“This looks bad!” he exclaimed. “I wouldn’t trust that Fingal man around the corner, and here he’s run off with Cassidy and headed down the coast. There’s something in the wind, and if our game is tipped off before we get to where we’re going it will be a case of up-sticks with Coleman.”
“I don’t think Cassidy would dare tip off our work to Fingal!” exclaimed Bob, somewhat dashed by the course of events.
“A drunken man is liable to do anything.”
“But what would Cassidy have to gain by telling Fingal our business to the southward?”
“Why, as for that, Fingal has been suspected of helping those same revolutionists. If he can help the scoundrels hang on to Coleman, they might make it worth his while.”
“The letter I read in the periscope room,” said Bob, after a moment’s thought, “spoke of the Rio Dolce as the place where Coleman was being held. This, you tell me, is wrong. In that event, and assuming that Cassidy heard the whole of the letter, then he has a clew that’s not to be depended on.”
“Fingal must know the Rio Dolce is not the place. The fact that the schooner bore away to the south proves that some one has correct information. No, Bob, Fingal has learned through Cassidy just why the Grampus put in at Belize; and Cassidy, intoxicated as he is and worked up over a fancied grievance, has cast in his lot with the schooner. The pair of them are off to the south to make trouble for us, take my word for it. What we must do is to get away as close on their heels as possible. We can’t wait until evening, but must proceed on the jump and get away without losing any more time than necessary.”
“Wait a minute,” spoke up Dick. “You remember, Bob, that there was a schooner that took Captain Sixty off the fruiter Santa Maria, and sailed with him to find the derelict brig. That schooner was to take off the arms and ammunition from the wreck, and would have done so if the submarine hadn’t shown up and been backed by the cruiser Seminole.”
“I remember that,” said Bob. “What of it, Dick?”
“Well, I think the schooner that took Cassidy and the other swab south is the same one that figured in our affairs a few days ago.”