But Rawlins was not to be readily discouraged. He was a most persistent character and having once made up his mind to follow the “Reds” to “Kingdom Come,” as he put it, he was not easily to be dissuaded. “I’ll say it would be a blamed shame to give up now,” he declared. “We’ve got ’em narrowed down to two and the plane (the bunch on the Devon don’t count) and those two are the chaps you want, Mr. Pauling. We’ve got ’em on the run--smoked ’em out of every hole they had--chased ’em into the sea and under it and into the air. Now they’ve played their last trump. We’d be a lot of boobs to let ’em get away with it now.”
“But you seem to forget that we haven’t the least idea where they are and that Guiana’s a big country,” Mr. Pauling reminded him. “I’ve been going over the maps with Henderson and Disbrow and it’s hopeless. Why, they may be in Dutch Guiana or Brazil or Venezuela by now. While we were paddling up a few miles of jungle river, that plane could be flying a couple of hundred miles. It would be worse than chasing a bird with your hat.”
“Just the same I’ve a hunch that we’re going to get ’em,” declared Rawlins. “And by glory, if you won’t go after ’em, I’m going to drop off and go it alone!”
Mr. Pauling laughed. “Any one would think you had a personal grudge against them,” he chuckled.
“So I have--confound them!” cried the diver. “Didn’t they cop my diving suit idea and didn’t they play a dozen low-down, dirty tricks on us? And weren’t they trying to stick a wurali-tipped dart in me back there at St. John? Besides, I’ve never gone back on one of my hunches yet and it’s too late to begin now.”
“Well, we’ll see what we find out over at Georgetown, before we decide,” said Mr. Pauling. “After I talk with the officials we can make plans for our next move. For all we know they may have important information.”
The destroyer had now left Port of Spain far astern and was passing out through the Bocas to the open sea. Throughout the afternoon she steamed steadily eastward through the muddy water and when the boys came on deck early the following morning there was still no sign of land.
“Where’s Demerara?” asked Tom of the lieutenant in charge. “Commander Disbrow said we’d be in by breakfast time, but I don’t see a sign of land.”
“Straight ahead,” replied the officer. “There’s the lightship--see, that little schooner there.”
“Yes I see it,” said Tom, “but what is it out in the ocean here for?”