“Sail! Why, you will have her lying flat in the water directly.”
“Make the sails more taut,” said Poole coolly. “I say, we are going now. I didn’t see what he meant. We have just turned the South Rocks. Talk about piloting, old Burgess does know what he’s about. We are sailing as fast as the gunboat.”
“But she’s overhauling us.”
“Yes, but she won’t try to pass those rocks. She will have to keep to the channel. We are skimming along over the rocky shallows now.”
“Yes, with the keel nearly up to the surface,” panted Fitz excitedly.
“All the better! Less likely to scrape the rocks.”
“Well, you are taking it pretty coolly,” continued the midshipman. “This must be risky work.”
“Yes, we don’t want to be taken. You wait a few minutes and watch the gunboat’s lights. You will see that she will be getting more distant as she goes straight on for the open sea. Her captain will make for the next channel, two or three miles south, to catch us there as we come out—and we shan’t come out, for we shall go right on in and out among the shallows and get clear off, so as to sail into Velova Bay. We shall be all right if we don’t come crash on to one of the shark’s fin rocks.”
“And if we do?”
“Well, if we do we shan’t get off again—only in the boats—but old Villarayo’s gang won’t get the ammunition, for that will go down to amuse the sharks.”