“At any rate,” I growled, “she’s too far off to help, anyway. That schooner’s certainly fast under power. Once started, she’s a good match for the launch, and besides----” “Stop the engine!” I whirled in amazement at the deadly animosity that came into Pawlinson’s voice; and the searchlight--which had kept us steadily in its radiance--showed a countenance an equal match to the tone. Then a smile came over his face as he corrected: “Throw her into the neutral!” I did so, and our screw stopped. “Now, haul up that punt’s painter and get into the tub.” “Get into the punt?” I cried, mystified. “Into the punt, I said, didn’t I?” shrilled the man with me. I can scarcely call him Pawlinson. I have never seen rage mount much higher as he busied himself setting the steering wheel to a certain spoke. The gear was a good one, and would hold to any setting of rudder. “But why?” I ventured further; then regretted the words, and forthwith did as he had ordered. I brought the punt alongside, sprang into it, and stood steadying, awaiting what would come next. But I snatched a second for a peek over my shoulder. The schooner was almost upon us by now; for, of course, she was headed for the nearest way out of the bay; and that way happened to be our way. But I was brought sharply back to Pawlinson. “And now,” said he, “I think we’ve got something that’ll work.” As he said this, he, too, clambered from the speed boat into the punt along with me. Now, mind you, the engine was still running in the neutral. “Reach over there!” he ordered. “Full speed ahead! You can reach the lever from where you stand. You know best how to do it. You start her, and the rudder’ll do the rest.” Then it was, on that very instant, that there flashed over me a light of understanding as brilliant as the calcium that still played about us. “You don’t mean it, man?” I cried; for I remembered now the strong metal stringers of the hydroplane’s structure; the weight of her engine; the impact that it meant at a twenty-five-mile-an-hour clip. The boat lay low in the water; and the hole she’d make in that yacht-planked schooner would be well along, and even below the water line. “I do mean it!” he yelled. “And now’s the time! About amidships she’ll catch it, I think. We’ll watch it from the punt.” I felt myself boil as would any civilized man. “And I think _not_!” The words sounded as from some other throat than my own. “Sink that schooner with all the men in her, and----” “And what?” I could feel his breath hot with wrath as he brought his face pugnaciously close to mine. “The girl!” I cried. “What do you know about her?” “Enough to know that I’ll not----” I don’t remember the end of that sentence; for he suddenly whirled his broad back upon me, and, fending my interference off thus, reached over into the speed boat’s cockpit and threw back the starting lever.