Clem, thrown to the deck by the force of the concussion, heard the shouts of the men aboard the revenue boat: “We’ve been tricked! Full speed ahead!” She lay quietly, watching the line of the cliff above her as the searchlight went out and Number 263 leaped away with frothing stern from the side of the drifting Gypsy. The light she had seen a minute earlier had not been mere imagining. The bomb had come from the cliff.
Number 263GypsySomeone on the top of the island, in league with the rum-runners perhaps, had seen the revenue boat put into the cove and hoped to settle scores against it with a well-placed explosion; or it might be that the crazed man that Dave and Tom had encountered was responsible for this attack also.
Before the cutter had traveled its length, another spark twisted ou
