CHAPTER XIX. THE PURSUIT
Great was the rage of Colonel Witham and Squire Brackett when theydiscovered that the boys had escaped.
"But it will be only so much the worse for them in the end," said thesquire. "The fact of their running away is a confession of guilt, andwill count hard against them when we once get them into court.
"Colonel," he continued, gazing off on to the bay, "I believe that's themnow, about two miles down along the shore. Cap'n Sam, you're a sure judgeof a sail. Isn't that the _Spray_ beating down along the island, just offBilly Jones's beach?"
Captain Sam took a most deliberate observation, turned a chew of tobaccotwice in his cheek, and then remarked, laconically:
"That's the _Spray_, sure's a gun. There is no mistaking the queer set ofthat gaff-topsail. It always was a bad fit, and it sticks out just ascrooked like, two miles away, as it does close on. Y-a-a-s, there's theyoungsters, and no mistake."
Captain Sam did not see fit, however, though a constable, sworn to do hisduty, as the others had suggested, to explain that he had seen the_Spray_ for the last hour or more, and that he had been conscious allalong of the precious time they were losing. But a sharp observer mighthave detected him chuckling down deep in his throat as the colonel andthe squire stormed and raged.
"Well, what are we going to do?" cried Squire Brackett. "We're losingvaluable time here. That little boat eats fast into the wind, they say,and we have got to get started pretty quick if we expect to overhaul herbetween now and dark.
"Come! What do you say, Cap'n Sam? You know the boats in the harbourbetter than I do. Whose is the best one to go after them with?"
"Wa-al," drawled Cap'n Sam, "if I do say it, I suppose the _Nancy Jane_is about as good as any in a long thrash to windward,--if she does belongto me. She's big and she's roomy, and there's a comfortable cabin in herfor you and the colonel--for I suppose you'll want to go along."
"Go along!" exclaimed Colonel Witham. "I should say we did--eh, squire?When these 'ere warrants are served I want to be there to see it done,and so does the squire, I reckon."
"That's what I do," responded Squire Brackett. "We'll go along with you,sure enough."
"Then you want to be getting some grub aboard right away," said CaptainSam, with a fine show of energy and haste, "while I break the news to mywife. She'll put me up a bite to last a day or two. You can't tell, youknow, when you start off on one of these 'ere cruises, where you'll endup nor how long you'll be out,--so you want to come prepared to stay."
And then, as the colonel and the squire hurried off down the road, heturned back for a moment to Mrs. Warren, who stood weeping, and said,with rough good-heartedness:
"Now, don't you go to taking on, Mrs. Warren. There's some mistake here.Depend upon it. I've known them youngsters ever since they was nobigger'n short lobsters, and I know they ain't got nothing bad enough in'em to go to setting a hotel afire.
"P'r'aps there might have been some little accident," he added, moreconservatively. "Accidents always is happening, you know, and we're allof us liable to 'em. I've got to do my duty, Mrs. Warren, bein' as I am aconstable of this town, sworn to obey my orders as I get 'em, signed andsealed from the court; but I'm goin' to stand by them boys, all the same.
"So you just go and get your husband down here, quick as ever youcan,--and we'll settle this 'ere difficulty pretty soon, I reckon.
"And see here," he said, in conclusion, "if Mr. Warren gets here byto-morrow noon, that'll be time enough. And that gives you a chance totake the boat up to-day if you hurry, and bring Mr. Warren back with you.I'll sorter guarantee we don't fetch up here again till to-morrowafternoon, so don't you worry." And with a sly twinkle in his gray eyesthe captain took his leave, and rolled along lazily toward his home.
He was still eating a hearty breakfast when the colonel and the squireburst in upon him, hot with impatience. But the captain was provokinglydeliberate, and finished a few more huge slices of bread and a biscuit ortwo, and two cups of coffee and a few of his wife's doughnuts, before hewould budge an inch.
