"Suppose the tow-line should part and set the goleta adrift: what would become of her with no one but Lucio on board of her?"
"I have no idea that the tow-line will part."
"But it may. Suppose we are chased by a cutter from Algeciras; she might run between the two vessels in order to break the line," argued Diego.
"Then you would be taken by the officers, and I should be safe," added Gray with a chuckle. "But I happen to know that they have nothing just now but a sailing-vessel for a cutter, and there is not a breath of air to-night."
"But there will be wind enough as soon as we get out from under the lee of these mountains to the north of us," the captain insisted. "I never leave my vessel when she is under way."
Louis thought the captain had the best of the argument; and whether the Scotchman thought so or not, he made no further objection to the plan; and a few minutes later the listener heard the voice of Diego from a distance, which assured him that he had gone on board of the Golondrina. This word means a swallow, not an unusual name for a fast yacht in France and the United States; and Louis concluded that she must be a rapid-sailing craft, built for the smuggling business.
The attentive listener next heard the footsteps of Gray, and it must have been he, since the captain had left him alone in the standing-room. Doubtless he was going to the pilot-house, where Francisco had been sent before him, to get the steamer under way as soon as Diego gave the command. Louis drew aside the curtain and looked out; but no one was to be seen on the deck.
"There is no one near the cabin now," said he as he seated himself on the divan, with his hands behind him, a position which circumstances compelled all the party to assume.
"But what have you heard, Captain Belgrave?" demanded Scott. "None of us but you know any Spanish, and we are as much in the dark as ever."
"Quite right; and I forgot to mention what I have heard;" and he proceeded to report the conversation to which he had listened, omitting the arguments used by Gray and the captain.