“Flanagan has probably been over to Curraunbeg,” said Priscilla, “to see how his old boat is looking. After what Jimmy Kinsella is sure to have told him about the way they’re treating her he’s naturally a bit anxious. I wonder will he have the nerve to charge them anything extra at the end for dilapidations. It’s curious now that we don’t see the tents on Curraunbeg. I saw them yesterday from Craggeen. Perhaps they’ve moved round to the other side of the island.”
“There’s a boat coming out from behind the point now,” said Frank. “Perhaps they’re moving again.”
Priscilla leaned over the gunwale and stared long at the boat which Frank pointed out.
“There’s a man and a woman in her,” he said.
“It’s not Flanagan’s old boat though,” said Priscilla. “I rather think it’s Jimmy Kinsella. I hope Miss Rutherford hasn’t been hunting them on her own, under the impression that they’re German spies. We oughtn’t to have told her that. She’s so frightfully impulsive you can’t tell what she’d do.”
Jimmy Kinsella had recognised the Tortoise shortly after he rounded the point of Curraunbeg. He dropped his lug sail and began to row up to windward evidently meaning to get within speaking distance of Priscilla. The boats approached each other at an angle. Miss Rutherford stood up in the stern of hers, waved a pocket handkerchief and shouted. Priscilla shouted in reply. Frank threw the Tortoise up into the wind and Jimmy Kinsella pulled alongside.
“They’ve gone,” said Miss Rutherford. “They’ve escaped you again.”
“You’ve frightened them away,” said Priscilla. “I wish you wouldn’t.”
“No,” said Miss Rutherford, “I didn’t Honour bright! They’d gone before I got there. The people on the island said they packed up early this morning and when they saw Flanagan passing in his new boat they hailed him and got him to take them off.”
“Wasn’t that the boat we saw just now?” said Frank.