"I am very much afraid she is." Peter Gross spoke calmly, but Paddy noticed a tremor in his voice.
"Then we'll have to fight for it?" he exclaimed.
Peter Gross avoided a direct reply. "I'm wondering why she can stay so close inshore and outsail us," he said. "The wind is offshore, those high hills should cut her off from what little breeze we're getting, yet she neither gains nor loses an inch on us."
"Why doesn't she come out where she can get the breeze?"
"Ay, why doesn't she?" Peter Gross echoed. "If she were an honest trader she would. But keeping that course enables her to intercept us in case we should try to make shore."
Paddy did not appear greatly disturbed at the prospect of a brush with pirates. In fact, there was something like a sparkle of anticipation in his eyes. But seeing his chief so concerned, he suggested soberly:
"Can't we beat out to sea and lose them during the night?"
"Not if this is the ship I fear it is," the resident answered gravely.
"What ship?" The question was frankly curious.
"Did you hear something like a muffled motor exhaust a little while ago?"