But darkness and silence held until shortly
after four, when the eastern sky began to lighten. The next half-hour
passed more slowly than any that had gone before. Gradually their range
of vision enlarged, and Steve, peering into the greyness, drew Bert's
attention to a darker hulk that lay a few hundred yards up the harbour.
They watched it anxiously as the light increased. That it was a boat of
about the size of the _Follow Me_ and that is was painted dark became
more and more apparent. Then, quite suddenly, a ray of rosy light shot
up beyond Eastern Point and the neighbouring motor-boat lay revealed.
Steve sighed his disappointment. She was not the _Follow Me_ after all,
but a battered, black-hulled power-boat used for gill-netting.
One by one, as the light strengthened, the others stumbled on deck,
yawning and rubbing their sleepy eyes. The _Adventurer_ was anchored
more than a mile from the inner harbour, and between her and Ten Pound
Island lay a big, rusty-red salt bark, high out of water, and five
fishing schooners. But these, aside from the disreputable little
gill-netter, were all the craft that met their gaze.
"Either," said Steve wearily, "she never came in at all or she's up in
the inner harbour.
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