Prim ran down into the open and retraced the path they’d taken earlier today until she could get a clear view down to the cove where Silverfin had anchored. No Beedles were in sight, but the keelsloop, apparently having been warned by Corvus, had weighed anchor and struck the sunshades. Canvas was beginning to unfurl from mast and boom, but mostly what was moving the boat at this point was oar power.

“Not much of a breeze today,” Mard remarked. He had been only a few paces behind.

Prim and Mard stood there and watched for a time. Silverfin inched her way out into the open sea and unfurled all the canvas at her disposal. She steered into a northwesterly course, away from land. Prim understood that this was not an attempt to go anywhere in particular, but to harvest as much speed as they could from the wind available.

Then at last they saw what Corvus had seen much earlier: a galley, a small one with a single bank of oars on each side. Probably two dozen oars all told. From this high vantage point they could just barely make out the forms of the Beedles pulling on those oars. Above them, running right up the vessel’s centerline, was a catwalk connecting a poop deck at the stern to a foredeck at the bow, and those were populated by others, armed and ready for war—or so they could guess from the flashes of light that gleamed from their midst.

Mard let out a long breath. “Impossible,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“There is no way Silverfin can escape from this.”

They watched the pursuit a while longer. It was obvious that Mard was right.

“That galley must have followed us,” he said.

“Keelsloops don’t normally just stop and wait to be caught up with,” Prim guessed.

“Why would they?” Mard agreed. “But we did. And somehow they knew. They got wind of the fact that we were here to be caught.”

“The water!” Prim explained, as the thought came to her. “The fresh water, and the other stuff we left on shore—”

“We have to go get it, while there’s time!” Mard agreed. And without any further discussion they were off, descending yesterday’s climb in skidding, sliding, pell-mell style.