In a few minutes the man reported—a fixed white light four points off the starboard bow, and a little later a fixed white-and-red flashlight two points off the port bow.
"Good," grunted Jenkins. "I know just where I am. Come down from aloft," he called, "and watch out for buoys. I'm going out the South and Hypocrite Channels."
Then a dull boom rang out from astern, followed by another and another, and Jenkins laughed.
"They've found that sentry," he said, "and have telephoned Fort Independence; but it's no good. They've only got salute guns. We passed that fort twenty minutes ago."
"Any others?" they asked.
"Fort Warren, down on the Narrows. That's why I'm going out through the Hypocrite. Keep your eyes peeled for buoys, you ginks, and keep those leads going."
Calm and imperturbable, a huge, square-faced giant of a man, Jenkins naturally assumed the leadership of this band of jail-breakers. The light from the binnacle illuminated a countenance of rugged yet symmetrical features, stamped with prison pallor, but also stamped with a stronger imprint of refinement. A man palpably out of place, no doubt. A square peg in a round hole; a man with every natural attribute of a master of men. Some act of rage or passion, perhaps, some non-adjustment to an unjust environment, had sent him to the naval prison, to escape and become a pirate; for that was the legal status of all.
Soon the wind shifted and the fog cleared to seaward, but still held its impenetrable wall between them and the town. Then they turned on both searchlights, and saw buoys ahead, to starboard and port.
Jenkins boasted a little. "I've run these channels for years," he said, "and I know them as I know the old backyard at home. Hello, what's up?"
A man had run to the pilot-house door in great excitement.