“Den yo’ fink de boat wuz bruk loose apuppose, honey?”
“Most decidedly I do. I can see the hand of Captain Ben Bolt in that rascally deed most plainly.”
“How shall I steer the Ranger?”
“Up the coast, doctor.”
They left the Red Eric out of sight astern in the gloom, and were soon flying over the sea close to the shore.
The rays of the searchlight were bent down.
Sweeping the coast and sea continually as the boat was lowered, there was not much chance of an object so large as a quarter boat being missed by its broad glare of light.
The Ranger hovered but one hundred feet above the sea.
She went along very slowly.
To the left lay a great patch of clear, open water, in which no ice could stay without melting.