"What then?" demanded Copplestone. "Where are your powers of deduction? Why, that shows that the _Pike_ was somewhere this morning where she could get the morning papers from Aberdeen and Edinburgh--therefore, she's been, as I suggested, somewhere on the Scotch coast all night. It's now noon--she's a fast sailer--I guess she's been within sixty miles of us ever since she left us." "Isn't it more pertinent to speculate on where she'll be when we want to find her?" asked Audrey. "More pertinent still to wonder when somebody will come to find us," answered Copplestone as he shouldered one of the cases. "However, there's a certain joy in uncertainty, so they say--we're tasting it." The joys of uncertainty, however, were not to endure. They had scarcely completed the task of carrying up the newly-arrived stores to the shelter which they had made in an angle of the rocks when Vickers hailed them from a spur of the cliffs and waved his arms excitedly. "I say, you two!" he shouted. "There's a craft coming--from the south-west. Come up! There!" he added, a few minutes later, when they arrived, breathless, at his side. "Out yonder--a mere black blot--but unmistakable! Do you know what that is, either of you? You don't? All right, I do--ought to, because I'm a R.N.V.R. man myself. That's a T.B.D., my friends!--torpedo-boat destroyer. What's more, far off as she is, my experienced eye and sure knowledge tell me exactly what she is. She's a class H. boat built last year--oil fuel--turbines--runs up to thirty knots--and she's doing 'em, too, just now! Come on, Copplestone--more stuff on this fire!" "I don't think we need be uneasy," said Copplestone. "Miss Greyle thinks that her mother will have raised a hue and cry after the _Pike_. This torpedo thing is probably looking round for us. She--what's that?" The sudden sharp crack of a gun came across the calm surface of the sea, and the watchers turning from their fire towards the black object in the distance saw a cloud of white smoke drifting away from it. "Hooray!" shouted Vickers. "She's seen our smoke-pillar! Shove more on, just to let her know we understand. Saved!--this time, anyway." Half-an-hour later, a spick and span and eminently youthful-looking naval lieutenant raised his cap to the three folk who stood eagerly awaiting his approach at the edge of the surf. "Miss Greyle? Mr. Vickers? Mr. Copplestone?" he asked as he sprang from his boat and came up. "Right!--we're searching for you--had wireless messages this morning. Where's the pirate, or whatever he is?" "Somewhere away to the southward," answered Vickers, pointing into the haze. "He was here two hours ago--but he's about as fast as they make 'em, and he's good reason to show a clean pair of heels. However, we've ample grounds for believing him to have gone due south again. Where are you from?"