After that progress was quicker and much easier, since each swimmer could rest one hand and continue striking out with the other; but their relief was none the less when they arrived alongside the life-boat.
"We'm making sail, sir?" inquired Minalto, as the pair resumed their clothes after having lifted the gear into the boat.
Burgoyne thought wistfully of the favourable breeze, and reluctantly shook his head.
"I'd like to," he replied, "only the canvas would show up too much even in the darkness. We must row. All ready? Then let go!"
Pushing off from the almost submerged rail of the vessel that had been their floating home, the twain shipped an oar apiece, having taken the precaution of muffling the crutches with strips of rag. Then standing in towards the island they skirted the line of cliffs. Here they were safe from detection unless, which was most unlikely, the pirates had posted sentries on the edge of the lofty wall of rock that completely girded the island. There were, they knew, watchers on the look-out both by day and by night on the Observation Hill, but their task was to observe vessels approaching from the offing. The idea of a boat manned by their captives being navigated inside the lagoon and close to the precipitous shore never occurred to them, or if it did they had dismissed it as unworthy of serious consideration.
"There's one way out when the time comes," said Burgoyne, as the small gap on the south-western side of the reef appeared abeam.
"Right-o, sir," replied Minalto. "I know it, havin had to swim across 'en."
A few minutes later the life-boat rounded the extreme south-westerly point of the island. It was now that the most dangerous part of this phase of the operations was threatening; for, having to pass some distance off the detached rock before entering the west bay, the little craft would no longer be masked by the cliffs from the pirates stationed on the Observation Hill.
"Easy—lay on your oars a bit," cautioned Alwyn, as he glanced over his shoulder in the direction of the look-out post. The rugged outlines of the hill showed up against the mirky sky, but whether the boat was so plainly visible as it moved slowly through the calm, phosphorescent water was a matter unknown to Burgoyne and his companion. They hoped not and wished themselves farther in shore.
"Give way," ordered Burgoyne.