"Ashore, perhaps, by this time."
"Then we cannot be far away from land?"
"I have no means of knowing. Probably not, if they relied upon oars."
"Why should they? There was a mast and sails stowed in the boat; they were always kept there for an emergency." She lifted her eyes, and stared about into the gloom. "Do you suppose, Captain West, they could have remained nearby to make sure the yacht sank?"
"No, I do not," he said firmly. "I thought of that once myself; but it is not at all probable. They were too certain they had done a good job, and too eager to get away safely. Hogan never deemed it possible for us to get away alive. As it was, the escape was almost a miracle."
"A miracle!" softly. "Perhaps so, yet I know who accomplished it. I owe my life to you, Captain West," she paused doubtfully, and then went on impulsively. "Won't you explain to me now what it all means? How you came to be here? and--and why those men sought in this way to kill me?"
"You do not know?"
"Only in the vaguest way; is it my fortune? I have been held prisoner; lied to, and yet nothing has been made clear. This man who went down in the cabin--you said he died trying to save me?"
"Yes; he endeavoured to release you from the stateroom, and was caught by Hogan. In the struggle he received a death wound."
"I heard them fight. This Hogan then was the leader?"
"Of those on board--yes. But he is only the tool of others. This devilish conspiracy has been plotted for a long while. There must be a dozen involved in it, one way or another, but, as near as I can learn, the chief devil, the brains of the gang, is the fellow named Hobart. Have you known him--long?"
She hesitated, and West glanced aside wonderingly. Would she venture to deny her knowledge of the man?
"No," she said at last doubtfully, "not unless his other name was Jim. There was a fellow they called Jim. He was my jailer after that woman locked me into a room."
"A woman? The same one who was with you on the yacht?"
"Yes."
"Where was this?"
"Why surely you must know. In that cottage where we stopped with Percival Coolidge."
He drew a deep breath, more thoroughly puzzled than ever. What could be her purpose to make so bold an effort to deceive? Did she imagine for a moment that he could be made to believe she had been continuously held prisoner since that Sunday morning? It was preposterous. Why, he had seen her again and again with his own eyes; had talked with her, and so had Sexton. His heart sank, but he determined to go on, and learn how far she would carry this strange tale. Perhaps out of the welter he could discern some truth.