Elsie was already on the swaying ladder
when Boyle's voice rang out sharply from the spar-deck:
"Below there! Who is there?"
"I, Mr. Boyle," she answered.
"You, Miss Elsie? Where are you?"
"Here; not so far away."
She was descending all the time. She had cast loose the rope which
fastened the canoe alongside, and her difficulty was to hold the ladder
and at the same time, by clinging to the mast, to prevent the canoe
from slipping away with the tide. The revolver she gripped between her
teeth by the butt.
Boyle, puzzled by the sound of her voice, ran from the side of the
bridge down the stairs and across the deck. He was a second too late
to grasp the top of the mast as it drifted out of reach. He heard
Elsie utter a low-voiced command in Spanish, and the dip of a paddle
told him that the canoe was in motion.
"For the Lord's sake, what are you doing?" he roared.
"I am going to save Captain Courtenay," was the answer. "You cannot
stop me now. Please hoist plenty of lights. If I succeed, look out
for me before daybreak. If I fail, good-by!"
CHAPTER XVIII
A FULL NIGHT
Boyle was very angry.
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