CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN.
"Can't be, sir," said Gurr, as he tried to pierce the darkness, "because the skipper must be lying at anchor where we left him." "Hah! See that ?" cried Archy, as the men bent to their oars and made the now phosphorescent water flash.
"Only the oars, lad.

Water brimes." _Thud_! came the report of a heavy gun.
"You're right, lad! 'Twas the flash from a gun.

Some one's pursuing of something.

Pull away, my lads, let's get aboard, and the skipper may join in.

Bah! What's the good o' shore-going?
Man's sure to get wrong there." The men forgot their weariness in the excitement, as they realised that some vessel was in chase of a smuggler, but they murmured among themselves at their ill luck at being away from the cutter; for if they had been aboard at the first shot, the anchor would have been weighed or slipped, and the _White Hawk_ gone to see what was going on, probably to help capture a heavily laden smuggler craft.
"And we should have took our share, lads," said Dick in a whisper.
"Hey, boot we are out o' luck." "Don't sit muttering and grumbling there, my lad, but pull hard, and let's get aboard," cried the master, and the oars dipped away in the dark sea, seeming to splash up so much pale lambent fire at every stroke.
But this was no novelty to the men, and the boats sped on, one in the other's wake, with the crew straining their heads over their left shoulders to catch a glimpse of the next flash which preceded the gun.
"Good six mile away from where we are now," said Gurr.