“Hardly a sail,” she replied. “What a strange-looking craft it is.”
Maxwell Kane started. Then he raised his voice and shouted:
“Forward, there!”
“Aye, aye, sir!”
“What do you make of that craft off the starboard bow, captain?” he asked of his skipper, who now walked aft to join them.
“Well, sir,” replied the skipper slowly, “if you had asked me that question a month ago—which would be about the time we had to do with a fellow of about that cut, wasn’t it?—I should have replied that I thought she was a very good copy of the Shadow, sir.”
“The Shadow!” gasped Bessie, turning a startled gaze upon the skipper, and then removing it to Max. “Do you mean the pirate? Do you mean Captain Sparkle?”
Kane laughed aloud, although a close observer might have detected a note of uneasiness in his merriment.
“Captain Sparkle is in Sing Sing, Bess,” he said.
“He was in Sing Sing when we left New York for Bermuda,” she replied.