"The boys can't escape," he said, by way of assurance to the impatientpair. "They can't go across the Atlantic in a little sardine-box likethat, if it has got a mast and a bowsprit and a cabin to it. We're boundto fetch up with them quick enough. Have a cup of coffee, colonel!Squire, sit down and drink a cup of coffee! Mrs. Curtis knows how to makeit, if anybody does."
But the colonel and the squire refused impatiently, and by dint ofnagging and voluble persuasion they got Captain Sam started, and thethree went down to the shore.
The news had spread abroad by this time,--thanks to the colonel and thesquire,--and quite a number of villagers and cottagers had gathered tosee them off.
What they said was not complimentary to the worthy two, for the boys, inspite of their pranks, were universally liked, and the whole village hadnot done with praising them for their bravery at the fire.
"Why don't you go and arrest Jack Harvey and his crew?" cried one of thevillagers. "Looks mighty queer to have them clear out, every one of them,the morning of the blaze. Dan French, he saw them standing out by hispoint early that morning while the fire was blazing its hardest. Reckonthat looks a sight queerer than it does to wait a whole day."
"Well! Well! I guess they had a hand in it," cried Colonel Witham, as hestepped into the yacht's tender. "We'll hunt them up, too, later on. Theyare all mixed up in it, I've no doubt. Wait till we get the boys we areafter now, and we'll make them confess the whole thing."
It certainly did look suspicious, this flight from both camps and fromthe Warren cottage, just after the fire; and the villagers, however welldisposed they might be in the boys' favour, or however much inclined toshow leniency, could not explain it away.
"They must have been up to some of their pranks," they said to oneanother, "and somehow got the hotel on fire. Colonel Witham must beright,--and, besides, Squire Brackett says he's got the proof. He mustknow something bad, or he would not be so certain."
And to this conclusion, reluctant as they might be to come to it, therefitted, in startling corroboration, the coincidence of their being thefirst to discover the fire,--the first to give the alarm.
And the villagers sympathized all the more, for this conclusion, withMrs. Warren, as she took the boat for home that morning, bravely keepingback her tears, and receiving courageously their kindly assurances,though her heart was breaking.
The _Nancy Jane_ was a heavy fishing-boat, of the centreboard type, bigand beamy and shallow of build, able to "carry sail" in the worst ofweather, but not so marvellously fast as one might have been led tobelieve by the recommendation of her owner. However, it was quite truethat she could overhaul the _Spray_--only give her time enough, andprovided no accident should happen.
"She's got a bit of water in her," said Captain Sam. "So make yourselvescomfortable, gentlemen, make yourselves comfortable, while I pump herout. She'll sail faster and point up better with the water out of her,and we'll all be more comfortable."
And the colonel and the squire made themselves anything but comfortable,fretting and fuming at the delay.
The captain took it leisurely, however, yanked the pump for ten minutesor more, to the accompaniment of short puffs of his pipe, and thenpronounced her dry as "Dry Ledge at low tide."
The colonel and the squire were neither of them sailors; so they couldonly wait on Captain Sam's pleasure. He finally made sail on the _NancyJane_, got up anchor, brought her "full and by," and they began the longzigzag chase down the bay in the teeth of the wind.
The breeze freshened as they drew out of the shelter of the island shore,and down between the nearer islands Captain Sam could see the line ofbreeze show black upon the water.
"Looks like a right smart blow by afternoon," he said.
Colonel Witham looked up apprehensively.
"It doesn't get dangerous, does it?" he asked.
Captain Sam laughed dryly.
"Guess you're not much on sailing, colonel, are you?" he asked, by way ofreply. "Bless you! We don't get a dangerous blow in the bay once in asummer. No, you need not worry about that. There's no danger; but Iwouldn't wonder if we had a bit of a chop-sea when the wind freshens."
The colonel looked more at ease.
"No," he said, "I'm no sailor. I manage to make the voyage down the riverto the island, but that is as much seagoing as I have ever wanted, andthis will be my first real ocean experience."
