“I’m not so sure of that. Under that smooth manner he hides a vindictive nature. I’ve caught him looking at you once or twice, when he thought you weren’t looking and that nobody saw him, in a way that made me think he didn’t like you any too well.”
“Possibly he can’t be blamed for that, either. It is rather a come-down for him to have to take orders where he was used to giving them instead. But, even assuming all this, what reason would he have to try to wreck the River Swallow?”
“I imagine that in the answer to that lies the solution of that puzzle you were talking about a while back.”
“Well, let’s suppose—although I don’t for a minute believe it—that he actually was fiendish enough to try to destroy the craft out of malice, would not he have gone to the bottom, too?”
“I’m not so sure. Malvin is reputed to be the strongest swimmer in these parts. He was wrecked in a canoe in the rapids once and swam to an eddy and eventually reached the shore. Then, too, to-night he had on a life jacket. Does not that point to the fact that he believed some accident was going to happen, in which it would be necessary for him to swim for his life?”
“Oh, as to that, he had a good explanation for it,” responded Ralph.
“So I suppose,” was Harry Ware’s dry comment.
“After all, we may be unduly excited and manufacturing a melodramatic scare out of nothing at all,” pursued Ralph. “Well, there go the Needles! In a minute more we’ll be out of the Gallops, and for once I shan’t be sorry. That was just about as near to a smash-up as I care to come.”
The River Swallow shot onward for a short distance, and then, as she entered smoother water, Ralph rang for full speed ahead on both engines. He had hardly done this, when Hardware gave a sudden yell and pointed frantically ahead of them.
Through the night the gray, dim outlines of a passing craft, slipping along under the shore of one of the islands which dotted the other side of the Gallops, was visible. She carried no lights and was moving at a swift rate of speed.