As she did so, the pursuers saw a man suddenly leap overboard into the water.
Pulling on, they came to him, just as he was sinking for the last time.
It was Hal Hartly, and he was mortally wounded.
He only spoke once after they pulled him aboard; it was to gasp out faintly:
"She's doomed! I've scuttled her!"
Then the blood spurted from his mouth, and he expired, while the "Countess" steamed away to sea, and was lost from view, and Captain Gregg the smuggler was lost from the clutches of the law.
What was the fate of the "Countess" is not definitely known, but she never again entered the port of Havre, nor was a soul on board of her ever afterward seen.
The Philadelphia detectives who arrived the next day found no one to arrest, as those on whom suspicion could justly rest, had fled, during the night.
Susie and Hal Hartly received a respectable burial, at the expense of Mr. Thornton; then, after paying Fritz as promised, the sum of five thousand dollars, the speculator set out for his Western home, accompanied by his daughter, and by Griffith Gregg, who was to go back to the scene of his crimes, for trial.