"We'll follow her. Are you willing, Ben?"
"More than willin'."
Their watch began next day. There was not much activity on board the Mary, and Ben rightly conjectured that the crew was sleeping in preparation for the night's work. The weather continued mild, and favourable to the smugglers' purpose, and there seemed no reason to doubt that she would leave harbour that night. Dare and Ben made their preparations accordingly.
"There's one thing knocks me," said Ben, "and that's the talk about the tide. Why wait fer low water when low water means, as Payter said, that there'll only be a few inches under her keel?"
"I was thinking of that too. It doesn't seem reasonable, does it?"
"Nary a bit," declared Ben with conviction.
"That's another mystery we've got to solve. And that reminds me, Ben, we didn't say anything to dad about the ovens."
"What ovens?"
"You know what that fellow said on board the Glenbow—that there'd be smuggling in Saltern while there was an oven in the Bay."
"Oh, aye. I remembers now. But it's my belief that man was drunk. What can ovens have to do with the matter, as I said to him?"