“It’s against the law,” cried the colonel; and he vowed he would make it hot for Captain Sam when Judge Ellis found his orders were not obeyed. But Captain Sam knew better than they of the warm corner in the judge’s heart, and knew, moreover, that his old friend of years, the judge, would never reprimand him for a breach of duty of this sort. So he shut his lips firmly and let the squire and the colonel boil away as best they might between themselves. The captain shortened sail on the _Nancy Jane_, so that the two boats kept along near together, heading back for Southport. It was a sorry crew aboard the _Spray_ as the little craft silently followed in the wake of the _Nancy Jane_. They might have been in dreamland as they sailed all that day, for scarcely a word was spoken; and when night dropped down and the boys, all but George Warren, piled into the cabin to sleep, it was scarcely more quiet than by day. Very late that night, as the _Spray_ and the _Nancy Jane_ ran into Southport harbour and brought up for a few moments alongside the wharf, to let a serious-looking man, and a tearful woman aboard, the boys were still sleeping soundly; and George Warren and his father and mother sat alone together till the sun rose, while the _Spray_, following the _Nancy Jane_, ran along up the island and then stood across to Mayville, where Judge Ellis would hold his court that morning. “I don’t need you to make any denial about the fire,” Mr. Warren had said, when he stepped aboard the _Spray_ and put his hand on his eldest son’s shoulder. “I know you boys would not do such a thing as that; but I fear your recklessness has gotten you into serious trouble, and Colonel Witham seems inclined to press the matter to the extreme. So I want to hear everything from beginning to end.” And George Warren told him all. There was another boat coming sluggishly up the bay that night, far astern of the _Spray_, a handsome big sloop, beautifully modelled and with finely tapered, shining yellow spars. But she carried little sail, was reefed, in fact, though the breeze was very light; and she moved through the water so like a dead thing, or like a creature crippled by a wound, that a sailor would have seen at once that there had been some mishap aboard, some injury to hull or spars that held her back. The youth at the wheel of this strange, big sloop bore a striking resemblance to Jack Harvey, though the yacht was not the _Surprise_, but bigger and far more elegant. And the crew—yes, they were surely Harvey’s crew—George and Allan and Tim and Joe,—and they addressed the boy at the wheel as “Jack.” And the _Surprise_—where was she? Four days had passed since, on that morning following the fire, the _Surprise_ had turned the point of the island that marked an entrance to the thoroughfare where, a half-mile to leeward, a big black sloop was coming fast up the wind.