"Not what you'd hardly call an ocean experience, either," said CaptainSam, grinning from ear to ear. "No," and he said the words over tohimself as though they afforded him no end of amusement, "a slat towindward from the point to Gull Island ain't just what one would call anocean experience, though it does shake a body up now and then in a blow."
Dinner-hour came, and they had the _Spray_ well in sight, some milesahead and pitching hard.
"We'll eat a snack," said Captain Sam, who was never so happy and heartyas when he had his hand on the wheel of the _Nancy Jane_. "Colonel, haveone of Mrs. Curtis's fresh doughnuts, just fried this morning, make youfeel like a schoolboy."
But the colonel, pale of face, declined.
"I--I don't seem to feel very hungry just this moment," he stammered."Late breakfast, you know. Er--by the way, is it going to blow muchharder, do you think?"
"No great shakes," responded the captain. "Guess there may be anothercapful or two of wind in them 'ere light clouds out yonder. It mayfreshen a bit, but that's all right. That's just what we want. The harderit blows the more the _Spray_ will pitch and get knocked back. It's thekind of a breeze that the _Nancy Jane_ likes, plenty of wind and a roughsea. The wind is bound to go down by sunset. It's the way thesesoutherlies act."
"By sundown!" groaned the colonel. "That's hours yet, and I'm sure we'lltip clear over if this boat leans much more."
"Built to sail on her beam," explained Captain Sam. But at this momentthe _Nancy Jane's_ bow snipped off the whitecap of a roller somewhatlarger than its predecessor, and the spray flew in, drenching the colonelfrom head to foot.
He yelled with terror. "We're upsetting, sure!" he cried. "Let's turn herabout, Captain Sam, while there is time, and start again when it'slighter."
"Nonsense!" said Captain Sam, with a grin. "You're a bit shaken up, butyou'll feel better by and by. Just go into the cabin and lie down alittle while. That may make you feel better."
Perhaps it had been so many years since Captain Sam had experienced theawful misery of seasickness that he did not realize that the worst thingthe colonel could do was to go down into the dark, damp, musty-smellingcabin of the old fishing-sloop. Perhaps he really did think that thecolonel would feel better for it. But whatever his motive was, it had asudden and deadly effect on Colonel Witham. Indeed, he had scarcely stuckhis head into the stuffy cabin, had certainly no more than gotten fullywithin, before he staggered out again, with an agonized expression on hisface, and sank, limp and shivering, to a seat, with his head over therail.
"Oh! Oh!" he groaned. "I think I'm going to die. I'm awfully sick; neverfelt so bad in all my life. Can't you put me ashore, CaptainSam--anywhere, anywhere? I don't care where, even if it is a desertedisland. I'd wait there a week if I could only get on shore." And thecolonel groaned and shivered.
It was obvious there was no way of going ashore, however, as they weresome miles distant from it. There was nothing for the unhappy colonel todo but to make the best--or the worst--of it.
"Cheer up, colonel," said Captain Sam, pulling out the stub of a blackclay pipe, lighting it, and puffing away enjoyably. "I've seen 'em justas sick as you are one hour, and chipper enough to eat raw pork and climbthe mast the next. You will be feeling fine before long,--won't he,squire?"
But as the squire evidently had his doubts in the matter, owingparticularly to the fact that he was not too much at ease himself, hisresponse was rather faint; and the captain was left to the entertainmentof his own society. He enjoyed himself for the next hour or two with asort of monologue, in which he proceeded to analyze audibly the relativechances of the little yacht ahead and the _Nancy Jane_.
"They are doing surprisingly well for a small craft in windward work," hemuttered. "They handle her well. Still, the _Nancy Jane_ is eating up onthem. I say about sundown we shall be able to run alongside--Hulloa! Ifthey are not changing their course to run down the Little Reach! Thoughtthey knew better than that. Why, it's what they call a 'blind alley' inthe cities. Well, I'm surprised. They know the bay pretty well, too; and,only to think, they go to running in to a thoroughfare which really isnothing more than a long cove. They'll fetch up at the end of it in anhour or two, and there's no way out."
