This excerpt from the novel "Aground" by Charles Williams details a high-stakes encounter between a man named Ingram and two detectives, Quinn and Schmidt, who suspect him of stealing a seventy-foot schooner called the Dragoon. Ingram, who was looking to purchase the boat, is initially detained after the schooner is stolen immediately following his inspection, but he eventually teams up with the owner, the seemingly sophisticated Rae Osborne, to find it. Their search involves chartering a plane from Nassau to scour the area where the Dragoon’s dinghy was found, leading them to discover the schooner abandoned and aground on a sand spit with a cargo of stolen guns destined for Central America. They are then captured by the thieves, led by the brutal Morrison and his accomplice Ruiz, and must devise a plan to escape and save the Dragoon, all while Ingram and Rae Osborne develop a burgeoning romance.