"Perhaps you will: if you do, you will wish you hadn't done it," replied
the culprit, who did not seem to be in a submissive mood.
"Didn't you agree to obey orders, Chuck?" demanded Angy savagely.
"That is just what I have done; and if I was surprised into making a
little sound when that fellow struck a light close to us, I am not going
to be robbed for it," protested the delinquent.
"What are you going to do about it?" growled Angy.
"I can only tell you what I'm not going to do yet: I shall not submit to
being robbed," said Chuck.
It looked a little like a quarrel among the marauders, and Dory hoped he
might be able to derive some advantage from the disagreement. But they
had said enough to enable him to explain why he had been made a
prisoner. The burglars had evidently kept the run of him since he came
into the road, and they were not willing that any one should know they
had departed by water.
Probably they reasoned that he was alone, because they heard no voices,
for one pursuer would not do any talking. When he lighted the match to
examine the road, he had exposed himself; and then, if not before, the
fugitives saw that they could remove the only one on their track by
making him a prisoner.
The boat pulled out of the arm of the bay, and then followed the shore
on the west side, which entirely sheltered it from the violence of the
blast. But it soon reached a point where the crew could hear the
terrific roar of the storm on the open lake. The effect of the heavy
waves could be felt in the bay, and the boat began to tumble about.
"It is blowing a young hurricane," said Mack, when the roar of the
tempest could be heard in its intensity. "We shall never be able to
reach the vessel. I think we are just beginning to find the rough side
of this scrape."
"None of your croaking, Mack!" added the chief sharply. "We have found
our way out of this bay, and we are all right; and we must be on board
of the schooner before it is light enough for us to be seen from the
shore. I know where we are now."
"Then, you know we are in a tight place," added Mack. "It is light
enough now for you to see that the lake looks like a snow-bank, it is so
covered with foam from the waves. This boat will not live in that sea."
"We shall soon see whether it will or not," said Angy, as he shifted the
helm so as to direct the boat across the entrance of the bay.
The boat was the tender of the La Motte, and was not more than twelve
feet long. It was a sort of yawl, and the four persons in it was a full
freight for it. The sea was heavy at the mouth of the bay, though the
trend of the coast partially sheltered it from the full fury of the
blast.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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