“Dead! Blown to pieces!” he exclaimed as soon as he had taken three deep breaths. “Show us you are sailors, and we’ll prove to you that they are neither dead nor blown to pieces. I saw that wild looking fellow with the tangled black hair and shining eyes, saw him plainly.”
“The man of the face-in-the-fire,” Ruth said to Pearl, as she set the Flyaway to skimming up the bay. “The very one. Must be. What do you know about that!”
Not one of the three knew what about it, so they were silent until they too had rounded the island and saw the fleeing boat, a low, dark affair of moderate speed, popping along dead ahead.
“Well, will we overhaul them?” the little man asked anxiously.
“Will if the wind holds. May drop any time,” said Ruth. “Little fog. May burn off. May thicken. Can’t tell.” With a boy’s cap jammed tight over her head, she stood there swaying with the boat and giving her every inch of sail she’d carry.
“It’s to be a race,” she told herself, “a race between the Flyaway and that motor boat.” There was something altogether unusual about the whole affair. If these were the men, if indeed they had escaped the storm and the explosion, as indeed they appeared to have done, then the Flyaway, which they had attempted to destroy along with the three of them, was hunting down the very ones who had meant to destroy her.
“Good old Flyaway!” she whispered. “Do your best!”
“We’ll catch them,” she told herself a short time later. “And then?” She dared not think what might follow. These were desperate men. If caught, they would serve long terms in prison. They would not surrender without a battle.
It was strange the thoughts that passed through her mind as they sped along. Now she was thinking of that secret room in old Fort Skammel. How was it heated? Were the silks still there? If the men were captured, what then? The silks would be confiscated by the customs office.
“There’s some sort of law that gives the finder a share,” she told herself. “We found them right enough.” She thrilled at the thought of owning a room half filled with silk dresses and bolts of silk cloth.