“Perhaps.  But there’s always the chance of failure, now.  The guards—­”

“After your own experience, when that capsule burst in the laboratory, you talk to me about guards?”

“Suppose one escapes?”

The Master only smiled grimly, and sighted his course up the dark river.

“And the alarm is sure to be given, in no time.  Why didn’t you just buy the thing outright?”

“It’s not for sale, at any price.”

“Still—­men can’t run off with three and a half million dollars’ worth of property and with provisions and equipment like that, all ready for a trial trip, without raising Hell.  There’ll be pursuit—­”

“What with, my dear Bohannan?”

“That’s a foolish statement of mine, the last one, I admit,” answered the major, as his companion swung the launch a little toward the Jersey shore.  “Of course nothing can overhaul us, once we’re away.  But you know my type of mind weighs every possibility, pro and con.  Wireless can fling out a fan of swift aerial police ahead of us from Europe.”

“How near can anything get to us?”

“I know it all looks quite simple and obvious, in theory.  Nevertheless—­”

“Men of your character are useful, in places,” said the Master, incisively.  “You are good in a charge, in sudden daring, in swift attack.  But in the approach to great decisions, you vacillate.  That’s your racial character.

“I’m beginning to doubt my own wisdom in having chosen you as next in command.  There’s a bit of doubting Thomas in your ego.  It’s not too late, yet, for you to turn back.  I’ll let you, as a special concession.  Brodeur will jump at the chance to be your successor.”

His hand swung the wheel, sweeping the racer in a curve toward the Manhattan shore.  Bohannan angrily pushed the spokes over again the other way.

“I stick!” he growled.  “I’ve said the last word of this sort you’ll ever hear me utter.  Full speed ahead—­to Paradise—­or Hell!”

They said no more.  The launch split her way swiftly toward the north.  By the vague, ghostly shimmer of light upon the waters, a tense smile appeared on the steersman’s lips.  In his dark eyes gleamed the joy which to some men ranks supreme above all other joys—­that of bending others to his will, of dominating them, of making them the puppets of his fancy.

Some quarter hour the racer hummed upriver.  Keenly the Master kept his lookout, picking up landmarks.  Finally he spoke a word to Captain Alden, who came forward to the engines.  The Master’s cross-questionings of this man had convinced him his credentials were genuine and that he was loyal, devoted, animated by nothing but the same thirst for adventure that formed the driving power behind them all.  Now he was trusting him with much, already.

“Three quarters speed,” ordered the Master.  The skilled hand of the captain, well-versed in the operation of gas engines, obeyed the command.  The whipping breeze of their swift course, the hiss at the bows as foam and water crumbled out and over, somewhat diminished.  The goal lay not far off.