"Oh yes, I can swim. I learnt when I was a cadet." "That's right; and if we can't get off in one of the boats you keep close alongside of me--I know the dad will like me to stick with you-- and I'll get a life-belt, or one of the buoys, and we will share it together, one to rest in it while the other swims and tows. We'll get to shore somehow, never fear--the whole lot of us, I expect, for the lads will stand by, I am sure." "Yes, yes," said Fitz, glancing round over the sunlit sea. "But what about the sharks?" "Oh!" ejaculated Poole involuntarily, and he changed colour. It was just as the skipper and mate came walking sharply forward again. "There!" cried the latter triumphantly. "What did I say?" "Splendid!" cried the skipper. "But will it last?" "It did yesterday. Why not to-day?" cried the mate fiercely. For the wind had suddenly come in a sharp gust which filled the sails, making several of them snap with a loud report, laid the schooner on her beam-ends, and sent her rushing through the water for some hundred yards, making it come foaming up through the scuppers in fountains, to flood the deck, before she was eased off by the man at the wheel and rose again. But directly after the calm asserted itself once more; the greater part of the sea was like a mirror, with only cat's-paws here and there; and the gunboat came pounding on as stern as fate. "All right," said the mate cheerily; "it's coming again," and he ran to the man at the wheel. "Stand by, my lads," cried the skipper, "ready to let go those stuns'ls. We mustn't be taken again like that." The men rushed to the sheets, and when the wind came again, it came to stay, striking the heavily-canvassed schooner a tremendous blow, to which she only careened over, and not a drop of water came on board, for the light studding-sails were let go to begin flapping and snapping like whip-thongs until the violence of the gust had passed; and by that time the men were busy reducing the canvas, and the schooner was flying through the water like the winning yacht in a race. "Never say die!" cried Poole, with a laugh. "We are going faster than the gunboat now." "Yes," replied Fitz thoughtfully; "but she has the command of the sea, and can cut us off." "As long as her coals last," said Poole, "and they're burning them pretty fast over this. I'd give something to guess what old Burgess means to do. He's got something in his head that I don't believe my father knows." "Oh, he'd be sure to know," said Fitz, whose hopes were rising fast, his sympathies being entirely now with those who had proved such friends. "Oh, no, he wouldn't. Old Burgess can be as mute as a fish when he likes, and there's nothing pleases him better than taking people by surprise." "But what can he do more than race right away?"