"You guarantee that no harm shall come to us at Gibraltar, and that we shall be allowed to leave again?"
"Yes, I promise you that, faithfully.
"Now, you have got to row a good bit harder than you have been rowing, up till now. We must be past Fort Santa Barbara before daylight."
The boat's head was round, by this time, and the men began to row steadily. At present, they hardly knew whether they were satisfied, or not. Two hundred and fifty dollars was, to them, an enormous sum; but the risk was great. It was not that they feared that any suspicion would fall upon them, on their return. They had often smuggled tobacco from Gibraltar, and had no high opinion of the acuteness of the authorities. What really alarmed them was the fear of being sunk, either by the Spanish or British guns. However, they saw that, for the present at any rate, they had no option but to obey the orders of a passenger possessed of such powerful arguments as those he held in his hands.
[Chapter 14]: A Welcome Cargo.
After the men had been rowing for an hour, Bob felt a slight breeze springing up from off the land, and said:
"You may as well get up the sail. It will help you along a bit."
The sail was a large one, for the size of the boat; and Bob felt a distinct increase in her pace, as soon as the men began to row again. He could make out the line of the hills against the sky; and had, therefore, no difficulty in keeping the course. They were soon back opposite Marbella, the lights of which he could clearly make out. Little by little the breeze gathered strength, and the rowers had comparatively easy work of it, as the boat slipped away lightly before the wind.
"What do you make it--twelve leagues from Marbella to the Rock?"
"About that," the man replied. "If the wind holds like this, we shall not be very far from the Rock by daylight. We are going along about a league an hour."