But by the time it had thinned down sufficiently to let him really see us we were too far away to make sure shooting.

He slit the sail, giving us half a night's work to mend it, and made three more holes in our planking, but hurt nobody.
That was the only launch the German government had on the lake in those days, an almost perfect toy with an aluminum hull and more up-to-date gadgets on her machinery than a battleship's engineer could have explained the purpose of in a watch.

They had lavished a whole appropriation on one show.

From the minute we were out of range of Schillingschen's big-bore elephant gun we ran risk of starvation, and perhaps surprise, but no longer of pursuit, and we headed the Queen of Sheba as nearly as we could guess for British East with feelings that even Lady Waldon shared, for she grew distantly polite again, and complimented Fred on his cool nerve and accurate shooting.
We should have suspected treachery, for she made no attempt to retaliate on Rebecca for scratching her face.

Unnatural inaction should have put us on our guard.