“That’s a happy thought,” I exclaimed, and tucked it inside my vest.
“If there’s any trouble I shall be able to make racket enough for you to hear me, and you can come aboard after me.”
We stopped the propeller then and drifted down till I could reach the yacht’s cable. I swarmed up this and, using the greatest caution, got a grip and hauled myself up until I could see along the deck.
It was quite deserted, so I climbed on to the forecastle and crept along as stealthily as a cat stalking a bird and almost as noiselessly.
I had reached almost amidships when I discovered that some one was on board after all. The glow from a lamp showed through the partly open companion of the saloon. Doubling my caution I lay at full length on the deck and approached the opening.
Whoever he was he was able to afford very good cigars, for the scent of one reached me. I lay listening intently. I heard the crackle of papers as they were turned over; the rustle of some one moving in his chair, a sound of stertorous breathing; the clink of a bottle against a glass, and again the crackle of papers as the man, whoever he was, resumed his writing or reading.
For many minutes there was no other sound. Then the man struck a match as he lit a fresh cigar, and pushed aside the papers with a breath of relief. Then silence for a while, broken at length by a gasp and a snore.
“Wake up, you drunken young pig!”
At this I nearly uttered a cry of astonishment. It was Sampayo’s voice; and in a second I understood what had so baffled me—why the papers had been brought to the Rampallo.
Sampayo was hiding on it from me. That removal of his goods and all the evidences of flight which Bryant had seen were just play-acting to mislead me into the belief that he had bolted, and being afraid to be seen on shore he had arranged for his associates to come to the boat.