“Where you left him,” said Mason. “It was a bad cut you gave him. He won’t run away. That’s certain.”
“Serve him right,” said the other.
“Hark! What’s that?” cried Miles Burton, as the sound of two pistol-shots came up from the water. “They seem to be having trouble down there, too. You wait here, Mason, and I’ll get down to the shore.”
He ran to the steps, followed by the three boys. Down the rickety stairs they scrambled, and quickly stood on the ledge of the little landing, looking off on to the water.
What they saw was the yacht Eagle, not far from the bluff, under full mainsail, standing out of the cove. At some distance astern was the rowboat, in which were Arthur and Joe at the oars. The detective stood at the bow with a smoking revolver in his hand. Not far distant, across the cove, was the canoe containing the other detective and Tom. The detective also had just fired. Miles Burton and the boys could see no one aboard the sloop, but still it sailed steadily on its course. The canoe vainly tried to head it off, but the yacht, obedient to an unseen hand at the wheel, quickly came about and went off on the other tack, soon putting a hopeless distance between it and its pursuers.
They could not see the man aboard, for the reason that he lay flat in the cockpit, and, with one arm upraised, directed the course of the yacht.
“What a pity! What a pity!” said Miles Burton, talking softly to himself. “How could it have happened? I would rather have lost the other two than that man Chambers. He’s the most dangerous man of the three, and the man I wanted most.”
His face showed the keenest disappointment, but he had learned self-control in his business, and refrained from speaking above his ordinary tone of voice.
“How did it happen, Watkins?” he asked, as the rowboat came in to the landing for them.
“It’s all our fault, Burton,” said the other, bitterly. “Stapleton and I should have closed in the moment we heard the first shots; and we should have got aboard the yacht and waited. But I was not sure but what Chambers would land and go up the bluff to the rescue of his comrades, and so I waited to see what he would do. I might have known him better. These fellows are always looking out for number one, and that’s a safe rule to go by.