VIII

Swallow ran on in sheltered water beyond the outer islands and the spit of land. Now they could see Rio Bay and the steamer pier. They were slipping slowly through a fleet of yachts at their moorings. Motor boats were moving about with cargoes of visitors. Captain John sent the Boy Roger forward, to the boy’s delight, as a lookout man, and himself was kept very busy avoiding the rowing boats and canoes. Rio on this summer day was a busy place. A steamship hooted, left the pier, and steamed slowly out of the Bay. Not one of all the passengers who looked down from the deck on the little brown-sailed Swallow knew that the four in her were living on a desert island, and that they were interested, not in the big steamer, or the yachts, or the motor boats, but only in another little vessel as small as their own. For the crew of the Swallow there was no other vessel on the water, except, of course, this mass of clumsy native craft which really did not count. Their eyes were only for the pirate vessel they were pursuing.