"Where are they? What is all this bother about?" someone cried.
Gerald did not trouble to answer. He kept grimly on till a flash of the broad beam overhead showed him that he was approaching the edge of the harbor. Then, hesitating how to act, he looked down at Hal as if to ask his advice, and saw him stripped to the waist, and standing in the glare of the furnace, into which he was throwing coal as if life itself depended on his exertions—as, indeed, it did.
Round spun the wheel, and the launch swayed to the left, rolling heavily as she did so.
"This is my job," murmured Gerald, unconsciously repeating the words Hal had used when giving him the post of steersman. "I'll see the show through. Now for the channel that leads to the sea."
"Will the searchlight fall upon it just as we enter? Yes—no—perhaps it will not. Ah! it must. It is all up with us!"
The thoughts flashed through his mind, one moment high hope surging through his heart, and the next some movement of the electric beam shattering all thoughts of escape. The light fluttered onto the thin band of water leading out between the steep cliffs to the sea, to safety and friends, and then whisked back to the harbor, flying across every foot of its surface that it was possible to reach, and searching every nook and corner.
Round spun the wheel again.
"In the channel, and now bang straight ahead," murmured Gerald. "If the Dons who man the castle batteries do not spot us we shall be lucky. But how can they fail, when flames like that are pouring from the funnel? They're bound to let fly at us."
He cast an upward glance at the smoke-stack, and longed to be able to smother the flaring streak which poured from it into the night, lighting up the surroundings like a torch. Luck, however, seemed to have followed the runaways, for if anyone noticed them, he made no sign, not thinking that this tiny vessel, rushing so boldly out to sea, could contain any but friends. Perhaps, even, he may have thought it was the officer who had been told off to conduct the search; though then it was strange that he should feed his fires till the funnel was on the point of melting, while the escape steam whistled through the valve with a deafening noise.
Fortunate indeed was it for the fugitives that another part attracted the attention of the Spaniards. From Morro Castle, and from all the defenses, the eyes of the garrison were fixed upon the searchlight. Breathless with excitement, and too occupied to utter as much as a sound, they followed the revolving beam, till at last it fell full upon a launch steaming across the harbor. No doubt it contained José d'Arousta and his men; but the watchers were ignorant of that, and set up a shout of exultation that awoke the echoes. They rushed to their guns and rifles, and would have opened fire had not the workers of the light known more than they, and flashed it elsewhere in search of the escaping prisoners. And all the while Hal and Gerald were speeding, with their most eager efforts, along the narrow track that led to the sea.