Indeed, only one more gun was fired by the Spaniards; and then the boat pursued her course unmolested, Bob returning to his seat at the helm.
"They will be on the lookout for us, as we go back," one of the Spaniards said.
"They won't see you in the dark," Bob replied. "Besides, as likely as not they will think that you are one of the Rock fishing boats, that has ventured out too far, and failed to get back by daylight."
Once out of reach of the shot from the fort, the sailors laid in their oars--having been rowing for more than ten hours--and the boat glided along quietly, at a distance of a few hundred feet from the foot of the cliff.
"Which are you going to do?" Bob asked them; "take fifty dollars for your fish, or sell them for what you can get for them?"
The fishermen at once said they would take the fifty dollars for, although they had collected all that had been brought in by the other fishermen--amounting to some five hundred pounds in weight--they could not imagine that fish, for which they would not have got more than ten dollars--at the outside--at Malaga, could sell for fifty at Gibraltar.
As they rounded Europa Point there was a hail from above and, looking up, Bob saw Captain O'Halloran and the doctor.
"Hulloa, Bob!"
"Hulloa!" Bob shouted back, and waved his hat.
"All right, Bob?"