Then the trail led away in a great sweep, some ten miles to the southwest, toward Smith Island, where the bug-eye had been seen heading. They made this island on the forenoon of the next day. There they got trace again of a bug-eye answering the description of the Brandt; but it had made sail that morning to the eastward. They followed, in turn, across six miles of Tangier Sound to the shore of another broad extent of salt marsh, called Janes Island. They sailed southward along that, about dusk. Below them, by the chart, lay a good anchorage for the night, Somers Cove, at the mouth of a river. Already, in the gathering darkness, a mile ahead, there gleamed the rays of Janes Island lighthouse, marking the entrance to the harbour.
A half-mile ahead of them, making for this same light, sailed a vessel. They had had a glimpse of it before dusk set in, but not clear enough to make it out.
Then, as they sailed, the faint cry of someone in distress came to their ears—a startling, puzzling cry, that seemed to come up from the very depths of the dark waters.
Hamilton Haley, running his vessel out of the mouth of the Nanticoke, on the night of the disastrous fight with the police steamer, was at first about equally divided in mind between exultation and anger. He smiled grimly as he thought of the battle that had been waged with the owners of the oyster beds, and of the several score bushels of oysters plundered before the arrival of the steamer. He chuckled as he pictured again the escape in the fog, from the victorious steamer. But he muttered maledictions on the head of the skipper that had sunk the bug-eye, and who might have surmised, or might now be able to discover who the confederates of the unfortunate captain had been. He crowded on sail, once clear of the river, and went flying southward, in the early morning hours, along the shores of Deal Island.
The bug-eye turned the southern point of Deal Island and passed in through a narrow stretch of water called the Lower Thoroughfare, which ran between Deal Island and a smaller one, known as Little Island. Threading this thoroughfare, Haley sailed east and then northward, into a harbour called Fishing Creek. Here he dropped sail, came to anchor and prepared to lie snug, to rest and reflect upon what course to take.
In spite of his successful escape, Haley was worried—almost alarmed; and, as he considered the situation, throughout the day, his anxiety increased. There were several things that worried him; and, now that troubles began to press, he thought of them all at once, as impending and immediate dangers. Perhaps, unconsciously, he had lost nerve. He thought of possible pursuit from the steamer. He thought of a hunt that might have been set on foot for Henry Burns, the youth he had carried off from the Patuxent. He thought of Harvey and his companion, safely ashore, and perhaps long ere this having set on foot a search of reprisal.
Several times during the day, as Haley encountered Henry Burns about the deck, he stopped abruptly and seemed to be lost in thought. It would have disturbed the calmness of even that youth, could he have read Haley’s mind; could he have known that, of all his troubles, Captain Hamilton Haley regarded Henry Burns as the one that most menaced his safety. But it was so. Other things might be denied. The evidence would be hard to gather; but here was the stolen youth, evidence in himself of Haley’s act.
What Haley decided as best for his safety was expressed by Haley, himself, in answer to a question by Jim Adams, that afternoon.
“I’m going south—farther south,” he said, “down into Virginia waters, across the line. The police tubs won’t follow below that. We’ll stay for a while. I don’t know how long—till the trouble has had time to blow over, anyway.”