"You haven't made a long stay," he remarked, addressing Mr. Primmer. "Seems to me you're taking away a sight more stuff than ye brought in a day or so back. D'ye mind if I have a look at some of those boxes?"
The ex-bo'sun, taken aback, glanced appealingly at Rollo, who merely shrugged his shoulders. In his part of an artist he could not very well assume any responsibility without giving himself away.
"Sure I do mind," replied Primmer, at a loss to say anything else.
"Then," continued the representative of law and order, "it is my duty to——"
He broke off suddenly, possibly thinking that the odds were too great for him to tackle single-handed. He gave a sharp blast on his whistle. From behind the stone wall appeared half a dozen men in the uniform of His Majesty's Water Guard.
"Contraband!" exclaimed the policeman, waving his hand in the direction of the loaded pan-technicon. "Caught red-handed you be!"
CHAPTER XVIII
THE DESTROYER AND THE DESTROYED
EXACTLY three weeks after the capture of the Mendez Nunez the Alerte arrived off the mouth of the Wad-el-Abuam, a small river flowing into the Atlantic a few miles south of Cape Bojador.