It was a plot infernal.
West stopped, his hands clinched, his heart seeming to stop its pulsing.
But if Natalie Coolidge was also prisoner on board, what of her?
Wasn't that the very thing most probable?
Of course it was; how foolish he had been.

These men, recklessly criminal, as they were, would never sacrifice the yacht, and risk their own lives, merely to put him out of the way.

He was not important enough for that; he was but an incident.

It was an accident which had made him a prisoner.

While this was--must be--a carefully arranged plan.