“But, Ralph, look at that green fire! Ugh! it makes me shudder.”
“Heard of phosphorus, haven’t you?”
“Y-y-y-yes, but——”
“No ‘buts’ about it. Those fellows think that we are just a pack of kids that they can scare by a foolish ghost trick. See, the light is dying out. Well, they’ll find out in a few minutes that their trick didn’t scare us. I’m more convinced than ever now that we have tumbled headlong into a big game of some kind. What it is I can’t imagine, but that fellow Malvin knows more about that boat than we do.”
“What makes you think so?”
“Why did he come butting in up here on the bridge and try to get us to stop chasing that craft?”
“Scared, I guess. I know I was.”
“Scared! Nonsense. If I read Malvin rightly, he’s not the sort of fellow to shy at a child’s trick like the one those fellows played. No, Harry, there’s something back of all this, and I for one mean to find out what it is before I’m many hours older.”
“Go ahead,” was all young Ware had to say, but to himself he muttered:
“We’ll never overtake that craft, and—I hope we don’t!”