Dick took the wheel himself and shouted an order for the cannon to be looked to.
The other brig had turned her head straight for the Anny as soon as she saw that her salute was ignored, and now a ball from one of her several brass cannon fell some two yards short of the smuggler’s bows.
“Fire!” shouted Dick, and Noah Goody, the Anny’s old gunner, lit the match; the shot cleared the pursuing brig and Noah loaded again.
Nearer and nearer came the brig until Blueneck could read the name on her bows, the Royal Charles.
Faster and faster went the Anny, but the Charles gained on her every second. They were well inside the bay by this time, but escape seemed impossible, for the tide was barely past the turn and between them and the Island lay a great gray field of soft slushing mud. Any moment they might strike a bank of it and be compelled to stay there, an easy prey to the Preventative men.
Dick looked behind; the Charles was very near. For a moment he hesitated. He knew the Western creeks like the back of his hand, but in order to reach that side of the Island he would have to cross in front of the enemy, and although he was a daring little man Black’erchief Dick was no fool. The only course left open to him, then, was to make for the East. He knew there were two creeks that were deep enough to take the brig, but they were no more than thirty feet in their widest part and that was dangerous going. Besides, he was not nearly so familiar with these as with those on the Western side.
At this moment a ball from the Charles dropped through the little deck-house and then rolled off the deck harmlessly.
Dick made up his mind.
“Send Habakkuk Coot hither,” he shouted, for he remembered that the man had spent his boyhood in the East of the Island.
Everyone had forgotten Habakkuk in the excitement of the moment and now he was nowhere to be found.