"Smell 'em, do ye? Smell 'em! So do I now, and hev ever sence you revenooers come aboard. Seems like ye can't get the parfume out of your clothing."
"Going to seize the sloop anyway, be ye? Waal, ye kin do it, seeing as I'm all alone and a cripple. There'll come a day of reckoning, though—a day of reckoning, d'ye hear? I'm a free-born American citizen, and I'll protest agin this outrage till they hear me clear to Washington."
"He's heard over a good part of Washington this minute," whispered Bonny. "But what are they talking about now?"
"Phil Ryder!" the Captain was shouting. "Philip Ryder! No, sir, there ain't no one of that name aboard this craft, nor hain't ever been as I know of. I did know a Phil Ryder once, but— What's that ye say? That'll do? Waal, it won't do, ye gold-mounted swab, not so long as I choose to keep on talking. Lookout there, or I'll brain ye sure as guns! Lookout, I—"
This last exclamation was directed to a couple of sturdy bluejackets, who, obeying a significant nod from their officer, seized the irate Captain by either arm, hustled him down into his own cabin, and drew the slide. Then leaving these two aboard the Fancy, the others re-entered their boat and began to pull toward shore, with the evident intention of making a search for the missing members of the sloop's crew as well as for her recent passengers.
"Hello!" cried Bonny, softly, "this thing is beginning to get rather too interesting for us, and the sooner we light out the better."
So the lads started on a run, and had gone but a few rods, when Alaric, catching his toe on a projecting root, was tripped up and fell heavily. With such force was he flung to the ground that for several minutes he was too sick and dizzy to rise. When he finally regained his feet, and expressed a belief that he could again run, it was too late. The boat's crew were already scattering through the woods, and one man, detailed to search the point, was coming directly toward the place where the boys were concealed.
It seemed inevitable that they should be discovered, and Alaric, already giving himself up for lost, was beginning to see visions of the government prison on McNeil's Island, when Bonny spied one avenue of escape that was still open to them.
"Scrooch low!" he whispered, "and follow me as softly as you can."