"Indeed?"

"Confound it! You don't believe it, do you?" snapped Hawkins, who must
have read my thoughts. "Well, she can make it easy. I'll just start her
up to show you."

Argument with Hawkins is futile. I saved my breath on the chance of
finding better use for it later on.

Hawkins unlocked his little door, fished around in the machinery, and
fastened the door again with a calm smile.

Simultaneously, the launch seemed to leap from the water in its anxiety to
get ahead. For a few seconds it quivered from end to end. Then it settled
down at a gait that actually made me gasp.

I am not positive that we made one hundred knots to the hour, but I do
know that I never traveled in an express train that hastened as did that
poor launch when the Hawkins A. P. motor began to push it through the
water.

An account of our trip down the Narrows and into the Lower Bay would be
interesting, but extraneous. Hawkins sat erect beside his infernal
machine, looking like a cavalryman in the charge. I squatted in the cabin
and watched things flash past.

The main point is that we reached the open water without smashing anything
or smashing into anything.