"I was certain of one thing: that no Captain Warriner had come aboard at Falmouth. So if the _Tarifa_ kept out to sea, why, there was no Captain Warriner to come aboard, and here was I spending my last pounds in running down a will-o'-the-wisp, and the world to face again to-morrow in the grim old way, without a penny to my purse. On the other hand, if there was a Captain Warriner, he would come aboard with the cargo somewhere that night, and I fancied I could lay my finger on that somewhere. I had another cause for anxiety. Grant my guess-work correct, and the last thing the _Tarifa_ was likely to hanker after would be a wasp of a steam launch buzzing in her wake. The evening was hazy, by a stroke of luck, but the wind was light and the sea smooth, and my propeller throbbed out over the water until I thought it must reverberate across the world, and the Esquimaux on Franz Josef Land and the Kanaka in the Pacific would hear it plain as the pulsing of a battleship. However, I slowed the launch down to less than half-speed, and the crew of the _Tarifa_ made no account of me. The brigantine was doing only a leisurely five knots--she was waiting for the dark, I conjectured. Conjectured? I came near to praying it. And as if in answer to my prayer--it sounds pretty much like blasphemy now, doesn't it?--but at that moment I believed it--all at once her red light vanished and my heart went jumping in the inside of me as though it had slipped its moorings. For the _Tarifa_ had changed her course; she was pointing closer to the wind and the wind came offshore; she was showing me her stern instead of her port beam; on the course she was lying now she couldn't clear the Manacles--not by any manner of means. She was heading for the anchorage I hoped she would; she was standing in towards Helford river. In a little she went about, and seeing her green light, I slowed down again. I could afford to take it easy." He drew a breath of relief and lolled back upon his seat. Miranda no longer put questions; there was a look of discouragement upon her face; she began bitterly to feel herself helpless in this man's hands, as clay under the potter's thumb.