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Yet my eyes lingered, and suddenly the fellow raised his head and his face was turned toward the open port. The mental shock I experienced made me inattentive to my helm and the Wavecrest fell off. Old Tom sang out to know what I was about, and silently I brought the sloop's nose back again. The steamship had slipped by us and the wake of her set the little craft to jumping. My mind was in a fog.

When Crab Bolster and I set off in the skiff for the Wavecrest, I saw Paul and his friends make for the ferry, and while I helped pull the skiff in the drizzle of rain that swept across the harbor, I saw the three board the ferryboat and land at the dock on the Neck near which we lived. I made Crab hustle the goods aboard and stowed all away in the cuddy before I let the boatman put me ashore.

Once inside, out of the rain, I drew curtains before all the lights and then lit the lamp over the cabin table. There were four berths, two on each side, with lockers fore and aft. Altogether the cabin of the Wavecrest was cozy and not a bad place at all in which to spend a night. It was still early in the evening.

I had been imprisoned on the Wavecrest and then the sloop was sent on a voyage which Paul and his friends must have realized could end in nothing less than death. It was an awful thought. In sudden and uncontrollable anger my cousin had attempted to stab me when we had our unfortunate quarrel aboard the sloop; but this crime was far greater than his former attempt.

"Oh, I can't hey?" he snarled in a tone that, defenceless as he was, tempted me to kick him. But just then the sail of the sloop began to fill. I ran to the tiller and brought her head around. A little breeze had sprung up and the Wavecrest was under good way again. In a few moments we passed the light at the entrance to the harbor, and tacked for our anchorage.

You know how it is yourself. Wait till the next fellow makes disparaging remarks about your bicycle, for instance or your motor cycle, or canoe, or what-not, and see how you feel! "What's the use of talking that way, Paul?" I demanded, interrupting him. "You know the Wavecrest is by far the lightest-footed craft of her class in Bolderhead Harbor." "No such thing!" he declared.

A hundred possible happenings, arising from my situation, entered my mind in those first few moments while the Wavecrest was swinging about. Fortunately, however, although she went far over on her beam ends, and I expected to hear the stick snap, she righted, headed with the tide, and began to hobble over the seas at a great rate.

I chuckled to myself while I wended my way to the shore, carrying a single oar with me, and unlocked the padlock of the chain which fastened my rowboat to the landing. There was nobody about, and I pushed out and sculled over to the Wavecrest without being interfered with. Had I not known so well just where the sloop lay I declare I would have had trouble in finding her.

So I opened my heart to Ham as we sat with our backs against the grain-chest, and told him all that had occurred on the Wavecrest as she drifted into the harbor that evening, and what had followed when I brought Paul Downes home with his hands tied behind his back.

At least no waves broke and foamed about the floating mass. I watched the thing eagerly, although I could not hope for rescue under such a guise. It was not, I was almost instantly sure, a vessel of any kind; as the Wavecrest kept on her course, which brought me directly upon the object, I was not long at a loss to identify it.