The traitor had no children, therefore flight with his wife would be comparatively easy, and I was convinced that he had gone down the river intending to claim protection from the enemy.
"That's what he has done!" Darius said emphatically when I gave words to my belief. "It stands to reason that he went away in a boat, an' there's just a chance we may come up with him yet! Let's get on board, lads, an' if the Avenger knows how to sail we'll bring it out of her this night."
Then we returned with all speed to the shore; but I had little hope we could overtake the traitor, because he had at least three or four hours the start, and a canoe might be paddled twice as fast as the pungy would sail with such a light wind.
Darius, however, seemed certain we would overtake him, and urged us lads to greater speed or more severe exertions until the little vessel was under way, gliding down the river but little faster than the current would carry a canoe even though no paddles were used.
So eager in the chase was Darius that he would not allow either of us to go below, but insisted that all hands remain on the lookout, lest we over-run the game, and losing no little time as he swung the Avenger in close to this bank or that where the overhanging foliage afforded a hiding place for a small boat.
Not until daylight did we arrive off St. Leonard's bay, and it goes without saying that we had seen nothing of our traitor, neither had we come across a craft of any kind.
"He's bound now to go on until he overtakes the British fleet," Darius said angrily when the coming of daylight revealed the shores to us. "We'll have the best of him once we're out of the river!"
"You can't keep up the chase much longer if we count on gettin' a cargo of oysters," Jerry suggested, and the old man declared that he would never throw over a dredge until it became certain that Macomber had really escaped us.
But after some reflection he was willing to take back his words, knowing we could not go very far into the lower bay without some excuse for being there, and also realizing that we must never pursue Elias within sight of any vessel of the fleet, otherwise he might give such information as would cut short our career in this world.
With the coming of the new day the wind came out of the west with a force that gave promise of providing the pungy with a goodly sized bone in her teeth, and in case Macomber was no more than two hours in advance there was yet some possibility of overtaking him.