“No danger of that,” laughed Ned; “our sailing lights are on. I guess they’re holding that tack till it’s time to go about. She’s a sailing craft of some sort. I can see the black outline of her sail.”
For a few moments more they watched, and then Herc gave a cry.
“It’s that catboat.”
“What? The one we saw leave Grayport to-night?”
“That’s right.”
“Stay here a minute, Herc,” exclaimed Ned; “I’m going forward to see if our sailing lights are all right.”
The catboat was only a few hundred feet from them now, and still she had not altered her course. Ned slipped forward, through the water that swirled about on the decks as high as his knees. The side lights, elevated on iron frames, were found to be burning brightly and undimmed. His supposition that they had gone out and that the catboat had not sighted them was, therefore, untenable.
Hastening back, Ned placed his lips to a speaking-tube at the side of the tower and shouted in to the helmsman:
“Catboat off the starboard bow, sir, and making dead for us.”