“I told you it wasn’t any ordinary kind of boat,” said Harry Ware. “It wouldn’t surprise me if——”
“Jumping Jupiter!” burst from the inspector.
The rest of the party could only gasp their amazement. At the moment articulate speech was impossible.
The motor boat had reached the cliff—and vanished without sound or sign.
“She’s gone down!” cried Ralph, the first to recover from his astonishment.
“Gone down, nothing!” retorted Harry scornfully. “She’s just melted into air, that’s what.”
“Don’t be so foolish,” chided Inspector Jennings. “Depend upon it, that is another of their tricks, like the ones they played on you, boys.”
“We’ll start for that cliff and examine it,” declared the chief inspector. “There’s some clever sleight of hand in all this mummery.”
“We’re going to that cliff!” gasped Harry, in affrighted tones. Nevertheless he set off with the others, but he might have been observed to hang some distance behind them. The boy was now more firmly convinced than ever that there was something supernatural about the mysterious craft.
“The Fenians had all sorts of secret ways of landing upon and leaving this island,” said the chief inspector; “and I’ll wager that the motor boat just used one of those to work the trick we’ve just seen.”