“But the ship—this pirate?” said McBain. “We sailed around the island next day but saw no signs of him?”
“Then,” said the girl, “he must have escaped in the darkness, immediately after discovering the entire failure of his scheme.”
“And whither were you bound for when we overtook you, my poor girl?” asked McBain.
“At Reikjavik,” she replied, “I have an uncle, a minister. He it was who taught me all I know, while he was still at home in Elmdene—taught me among other things the beautiful language of your country, which I speak, but speak so indifferently.”
“Can this be,” said McBain, “the self-same pirate that attacked the Snowbird?”
“The very same thought,” answered Ralph, “was passing through my own mind.”
“And yet how strange that a pirate should, cruise in these far northern seas?”
“She has less chance of being caught, at all events,” Allan said.
“Ha?” exclaimed McBain, with a kind of grim, exultant laugh, “if she comes across the Arrandoon, that chance will indeed be a small one. She’ll find us a different kind of a craft from the Snowbird.”
The vessel was now heading directly for the south-east coast of Iceland. Somewhere in there, though at present hidden by points of land and rocky islets, lay the capital of Iceland, which they hoped to reach ere midnight.