation. “They cannot have treated you very badly, Larry,” she said. “You are as well groomed and well fed, apparently, as ever.” A slight flush mounting to the man's face made the girl wonder a bit though it aroused no suspicion in her mind.