"You can back out, if you want to," added Richard, in an indifferent tone.
"I don't want to back out. I agreed to go, and I am going, if I have to be hung for it. I only say, it is a bad scrape."
"No scrape at all, Sandy. I don't calculate to get found out."
"You didn't calculate to before, but you did; and Old Batterbones got more fun out of the scrape than you did. Perhaps he will this time."
"If you are afraid, Sandy, back out, and we will go home again."
"I'm not afraid: don't use that word to me again, Dick. If I had been afraid, I shouldn't come, of course."
By this time the Greyhound was off the little inlet, near Mr. Batterman's garden, and, as a matter of prudence, all conversation was suspended. The boat shot into the inlet, and was made fast to the same tree as on the former occasion. As the business of these hopeful youths was not with the melon patch, they took a different road this time.
They had gone but a short distance before the rushing of a boat through the water was heard. They paused and Richard saw a sail, which he believed he had seen before that night, pass by the mouth of the inlet. He caught but a glance of it, as it cut a tangent along the small circle of his vision.
"I don't like the looks of that boat, Sandy," whispered Richard, as the sail disappeared in the gloom.
"Why not?"