"That'll be Kane himself, trying her out, I fancy. We'll have a look at his form."
"I'm afraid I've got something better to do than waste my time watching Kane handle a speedboat," replied Paul, giving back the glasses.
Roberts took the glasses and looked through them. He said suddenly: "That's not Kane! That's the boy!"
Paul Mansell was preparing to walk away, but he stopped. "Timothy? I say, isn't that a bit dangerous?"
"I'll say it is! The durned little fool!"
Paul said uneasily: "You know the current's very strong here. I don't believe that kid's got any right to take Kane's boat out. Do you think we ought to do something? I mean—"
"Sure I think we ought!" Roberts said briskly. "Can you drive one of these things?" He pointed at a small motorboat tied up alongside the jetty.
"Well, no, I can't say I ever have, but I dare say—"
"Hold these glasses, then. Guess I can manage," Roberts said, and, thrusting the glasses into Paul's hands, ran towards the boat, and lowered himself into it. After a quick inspection he lifted his head and shouted: "By the Lord's mercy she's full up!" and cast off.
Paul saw him thread his way between the fishing-smacks to the mouth of the harbour and went back to watch the speedboat's progress.
Timothy was heading across the bay towards the harbour, steadily gaining speed. Through the glasses Paul could see the froth of foam about the Seamew 's lifting bows and just the top of Timothy's head as he crouched over the wheel. The roar of the engine sounded across the water; Paul guessed Timothy to have opened the throttle to the full and bit his lip.
Nearer at hand Roberts' borrowed motorboat chugged to meet the Seamew .
Mr. Fenwick came along the jetty and said: "What's up, Mr. Mansell? Who's that gone off with Bob Aiken's boat?"
"It's that blasted kid from Cliff House, monkeying about with Mr. Jim Kane's Seamew! " Paul replied. "He'll capsize her for a certainty!"
Mr. Fenwick smiled indulgently. "What, Mr. Timothy? He's all right, Mr. Mansell. He won't do no harm. He's more like a fish than a boy, he is."
"He's got no right to be in that boat. Anything might happen!"
"Oh, you don't need to worry your head over him, Mr. Mansell! The way I always look at it is this: boys—" He stopped short, staring across the bay. "Hullo, what's up with her?"
The Seamew , which had been skimming across the water on a straight course for Portlaw, seemed to be losing speed. Paul rested his elbows on the wall to keep the glasses steady and said in a voice sharpened with apprehension: "She's keeling over . . . her bows are right out of the— Good God, she's gone down!"
"Lord-love-a-duck, what's he done to her?" exclaimed Mr. Fenwick. "Can you see him, Mr. Mansell? Is he all right?"
"I can't make out. There isn't a sign—yes, there he is! He's all right, if he can hold out till Roberts reaches him."
"He'll do that easy enough," said Mr. Fenwick, shading his eyes under one horny hand. "It beats me how he come to lose her like that. Wasn't turning, was he?"
"I couldn't see. She just seemed to disappear. He's making no headway against the current. What the devil possessed the little fool to do it?"
"Ah, now you're asking!" said Mr. Fenwick, his calm gaze upon the motorboat forging steadily through the water. "That's a boy all over. Proper varmints they are. How's he doing?"
"He's still there. He's seen Roberts, I think— Yes, it's all right: Roberts has reached him. Gosh!" He lowered the glasses and wiped his forehead. "Bloody little fool!" he said angrily. "I hope he gets it hot!"
Out in the middle of the bay Oscar Roberts, having hauled an exhausted boy into the motorboat, was saying very much the same thing. Timothy lay on the floor of the boat gasping for breath and spitting salt water. Roberts said: "Guess there's a mighty big kick in the pants coming to you, son," and opened the throttle again, steering, not for Portlaw, but for the landing stage on the farther side of the bay, under Cliff House.
Mr. Harte was quite unable to speak for a minute or two, but as soon as he was able to catch his breath he jerked out: "She simply sank! I didn't do a thing!"
Roberts smiled a little and said: "Don't waste that one on me. You keep it for that stepbrother of yours."
"But I didn't!" Timothy asseverated, sitting up. "She was going perfectly!"
"Maybe you struck a rock, then."
"I did not!" Timothy said indignantly. "Good Lord, I should know if I'd hit anything!"
"You should," agreed Roberts somewhat dryly. "But a boat doesn't sink for no reason, sonny, does it?"
"Of course not; but I swear it wasn't anything I did! Oh, I say, I forgot! Thanks awfully for pulling me out. There's a most frightful current. I couldn't make any headway against it." He added gruffly: "As a matter of fact, I expect I'd have been drowned if you hadn't come along. Thanks awfully, sir!"
"That all right. It's just lucky I happened to be around. How are you feeling?"
"Oh, I'm O.K.! But I don't understand about the Seamew . Honestly, I do know how to handle her! Well, you saw I could, didn't you?"
Roberts laughed. "I can't exactly say that, son. It didn't look too good to me, which is why I'm here now. Maybe you'd best be half-drowned for a while: your stepbrother's on the landing stage."
Timothy glanced towards the shore. "Well, I don't care. There was something wrong with the boat: one minute she was all right, and the next—I don't know: I think the bottom was ripped off her. She—she just filled with water. But I swear she never hit anything!"
"The fact of the matter is," said Roberts, putting the engine astern as they drew near to the landing stage, "speedboats weren't meant to be handled by schoolboys."
They came gently up to the landing stage, where an extremely wrathful young man awaited them. "What the hell?—" exploded Mr. James Kane.
His saturated relative clambered out of the boat and said unhappily: "I'm frightfully sorry, Jim; but, honestly, it wasn't my fault!"
"Where's the Seamew? " demanded Jim.
"Well, she—she sort of sank," said Mr. Harte more unhappily than ever. "But—"
Jim interrupted him without ceremony. He spoke with admirable fluency for two blistering minutes. Mr. Harte wilted perceptibly and gave several watery sniffs.
Roberts, having tied up the boat, stepped out of it and suggested mildly that Timothy had better go and change his wet clothes. Jim, though expressing a savage hope that Timothy would contract pneumonia and die of it, agreed and told him to get out before he was kicked out. Timothy fled.
Jim turned to Roberts. He still looked very angry, but the alarming note left his voice. "What happened, sir?"
"That's more than I can tell you," replied Roberts. "I was on the end of the jetty yonder, with young Mansell, when we saw the kid get into the Seamew and cast off. Watched him through my field glasses, which, now I come to think of it, I told Mansell to hold for me. It didn't seem to me he was handling the boat any too well, so to be on the safe side I set out to meet him. What he did to the Seamew I can't make out, but she went down within about thirty seconds of my first seeing her lose speed. It looked to me as though he must have hit something and torn the bottom out of her."
Jim said, frowning: "Damned little ass! He ought to know the bay well enough by now! He must have been steering an idiotic course if he hit the rocks!"
"Maybe he had his hands too full to think much about his course," said Roberts, smiling a little. "He's not precisely in the habit of taking speedboats out, is he?"
"No, certainly not. He did it to get back on me for not taking him this morning. I'll teach him!"
"Guess he's had a bit of a fright already, Kane. There's an almighty strong current out there."