"Why, she's turned around and going back!" exclaimed Captain Westfield in amazement.
"Look at the schooner!" cried Walter.
From the mysterious ship came muffled orders and the creak of blocks as sails were hoisted and sheeted home.
Slowly the put-put of the launch's engine died away in the distance from which it had come, and the mysterious schooner, under full sail, glided silently away in the darkness.
"I'll be joggered!" exclaimed Captain Westfield. "That's queer. I wonder what they were up to."
"Something that will not bear the light of day, I guess," said Charley, thoughtfully. "I believe it was our hail that frightened the fellows in the launch and their rocket was a signal to the schooner to clear out. Well, I guess the excitement is over for the night and we might as well go back to bed."
Walter and the captain lay awake for some time discussing the strange incident but Charley lay long awake on his couch, silent and thoughtful. He was puzzling to determine where he had seen the strange schooner before. In the second, the flare had revealed her in the darkness, he had sensed something vaguely familiar in the low graceful hull and the set of the raking masts.
"Where have I ever seen a foremast that raked aft like that one," he pondered. Suddenly it flashed vivid and distinct in his groping memory. "No, no," he muttered to himself. "It simply can't be her. It must only be a chance resemblance. That flare only lasted a second. Guess I am getting to imagine things. I'd better forget it and try to go to sleep."
Never-the-less it was long before he rid his alert brain of the tormenting thought and compelled sleep to come.