Tod darted after his brother. He heard another door open and Jasper Swickard's voice calling: "Jules —Jules!"
"The stairs," Neil blurted over his shoulder.
Tod plunged downward, his hand sliding on the banisters. "Which way?" he gasped as he touched the newel post.
"Here." Neil's hand guided him through a door to a room where low French windows were visible. Tod heard a handle turned deftly. The windows swung open. They were outside now on the esplanade.
"This way," Neil whispered. "They'll think we're running for the gate."
He plunged ahead into the dripping darkness with Tod at his heels. It came over the boy in a flash that he was glad to let Neil take the lead. This was worse than he had expected. He had been a silly fool; he had thought it would be simply play. Instead, it was deadly earnest.
Behind them, shouts resounded from the house. Another voice took up the cry, this time in the garden toward the front gate. Jules was hoping to head them off. They raced through the shrubs and weeds, through their clinging tendrils to the cliff's edge. Here they paused.
"The path!" Tod gulped. "Sufferin' sea gulls!"
They had reached it now, were running, sliding, falling down the incline to the beach. Above them came the cries of their pursuers. Their means of exit had been discovered.
A shot echoed in the night. It whizzed harmlessly overhead. Then they had come to the soft wet sand and were searching for the skiff.
"Where is it?" Neil's voice was eager, ringing with exultation.
"Here." Tod touched the stem.
"Get in," his brother commanded. "Take the oars. I'll shove off."
Even as Tod took his seat on the thwart, the stern swayed upward and water murmured round the sides. Behind him Neil stumbled into a seat and reached for the extra oars on the bottom. The boat turned. Breathlessly they pulled out toward the open sea.
Cries came from the gray line of beach. A shot hissed by in the fog. The muffled sound of the oars no doubt was plainly audible on the sand. An instant later, a second shot snapped out. It thudded on the bottom.
"By golly, he's hit us," cried Tod.
The cries grew more distant. A light flashed up on the beach and through the haze they saw Swickard holding aloft a flaring torch.
"Stop rowing," ordered Neil. "If they can't hear us, they won't know where we are."
Tod perceived that they were drifting toward the Cap d'Antibes. The flare went out; the fog closed in. Vainly they tried to pierce that gray-black wall of enshrouding gloom.
"Can we make the shore?" Tod whispered.
"Sure. I know the outline of the coast. This mist will help us hide. There isn't a boat at the villa. They can't follow." His voice was almost gay. The cowed, listless Neil had been left behind.
With firm yet quiet strokes they resumed their rowing. It was like trying to pierce a wall that moved with them. The mist beaded their brows and lashes with moisture; it coiled about their necks with caressing dampness. Tod on a sudden felt his feet cold as ice. He moved a foot. Water swished about it. He put down a hand.
"By golly, Neil, the boat's leaking."
"They all do," came the even reply. "It won't matter."
Tod rested on his oars. "Do you hear a gurgling sound? I think that last shot put a hole in the stern."
Neil swore softly. "I'll find it and stuff a handkerchief in it. Have you got one ? I haven't."
He was down in the slushing bottom, feeling in the darkness of the sternsheets for the leak. "Keep rowing, Tod," he urged; "it's filling swiftly."
Tod knew by the drag on his oars that the skiff was beginning to wallow. The water crept over his ankles and rose higher about the calves of his legs.
"Quick. Here it is. Throw me your handkerchief. —That's the stuff."
Tod jerked his cap from his head and began to bail. The movement took him back to another night so like this, yet so different. There were no seamen to help him now, no commander in the stern to cheer them on. There were just Neil and himself.
"I'll row," his brother announced; "you keep on bailing out."
Cautiously they advanced. Tod lost all sense of direction. He was not gaining on the water, either; the boat was wallowing more heavily. Neil's breaths came in gasps as his shoulders strained to the oars.
"We've got to land, Tod," he said in a grim tone. "And we can't be very far from the villa. Have you any idea which way we're headed?"
"Not the slightest," Tod confessed.
Neil laughed shortly. "Neither have I. We're in a fix all right; but thank heavens, we're out of that hole."
Above the low bank of fog the moon must have risen, for a strange ghostly pallor hung over the sea. From the direction of the dim gray light, they judged the shore to be almost directly opposite. Turning the boat, Neil swung his oars furiously through the dragging water, and presently the stem touched sand.
"We must have hit the lowland, Tod. God knows how we'll ever make it across the marsh."
Tod sprang out. They pulled the boat as near to shore as possible. Walking to the left, they found their feet sinking into the ooze of the mud. To their right, a small beach circled back toward the Villa Paradis.
"Any way but that," Neil remonstrated. "We've got to cross the marsh."
"Can we do it?"
His brother considered a moment. "We might, but I doubt it."
"Can't we fix the boat?" Tod suggested.
They set about it at once. They dragged the boat up and tipped out the water. Tod searched for a stick that might be whittled down into the hole. A moment later, Neil raised a warning hand.
"Listen. Do you hear anything?"
Tod put his ear to the sand. "Someone's coming. From the Villa Paradis!"
"They've heard us land," Neil whispered.
"Can't we hide?"
They looked along the beach toward the sound of the approaching footfalls. A small ray of light was dimly visible.
"They've got an electric torch I Tod, what'll we do?"
"We'll hide in the marsh. Maybe they'll pass us."
Shouts sounded down the beach. The next moment the two fugitives had entered the marsh. The earth gave way beneath them, sucked at their shoes; the long grass sank into the mud with a gurgling whisper. Above them the pallor of the mist had lightened; the moon threatened to pierce that low blanket which hung over the bog. The rains of the last few months must have settled in the lowland in little pools; an odour of decaying vegetation drifted upward; it was corrupt with rotting things.
Neil stumbled once into a pool from which a swarm of insects rose. He threw himself violently backward. "Watch out, Tod," he whispered. "It's like quicksand. We'll wait here."
In breathless silence, they crouched on their haunches. Their burning gaze was fixed on that moving point of light which pierced the gloom. As the torch flashed on the stem of the skiff they saw two shadows gesticulate. A low murmur of voices came to them. The round gleam of light turned and flashed their way. Jules and Jasper Swickard were following their footsteps.
"Come," whispered Neil. "Follow me. It's the only way—now."
He rose stealthily. With a sucking sound, the marsh dragged at his heels. Tod rose to follow; and in that instant a pistol shot exploded like the crack of a whip. The bullet tore through the air above them with a hissing breath.
Neil broke into a run. Tod, following in his brother's footsteps, cast a terrified glance over his shoulder. Once more the mist had closed in; the flare of the torch had vanished.
"Not so fast," Tod whispered. "They can't see us now—and they don't seem to be following."
Neil slowed down, laughing shortly. "I guess they think—we'll never make it through this bog." He meditated a second, then looked about him. "But we can—we must."