"Why, commander! And let that lousy little yeoman in on it?" Grinnel, amused, a good Joe, a man's man: "That's up to you, men. Just keep it quiet." "Why, commander, sometimes I like to make a little noise--" "Ow!" a man yelled. There was a scuffle of feet and babbling voices. "Get her, you damn fool!" "She bit my hand--" "There she goes--" and a single emphatic shot. Grinnel's voice said into the silence that followed: "That's that, men." "Did you _have_ to shoot, Commander?" an aggrieved Guardsman said. "Don't blame me, fellow. Blame the guy that let her go." "God-dammit, she bit me--" Somebody said as though he didn't mean it: "We ought to take her someplace." "The hell with that. Let 'em get her in the morning." "Them as wants her." A cackle of harsh laughter. Grinnel, tolerantly: "Back to the guardhouse, men. And keep it quiet." They scuffled off and there was silence again for long minutes. Charles said at last: "We'll go down to the wharf." They crawled out and looked for a moment from the shelter of the building at the bundle lying in the road. Lee muttered: "Grinnel." "Shut up," Charles said. He led her down deserted alleys and around empty corners, strictly according to plan. The speedboat was a twenty-foot craft at Wharf Eighteen, bobbing on the water safely removed from other moored boats and ships. Lee Falcaro let out a small, smothered shriek when she saw a uniformed sailor sitting in the cockpit, apparently staring directly at them. "It's all right," Charles said. "He's a drunk. He's always out cold by this time of night." Smoothly Charles found the rope locker, cut lengths with the sailor's own knife and bound and gagged him. The man's eyes opened, weary, glazed and red while this was going on and closed again. "Help me lug him ashore," Charles said. Lee Falcaro took the sailor's legs and they eased him onto the wharf. They went back into the cockpit. "This is deep water," Charles said, "so you'll have no trouble with pilotage. You can read a compass and charts. There's an automatic dead reckoner. My advice is just to pull the moderator rods out quarter-speed, point the thing west, pull the rods out as far as they'll go--and relax. Either they'll overtake you or they won't." She was beginning to get the drift. She said nervously: "You're talking as though you're not coming along." "I'm not," he said, playing the lock of the arms rack. The bar fell aside and he pulled a .45 pistol from its clamp. He thought back and remembered where the boat's diminutive magazine was located, broke the feeble lock and found a box of short, fat, heavy little cartridges. He began to snap them into the pistol's magazine. "What do you think you're up to?" Lee Falcaro demanded. "Appointment with Commander Grinnel," he said. He slid the heavy magazine into the pistol's grip and worked the slide to jack a cartridge into the chamber. "Shall I cast off for you?" he asked.