"It is rather exciting," said I, signaling danger, with a glance that swept the water as far back as the now plainly visible pursuer.
She may or may not have caught my meaning; but Robert van Buren's eyes chanced at that instant to fall upon the distant craft.
"Ah!" he observed, in a tone of careless interest, for which I could have boxed his ears, "there is another motor-boat, I believe. It is coming as straight as if it were following us."
I saw the L.C.P. give a start. She looked at me, and our eyes would have met had it not been for the blue glasses. She understood, and knew just how exciting her "nice little accident" might turn out to be.
At this moment the motor gave a groan and stopped. As its heart ceased to beat, I was astounded by the apparition of a totally new Alb.
Two minutes ago, at most, he had disappeared in the garb of a self-respecting gentleman with a yachting turn of mind. He reappeared in a suit of Hendrik's blue overalls, and, apparently, nothing else, his feet being bare. In his hand were a hammer and a chisel.
"Motor's all right. It must be the propeller that's wrong. I'm going down to see," he explained, no trace of excitement on his face, no hint of flurry in his voice. Alb is a good plucked one, and for presence of mind and savoir faire I've never met his equal.
As "Mascotte" had slowed down, and then stopped, "Waterspin" came lolloping alongside. Toon, looking scarcely more flustered than his superior, kept the barge from bunting into her consort, fending her off with a pole. Alb, with a rope round his waist to keep him steady at his work under the water, slid over the side of the boat, and groped about with his free hand under the water-line.
"There's something round the screw shaft," he called up to Robert and me. "Queer thing! It feels like a coil of wire. We must have picked it up in the canal by Dordrecht, and ever since it's been slowly winding itself round the shaft, until now it's so tight that the propeller can't work."
"Then all hope's over," I said, with a meaning which he alone—or perhaps the L.C.P.—could understand. "We're caught in a trap."