The captain's voice almost seemed to express disappointment that thechase should end so tamely.
"Colonel," he cried. "Squire. It will be all over in a few hours now.They're running into a trap."
But the colonel and the squire were beyond interest in the pursuit.
The yacht _Spray_ had, indeed, started its sheets, and now, with the windon its beam, was running off toward a group of small islands, or ledges,on a course nearly at right angles with that which it had been taking.
The boys had watched the _Nancy Jane_ anxiously for the last few hours.
"They are steadily coming up on us," George Warren had said. "Too bad wecould not have got a few hours more start. We might have given them theslip then when night shut down."
"But we are not sure that they are after us, are we?" asked young Joe.
"No, but it looks pretty certain," replied his brother George. "There'snothing particular to start the _Nancy Jane_ down here, and she isCaptain Sam's boat and he is the town constable."
"Then what had we better do?" queried Tom. "There is not much use runningaway, if we are sure to be caught inside of a few hours. We'd a sightbetter turn about and start back, as though we had finished our sail.That would look less like running away."
It was noticeable that, having once set out to escape, they accepted thesituation now fully, without more pretence.
"We have got to decide before long," said Henry Burns. "The _Nancy Jane_is overhauling us fast."
"George," said Arthur Warren, "I know one chance, if you want to try it,and if you are willing to risk the _Spray_,--and I think it would saveus."
"What is it, Arthur?" asked George. "If it is any good, I'm for tryingit. I can't see as we have anything great to risk, with a twenty-fivethousand dollar fire charged to us."
"What is it, Arthur?" exclaimed the others, excitedly. It did not seempossible there could be any chance of escape open, but they jumpedeagerly at anything that offered a faint hope.
"Well," said Arthur, in his deliberate manner, "you know the smallopening between Spring and Heron Islands at the foot of Little Reach?Nobody ever ran a sailboat through there because it's choked up withledges. But you remember when the mackerel struck in to the Reach therelast August, we all went down in the _Spray_ for a week's fishing. Well,one day Joe and I took the tender and worked our way clear throughbetween Spring and Heron Islands to the bay outside. Now the _Spray_,with the centreboard up, does not draw very much more water than thetender, and by dropping the sails and all poling through, I think we canwork her in clear to the other side."
"We'll try it," said George Warren. "It is the only chance we have, sowe've really no choice."
And he put the tiller up and threw the _Spray_ off the wind, while Arthurand Joe started the sheets. It was this sudden manoeuvre which hadstartled Captain Sam.
They soon passed the entrance to Little Reach, two barren ledges shelvingdown into the water, and were well down the Reach when Captain Sam andthe _Nancy Jane_ headed into it.
"There they go," cried Captain Sam, "like an ostrich sticking its headinto the sand. Well, what can you expect of boys, anyway? We'll overhaulthem faster than ever now, because this big mainsail draws two to theirone this way of the wind, and the jibs aren't doing anything to speak of,the wind varies so
in here."
It was smooth water inside Little Reach, and, as there was now scarcelyany motion to the _Nancy Jane_ as she skimmed along by the quiet shores,the colonel and the squire began to revive a little, sufficient at leastto regain their interest in the pursuit.
They were about a mile and a half down the Reach, and the _Spray_, notquite half a mile ahead, was apparently at the end of her cruise.
"They are at the end now," cried Captain Sam, whose blood was up when itcame to a race between the _Nancy Jane_ and another, though smaller,craft. "We've got 'em like mice in a box."
"By George! look there, colonel--look, squire!" he exclaimed, excitedly."They have given it up. There go the sails. It's all over. They may scootashore, but the island on either side is nothing more than a rock. Well,I vow! But I didn't think they would quit so tamely after a game race."
"We'll make 'em smart for what we have suffered to-day, eh, colonel?"growled the squire.
The colonel grunted assent. He was not yet sufficiently himself to bevery aggressive.
"What on earth are they doing?" said Captain Sam, a few moments later."Looks as though they were trying to hide away among the rocks, like amink in a hole. They'll have the _Spray_ aground if they jam her in amongthose ledges."
