“I haven’t quite decided,” I answered.  “I shall wait till tomorrow or the next day, anyhow.  I want to hear what Sonia has got to say first.”  Then, backing away the boat, I added:  “We’d better get out of this as soon as we can.  It’s just possible some one may have heard the explosion and come pushing along to find out what’s the matter.  People are so horribly inquisitive.”

Joyce laughed.  “It would be rather awkward, wouldn’t it?  We couldn’t very well say it was an earthquake.  It looks too neat and tidy.”

Fortunately for us, if there was any one in the neighbourhood who had heard the noise, they were either too lazy or too incurious to investigate the cause.  We got back on board the Betty and took her out into the main stream without seeing a sign of any one except ourselves.  The hull of the steam tramp was just visible in the far distance, but except for that the river was still pleasantly deserted.

“What shall we do now, Joyce?” I asked.  “It seems to me that this is an occasion which distinctly requires celebrating.”

Joyce thought for a moment.  “Let’s go for a long sail,” she suggested, “and then put in at Southend and have asparagus for lunch.”

I looked at her with affectionate approval.  “You always have beautiful ideas,” I said.  Then a sudden inspiration seized me.  “I’ve got it!” I cried.  “What do you say to running down to Sheppey and paying a call on our German pals?”

Joyce’s blue eyes sparkled.  “It would be lovely,” she said, with a deep breath; “but dare we risk it?”

“There’s no risk,” I rejoined.  “When I said ‘pay a call,’ I didn’t mean it quite literally.  My idea was to cruise along the coast and just find out exactly where their precious bungalow is, and what they do with that launch of theirs when they’re not swamping inquisitive boatmen.  It’s the sort of information that might turn out useful.”

Joyce nodded.  “We’ll go,” she said briefly.  “What about the tide?”

“Oh, the tide doesn’t matter,” I replied.  “It will be dead out by the time we get to Southend; but we only draw about three foot six, and we can cut across through the Jenkin Swatch.  There’s water enough off Sheppey to float a battleship.”

It was the work of a few minutes to pull in the anchor and haul up the sails, which filled immediately to a slight breeze that had just sprung up from the west.  Leaving a still peaceful, if somewhat mutilated, Canvey Island behind us, we started off down the river, gliding along with an agreeable smoothness that fitted in very nicely with my state of mind.

Indeed I don’t think I had ever felt anything so nearly approaching complete serenity since my escape from Dartmoor.  It is true that the tangle in which I was involved, appeared more threatening and complicated than ever, but one gets so used to sitting on a powder mine that the situation was gradually ceasing to distress me.