"We did not beat her in a straight run, and we escaped from her by manoeuvring and the aid of shoal water," the captain explained. "I depend upon the same kind of assistance to get out of the present scrape."
"Then you have a plan in your mind, Captain Scott?" asked Louis.
"I have. I shall do the best I can to get away from the pirate; but we may not succeed. I have no plan of this bay, only the general chart, on which but a few soundings are given. We may be driven into a corner where we shall have to see what virtue there is in our firearms, though I hope not."
"If we are compelled to fight, I am confident that every fellow on board will stand by you. I shall for one; for I heartily approve the platform on which you stand, Captain Scott," said Louis, giving him his hand.
"I thank you, Louis, with all my heart. You make me stronger than I was before," replied Scott, as he took the offered hand, and warmly pressed it.
The Maud was going ahead at only half speed, blowing off her extra steam; for she was in condition to make the best effort of her existence. Morris and Felix were at the bow, wondering what those in the pilot-house found to talk about so long. The water was extremely clear, as they had seen it in the Bahamas, and they were watching the bottom, composed entirely of rocks. Morris occasionally thrust down a long-handled boathook whose length he had measured, and it gave him thirteen feet about every time.
With her bunkers full of coal as they had been when she left Alexandria, the Maud drew twelve feet of water, and by this time she had reduced it six inches. She was approaching the shore, and she could not continue much farther. Scott did not explain his plan in detail, and only said that he intended to escape if he could. He had a theory in regard to the formation of the bottom of the bay, which had twenty fathoms of water at a distance of a mile from the shore.
He had a theory in regard to the subject which was by no means a novel one, that the bottom of the sea was similar in its features to the surface of the land. If the face of the country was rugged and uneven, so was the bottom of the sea near it. On Cape Arnauti the hills rose to the dignity of mountains, and some of the soundings at the entrance of the inlet were over a hundred fathoms, which confirmed his theory in its application to this particular locality.