"How's the arm, Perry?"
"Oh, all right, I guess. It hurts a little. Phil's got it so blamed tight that I can't close my fingers. Will you, Steve?"
Steve was denied an answer by a sudden interruption from Wink. "She's moving, Steve!" he cried. "They've started her!"
"But they're anchored!" exclaimed Joe.
"They've cut the line. Probably reached through a port on the other side," said Steve, working quickly at the controls. "It's lucky we didn't have ours down, too!"
The Follow Me, gathering headway, pushed for the channel, and the Adventurer lunged forward with a mighty splashing of her screw, Steve bringing her head around as fast as he could. "How the dickens are they steering her, Harry?" he demanded, staring in puzzlement at the empty cockpit of the other craft.
"There's an auxiliary wheel forward, in the stateroom. They're coming around, fellows. Get under cover! Steve, you'd better drop!"
The others scuttled for the companion ways, and none too soon, for, as the Follow Me swung around into the channel those behind her ports had a clean sweep of the Adventurer's bridge deck and a fusillade of shots swept across the forty or fifty yards dividing the boats. Steve and Wink had dropped below the rail, while, in the cabins, the others were taking good care to crouch beneath the level of the ports. Some eight shots were fired, but, although several took effect on various parts of the bridge, the fact that the Adventurer was now plunging around in a half-circle at a full twelve miles an hour and the other boat was running at top speed down the channel made accuracy impossible. Neither Steve nor Wink had a chance to reply until it was too late for their shots to be effective. By that time the two cruisers had straightened out on the course and the chase had begun.
Harry Corwin was entrusted with Steve's revolver and, standing on the dining table set from locker to locker across the galley, he could thrust head and shoulders through the hatch. But the cockpit of the Follow Me remained empty and the entrance to the cabin was closed. Wink, his revolver ready, had returned to his post and watched grimly while the Adventurer, her engine fairly humming, slowly wore down the distance that separated her from the enemy.
"They're certainly getting some speed out of her," called Wink admiringly. The rest of the company had returned to the bridge and were watching eagerly. Tom Corwin, who had remained unaffected by the potting of the Follow Me's hull, was fighting mad now because the thieves had lost the bow anchor, and sputtered wrathfully as he gazed over Steve's shoulder. "If I was Harry I'd put a bullet through that door," he muttered. "I wish someone would let me have a shot at them!"