"Our motorboat," Marian gasped. "It's broken loose and is going out with the tide. They must not have seen it. Quick! Our rowboat! We may beat them yet!"
With wildly beating hearts they raced up the beach. Having reached the heavy rowboat they pushed it off. Wading knee-deep in the sea to give the boat a good start, they at last leaped to their seats and grasped the oars, and with strong, deft, strokes set her cutting the water. Length by length they lessened the distance between them and the drifting prize.
Now they were two hundred yards away, now one hundred, now fifty, now—
There came a shout from the shore. With a quick glance over her shoulder Lucile took in the situation.
"We'll make it," she breathed. "Pull hard. They're a long way off."
Moments seemed hours as they strained at the oars, but at last they bumped the side of the motorboat and the next second found themselves on board.
Marian clung to the tiller of the rowboat while she swung round to the wheel. Lucile gave the motor a turn and to their great joy the noble little engine responded with a pop-pop-pop.
There came another shout, a hopeless one, from the robbers.
"We beat them. We—" Marian broke short off. "Look, Lucile. Look over there!"
To the right of them, bobbing up and down as they had seen it once before, was the head of the strange brown boy.