The _Spray_, however, slipped in among the rocks, and was shut out fromthe view of the pursuers.
"Let 'em hide," said Captain Sam, contemptuously. "That is a boyishtrick. We'll be up with them now in fifteen minutes."
But the _Spray_, hidden from view of Captain Sam and the colonel and thesquire, was not running itself upon the rocks nor poking its nose,ostrich-like, among the ledges.
The instant the sails were dropped young Joe sprang out on the bowspritand lay flat, holding a pole, with which he took soundings as the otherspushed and poled with the sweeps of the yacht.
They ran the bow gently on to rocks a dozen times, but a warning yellfrom Joe stopped them, and they turned and twisted and wormed and worriedtheir way in among the ledges, turning about where a larger craft wouldhave had no room to turn, and slipping over reefs that just grazed thebottom of the little _Spray_, and which with two inches lower tide wouldhave held them fast.
"It's just the right depth of water," said Arthur, exultantly. "Luck iswith us this time, for certain. An hour later and we could not have doneit. But we're going through. There is only the bar ahead now. If we clearthat we are free of everything."
Just ahead, where two thin spits of sand ran off on either end of the twoislands into shoal water, was a narrow, shallow passage, where the waterwas so clear that it looked scarcely more than a few inches in depth, asit rippled over the bar.
"All out!" cried Arthur, as the _Spray_ grated gently on the bottom, "Wewill lighten her all we can," and they sprang overboard into waterscarcely above their knees.
"Now, Joe," said Arthur, "you and Henry take the head-line out over thebows and go ahead and pull for all you are worth. George and I will getalongside and push, and keep her in the channel, and Tom and Bob can getaft and push. We have got to rush her over that shallow place, and wemust not let her stop, for if she once hangs in the centre we cannotbudge her. The _Spray_ is not a ninety-footer, but she's got enough pigiron in her for ballast to hold her high and dry if she once sticks."
The boys seized hold quickly, and the _Spray_, lightened of her load,slid along, at first sluggishly, and then gathering speed, as the twelvestrong, brown, boyish arms pulled and tugged and pushed.
"Jump her, now, boys! Jump her!" cried Arthur, as they neared the shoal."We're doing it. Don't let her stop, now! Oh, she mustn't stop! We've gotto put her over or die."
And the little _Spray_ seemed to feel the thrill and joy of freedomthroughout its timbers; for at the words it surged forward with a rush,as though it would take the bar at a flying leap. The white sands reachedup from the bottom, and the whole bar seemed to be rising up to hold theboat prisoner, as the water shoaled. But the little _Spray_ kept on.
It hung for one brief, breathless moment almost balanced on the middle ofthe bar, and the white sands thought they had it fast; but the nextmoment it slid gently from their grasp, gave a sort of spring as it feltitself slipping free, and the next moment rode easily in clear water,just over the bar.
The next instant six exultant boys, their faces blazing with excitementand exertion, had scrambled aboard, falling over one another in theireagerness to seize the halyards.
They hoisted the sails on the _Spray_ again in a way that would have madeCaptain Sam himself sing their praises, and now, with evening coming on,there was just enough breeze left in among the rocks to waft them gentlyalong out of the inlet.
They watched breathlessly, as they neared the entrance to the outer bay,for a glimpse of the _Nancy Jane_; but the _Nancy Jane_, good boat thoughshe was, was just a moment too late. Scarcely had they turned the littlebluff and were hidden behind it, on their way whither they might choose,when the _Nancy Jane_ rounded to at the entrance to the channel.
"It's all done," Captain Sam had exclaimed, as he threw the wheel of the_Nancy Jane_ over and came up into the wind, but when he looked to seethe _Spray_, she was not there. Not so much as a scrap of a sail nor themerest fragment of a hull, absolutely nothing.
Captain Sam was so dumfounded he could only gasp and stare vacantly atthe place where, by all rights, the _Spray_ ought to be.
