"If you answer, Dory Dornwood, I'll pitch you overboard!" exclaimed the skipper savagely.
Dory did not answer: he had no intention of doing so before Pearl used his threatening expression. He was not on the best of terms with his uncle; and he did not care to have any thing to do with him, or even to say to him.
There seemed to be a dozen persons on board of the Sylph. But she was a large craft for a steam-yacht, and doubtless some of them were the guests of the owner.
"That will do nicely," said Pearl, as he came about, and let off his sheets again. "The steamer has my permission to go through the channel again. This is better than a game of checkers."
To Dory it was getting rather monotonous. But he did not believe that the people on board of the Sylph would be willing to play at this game much longer. The man with the gruff voice had indicated in his tones, the last time he hailed the boat, that he was becoming impatient at the failure of the Goldwing to answer him.
Dory felt like one who stands between two fires, and he was sure to be hit by one of them. He was in the frying-pan now, and he did not at all like the idea of being compelled to jump into the fire by the Sylph. He did not like his uncle, her owner; and he did not care to be redeemed from his present unpleasant position by him.
It was bad enough to remain in the power of Pearl Hawlinshed, and to be subject to his caprice; but it seemed worse to be taken out of his hands by Captain Gildrock. If Pearl had not been a villain, in the very act of breaking the laws and committing an outrage upon him and the two passengers in the cabin, he would have been willing to assist him in keeping out of the way of the Sylph. He thought he knew just how this could be done; but, as he could not do any thing to help the rascal, he said nothing. He could not get himself out of the frying-pan, but he meant to keep out of the fire if he could.
"She is coming about," said Pearl, as the Sylph began to stir up the water again with her propeller. "She is going through the channel again to head off the Goldwing. I hope she will have a good time doing this thing."
Dory made no reply to this remark; but he felt that the end of the adventure was rapidly approaching. Captain Gildrock was not a man to be trifled with, or one to be balked by a sailboat like the schooner. The Sylph went through the Western Cut again. Pearl had run almost up to the red buoy, and was near it when the steam-yacht passed through.
The skipper of the Goldwing started his sheets, and stood off in the shoal-water, where the steamer could not follow him. He chuckled as he did so; and he did not appear to harbor a suspicion that his pursuer could do any thing but run back and forth through the cut.