d carried her
across the island, and yet she had escaped. Harry asked himself if he
had ever seen her at all that night. He turned and gazed at the second
lieutenant, who stood at his side looking the very picture of
consternation and bewilderment.

"I don't understand it, sir," said the latter.

"Neither do I," replied Harry. "Run alongside the bank and take those
men on board."

While the order was being obeyed, Harry paced up and down the deck,
racking his brain in the hope of finding some explanation for this
second disappearance of the schooner; but the only conclusion he could
come to was, that he had been outwitted in some mysterious way, and that
Tom Newcombe, or whoever was the presiding genius of the Crusoe band,
possessed more brains than he had given him credit for. He saw now that
the pirate captain knew what he was doing when he ran into the cove.

"I will tell you what I think about it, Harry," exclaimed Johnny
Harding, who was the first to board the sloop. "The Sweepstakes crossed
the shoals farther down."

"Impossible!" cried the first lieutenant.

"Perhaps it is, but how, then, could she get out of the cove without
your knowing something about it? From this time forward it will be hard
work to make me believe that any thing is impossible. If a man had told
you, an hour ago, that a boat could live on those shoals, you would have
thought he was crazy, wouldn't you?"

By this time the midshipman came up to report, and after Harry had
listened to his story, and held a short consultation with Jackson, he
admitted that Johnny's idea concerning the manner of the schooner's
escape was correct. He ordered the second lieutenant to fill away for
the narrows, and once more the Storm King went dashing over the waves in
pursuit of the Crusoe men. But there was little enthusiasm among her
officers. A stern chase is always a long one, and they were following a
vessel that could sail three feet to the yacht's two. The young sailors
thought of the military, and looked anxious.

When the yacht was fairly under way, an eager group gathered on the
forecastle to listen to a smooth-tongued fellow who related to them the
particulars of the fight at the bridge; and, on the quarter-deck, Johnny
Harding entertained the officers with a recital of his adventures. When
he finished his story, he was in his turn astonished at what they had to
say of the attempt the captain of the Crusoe band had made to destroy
their vessel