announced that he had been cutting the wire through
with the chisel. There it was in his hand, a thick, ugly coil, dangerous
as an octopus.

"Start the motor, Hendrik," he called, even before he had clambered on
deck. "Now, ladies, unless you go below you may get a shower bath, for
we're going to have a race with the motor-boat that's coming along--just
for the fun of the thing, you know--and I can't trust the wheel to any
one while I run down and change."

"We shan't mind a wetting," said Nell, whose eyes were shining with
something very like admiration. "We want to see the race."

"I would rather you saw it from the cabin windows," said Brederode; and
I guessed at once that he had more than one object in hustling the women
of the party below. The L.C.P. guessed also, and headed a reluctant
procession.

Now the pursuing Vengeance was not five hundred yards behind, and if we
had ever doubted that she was "Wilhelmina," we doubted no longer. I
could distinctly see a man's figure in the bow, and would have felt safe
in staking any sum that it was Sir Alec's.

Alb, dripping like a fountain-statue, stood at the wheel, and as I had
never seen him look more attractive, perhaps it was as well for me that
Nell had gone below.

"They'll think me a madman when we come to a lock," said he; "but who
cares? I'm bound to get you out of this scrape if I can."

Never was sound more melodious in my ears than the quickening throb of
the motor. I felt intimate and at home with it, as with the beating of
my own heart. On we went, pounding along at recovered speed, and were
well into the channel between North and South Beveland, but there also
was "Wilhelmina." Oh, for some small side canal into which we could slip
and somehow disappear!

As my eyes searched the waste of green water and the low coasts of
Beveland, all unexpectedly to me we rounded a point, and there was a
half-hidden town, one graceful spire seeming to beckon where safety lay.

"It's Veere," said Alb. "You're sure to have heard of it: all artists
have. But the thing of importance to us now is the canal which begins
here, crosses the island of Walcheren and goes to Middelburg and
Vlissingen. If only we can get in, and shut 'Wilhelmina' out!"

"Can we?" I gasped.

"Look!" he answered. "What luck!"

I looked, and saw from afar two great sea-gates of a monster lock
standing open, while into its jaws poured a train of barges,
sailing-boats and small steamers, which