The signal had been given. He had done his duty at whatever risk there might be to his own safety.
CHAPTER XXXI.
CAPTURED.
Clif had elected to imperil his own existence rather than allow one of the enemy's boats to pass that blockade without warning to the American ships. But he had no intention of lying idly by in the path of the hostile craft.
He waited but a moment after the glare of the last rocket had died out in the air, and then bent to the oars, and urged the boat toward the open sea beyond.
And then he had every confidence that he had little to fear from the enemy's boat.
"They'll have all they can do to look out for their own safety now," he thought, "without paying any attention to me. The New York has seen the signal, and will not be slow in making out the cause. Then look out, Mr. Spaniard."
But there was more taking place upon those waters than Clif was cognizant of, and peril came from an unlooked-for source.