“Or he has us,” said Pearl.
“Oh! It is you?” It was the little Secret Service man who spoke. “How are you? Anything new?”
“You should know!” said Ruth. “Black Gull is gone!”
“Yes, that’s right. But I don’t see——”
“Then you don’t see very well. She was blown up. Wasn’t supposed to be any explosives in her hold, was there? Who put them there?”
Ruth went on to remind him of her stolen punt and of the explosives she had found in it. She told him too of the secret meeting of the mock pirates on the Black Gull.
“Does look like the work of the man smugglers,” he admitted. “Question is, were they using the old ship as a storehouse for stolen explosives, or did they wish to destroy the meeting place of those who have been attempting to bring them to justice?”
“Well, at any rate,” he said after a moment’s silence, “the Black Gull is gone, and that’s one more loss to charge against them. Something tells me that their days in this, the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave, are numbered.”
“I hope so,” said Ruth fervently.
“Ruth,” whispered Pearl, leaning close, “shall we tell him about Fort Skammel?”