When the outboard motor rushed toward _La Rubia_, Capitán Saavedra zestfully gave his engines full throttle. When the racketing, roaring motorboat arrived beside his ship, and Terry shouted to him to stop, he chuckled and drove on. In fact, he left _La Rubia's_ pilot-house to wave cheerfully at the two men. They frantically ran close and shouted to him above the rat-tat-tatting of their own motor and the rumble of his Diesels. _La Rubia_ reached the lagoon entrance with the smaller boat close at her side, and Terry still shouting. But Capitán Saavedra did not believe. Maybe he did not understand. Certainly he did not obey. Ocean swells lifted and tossed the motorboat. It became necessary to slow down, for safety. But _La Rubia_ went grandly on, into the open sea. "We can't force him to stop," said Davis in a despairing voice. "He won't. I only hope we're wrong, and he gets through!" The outboard stayed where it was, and swells tossed it haphazardly. _La Rubia_ switched on her navigation lights. She drove zestfully to the southward. She sailed on, dwindling in size, as the drone of her Diesels diminished in volume. Looking back, Terry saw the _Esperance_ approaching from the lagoon, dark figures on her deck. Terry shouted, cries answered him, and the _Esperance_ came to a stop as the motorboat drew alongside. Terry and Davis scrambled to her deck while one of the crew-cuts led the smaller boat astern and tethered it. "We're safe enough here," Terry said bitterly, "and since you've come, we can stay and watch if anything happens. If only she keeps on going...." But _La Rubia_ did not. Her lights showed that she had changed course. She changed course again. Her masthead light began to waver from side to side. She wallowed in such a way that it was clear she was neither on course nor in motion any longer. Nobody gave orders, but the _Esperance's_ engine roared. The action from this point on became an automatic and quick response to an emergency. The schooner-yacht plunged ahead at top speed. Terry switched on the recorder and the ultrapowerful sound projector. Davis bent over the searchlight. Two of the crew-cuts readied the bazookas. Suddenly, a flare went off on _La Rubia's_ deck. Her stubby masts and spars became startlingly bright. Screams came across the waves, even above the growling of the surf and above the noise of the _Esperance's_ engine. The flare shot through the air. It arched in a high parabola, bright in the sky, and fell into the sea. Another flare was ignited. The _Esperance's_ searchlight flicked on. A long pencil of light reached across the waves as she raced on. More screamings were heard. Another flare burned. It arched overside. The _Esperance_ plunged on, shouldering aside the heavier waves of open water.