m the
direction of our flight, that we were bent on gaining the water-front,
and also, most like, that we could not pass Hudson's point without being
seen by them.

The boat was pulled to and fro between the island and the ship-yard as
if they were standing guard, and when she had set across, mayhap, three
or four times, Hiram asked of me in a whisper:

"Think you your comrade might have told them what we would try to do?"

"Of course not!" I replied with somewhat of anger in my tone that he
should suspect Archie of any such vileness. "The lad is true to his
friends, and would never betray them no matter how much silence might
cost him."

"Then it looks as if some one had got an amazingly good idee of what we
would do, and from what part of the town we'd set off," Hiram said
thoughtfully. "Those fellows couldn't have set about their work better
if we'd told them in advance that we'd leave the ship-yard and try to go
to Cambridge."

Like a flash came into my mind the thought that Seth Jepson might have
succeeded in doing us this mischief, if mischief had really been done;
but I dismissed it on the instant, saying to myself that surely the lad
could not have known what we were likely to do, even were it probable
he had had opportunity of speaking to those we had stumbled against.

"It is neither more nor less than blind chance," I said in reply to my
companion's words. "Because we headed for the ship-yard they supposed we
had a boat nearby, and because our people were gathering at Cambridge
they would naturally say it was our purpose to go there."

"Whichever way you put it, it's going to be mighty tough on us, for
unless those fellows get tired of pulling that heavy boat 'twixt now and
sunrise, we are like to be held here until to-morrow night."

CHAPTER IV

THE PRISONER

Whether it was that those who were the same as holding us prisoners on
the island had an inkling we were somewhere in the vicinity, or if it
was by pure chance that they happened to patrol that particular part of
the harbor just then, I am unable to say; but certain it was that they
remained continually on the move throughout the entire night, never
going so far away that we had half an opportunity of slipping out
unobserved, and now and then coming so near that it was possible for us
to hear their conversation.

As the moments passed and it became almost certain we must remain in
hiding during the coming day, I fell into a perfect