The colonel and the squire, who had no preconceived ideas about thepassage between the islands, solved the problem at once; but not so thecaptain.
"They've gone through there, you idiot," exclaimed the squire, growingred in the face. "Where else can they be? They can't fly, can they?"
The captain groaned, as one whose pride had been cruelly smitten.
"To think," he muttered, "that I've sailed these waters, man and boy, forforty years, only to be fooled by a parcel of schoolboys from the city.Why, every boy in Southport knows you can't run a sailboat throughbetween Heron and Spring Islands. There ain't enough water there at hightide to drown a sheep."
"Well, it seems they got through easy enough," answered the colonel.
"That's it! That's it!" responded the captain, warmly. "They do say ashow fools rush in where angels don't durst to go, and sometimes the foolsblunder through all right. And here's these boys gone and done what I'd asworn a million times couldn't be done."
"Yes, and we probably can get through, too, if we only go ahead and try,instead of lying here like jellyfish," exclaimed the squire. "Cap'n Sam,seems as though you weren't so dreadful anxious to catch up with themyoungsters as you might be. P'r'aps you might have told Mrs. Warren backthere a few things that might explain this 'ere delay."
"Yes, and if them boys can go through there, I, for one, don't see what'sto hinder us," chimed in the colonel. "Cap'n Sam, I don't see what we'rea-hanging back for."
And so, his pride humbled, and too mortified to stand by his own betterjudgment, Captain Sam reluctantly yielded to their importunities, andpointed the nose of the _Nancy Jane_ in toward the opening amid therocks.
"It can't be done," he said, doggedly, "but if you say that I am nottrying to do my duty as a sworn officer of the town, I'll just show you.Only don't blame me if we're hung up here hard and fast for twelvehours."
The _Nancy Jane_, like a horse that is being driven into danger that itsomehow apprehends, seemed almost intelligent in its reluctance to enterthe stretch of reef-strewn water. It bumped and scraped its way from onerock to another, balked at this ledge and that, and, finally, after anextra amount of pushing and pulling by the three men, jammed itself faston a reef studded with barnacles and snail-shells, and refused to budgeone way or another. In vain they tried to bulldoze and cajole, to pushand to pull, to plead with and to denounce the obstinate _Nancy Jane_.Stolid and deaf alike to entreaty and expostulation, the boat squatteddown upon the reef like an ugly fat duck, comfortably disposed for thenight and refusing to be disturbed.
"I told you so!" roared the captain, now aroused to his rights asskipper, and
finding himself thus exasperatingly vindicated as to theimpassability of the channel. "We're hung up fast for the night, for thenext twelve hours, till next flood. Then, if Lem Cobb is living in hisfishing-shack on Spring Island, and will lend us a hand and a few piecesof joist to pry with, mebbe we'll get off, and mebbe we won't."
The colonel and the squire boiled inwardly; but as it was apparent theyhad only themselves to blame, they felt it useless to engage indiscussion with the indignant captain. So they wisely remained silent,and left him to consume his wrath alone.
"Well," he said, finally, "I for one am curious to see just where thoseyoung rascals are; and if you're of the same mind you can satisfy yourcuriosity by coming ashore with me." And the captain waded off to therocks of Spring Island and clambered up the bank, closely followed by thecolonel and the squire.
"There they go, slipping along as slick as eels," exclaimed the captain,as he and his panting companions achieved the ascent of the highest bitof rock on Spring Island and looked down the bay. "They're off down amongthe islands," he continued, "and here we stand like natural-born idiotsand bite our fingers. If ever I get into a mess like this again, I'llresign my office of constable and hire out to Noddy Perkins for aclam-digger." But the colonel and the squire, too angry and chagrined forwords, stayed not to listen to the captain's denunciation.
They turned and walked rapidly in the direction of the fishing-shack, theonly shelter the island afforded; while the captain, standing out inrelief upon the rock, like some disappointed Napoleon, was the lastsolitary object that the boys saw as, looking astern from the _Spray_,the little island faded from their view into the twilight.