Stern and bow lines were cast off in a jiffy. The Streak shot
ahead and away from the wharf. The spy fisherman we had left
behind on the stringer-piece pulled out a revolver and fired five
shots into the air in rapid succession. The men in the skiff gave
instant heed to the warning, for we could see them pulling away
like mad.

But if they pulled like mad, I wonder how our progress can be
described? We fairly flew. So frightful was the speed with which
we displaced the water, that a wave rose up on either side our bow
and foamed aft in a series of three stiff, up-standing waves, while
astern a great crested billow pursued us hungrily, as though at
each moment it would fall aboard and destroy us. The Streak was
pulsing and vibrating and roaring like a thing alive. The wind of
our progress was like a gale--a forty-five-mile gale. We could not
face it and draw breath without choking and strangling. It blew
the smoke straight back from the mouths of the smoke-stacks at a
direct right angle to the perpendicular. In fact, we were
travelling as fast as an express train. "We just STREAKED it," was
the way Charley told it afterward, and I think his description
comes nearer than any I can give.

As for the Italians in the skiff--hardly had we started, it seemed
to me, when we were on top of them. Naturally, we had to slow down
long before we got to them; but even then we shot past like a
whirlwind and were compelled to circle back between them and the
shore. They had rowed steadily, rising from the thwarts at every
stroke, up to the moment we passed them, when they recognized
Charley and me. That took the last bit of fight out of them. They
hauled in their oars, and sullenly submitted to arrest.