"
A sharp whistle announced the departure of the larger boat. Presently
there came floating over the water, over the key, the quaint, plaintive
sound of untrained voices enthusiastically raised in song. Roger
smiled grimly as he pressed his ear to the crack and caught the faint
words:
"Shall we gather at the river?
The beautiful, the beautiful river----"
Granger's voice was distinguished above the rest; he was on the job; he
was leading his shorn flock back from the gates of Paradise to the tune
of a hymn. At Flora City, Granger, being through with this flock,
would quit it; and ere its members, obstructed time after time in their
efforts to reach the Colony, would disperse, Granger, in a new field,
would be laying his snares for fresh victims.
In a few minutes the hull of the Cormorant began to throb with the
drive of her powerful engines. With no word of command she slid
silently away from her mooring to the deep channel and began to drive
her way upstream at a speed that caused Roger and Higgins to look at
one another. The captain was in the wheelhouse above their heads, the
mulatto lounged on the deck near the cabin door; so they did not even
dare to whisper, but each knew the question the other would ask: Why
such terrific speed in a dirty craft like the Cormorant?
Through his precarious peekhole Payne caught glimpses of the water and
land that the Cormorant was leaving behind her.
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