Two messengers he despatched to St. Mary's to learn, if they could, whether any news had reached the town of Neville's escape. The other available men he divided into parties of four, and sent them to scour the woods in all directions. Then, taking Ralph Ingle with him, he buckled on his sword, lifted two guns from the rack in the hall, and marched grimly down the little path to the wharf. "You have a keen eye, Ingle, and are a mariner born and bred. Therefore have I brought you with me, for it seems far likelier that Neville has made his escape by sea than by land. I will take the helm, and do you go before the mast and keep a sharp lookout for any small boat, especially one that may seem to hug the wooded points at the mouth of the river." Ingle ventured a few words by way of conversation, but found his companion in a taciturn mood and not to be drawn into conversation. Both men scanned every headland and inlet till their eyes ached, but with no success, till at length Ingle called out,-- "There's a ship yonder,--a packet, I should say, from the size and build of her." "Ay, for a guess 'tis Prescott's. I ordered him from St. Mary's yesterday for being too much hand in glove with that scapegrace brother of thine." A pained look crossed Ralph Ingle's face. "Forgive me!" said Brent, who had a soft heart under a quick temper. "Whatever may be said of your brother, I put trust in you, and here's my hand on 't." Ingle did not note the outstretched hand, for his eyes were fixed on something beyond the ship, a smaller boat making for St. Mary's. "Look!" he said, "to the right there, to the southward of Pine Point! Damnation, how the fog is shutting down!" Even as he spoke a film gathered between him and the two boats,--a film deepening into a thick veil and that into an impenetrable, impalpable wall of fog. Brent held his boat straight on her course. On, on, till once again he caught the outline of the packet looming close at hand. Then from the other side he heard a voice which he recognized as Neville's shouting "Boat ahoy!" Then a crash as if a sea monster had both boats and were grinding them between his teeth. A rebound, and then another crash, and above the noise the voice of Philpotts crying, "My God! He's gone!" and a woman's voice sobbing, "O Kit! Dead! Dead!" "Hard alee!" shouted Ingle to Brent. "Hard alee! or we shall be in the coil with the rest;" and running aft he threw his whole weight on the tiller just in time to shave the packet. They swept into open water, and the wind bore them away till once more the two boats looked like gray phantoms against the grayer sky. "Well done, Ingle! But for your quickness we should have been snarled up with the other boats. Next time we must come to them with more caution." "Why take the risk again? Death has been before us in claiming our prisoner." "Ay, but his jailor and the accomplices are yet to be reckoned with if Maryland justice is not to become a byword and a hissing."