Fifteen minutes later a small boat, rowed smartly by six sailors in white canvas, came alongside the ’midships ladder of the Nettie B. At a word from the officer the six oars rose as one vertically into the air, and the bowman staved off the cutter so that she brought up without a scratch.
A young man in dark blue sprang out of the stern-sheets upon the deck.
“Nettie B. of Freekirk Head?” he asked. “Captain Burns commanding?”
“Yes,” said Nat, stepping forward, “I am Captain Burns. What do you want?”
“I come from the gunboat Albatross,” said the officer, “and represent Captain Foraker. You have on board, have you not, a man named Code Schofield, also of Freekirk Head, under arrest for the murder of a man or men on the occasion of the sinking of his schooner?”
Nat scowled.
“Yes,” he said. “I arrested him myself in St. 200 Pierre, Miquelon. I am a constable in Freekirk Head.”
“Just as we understood,” remarked the officer blandly. “Captain Foraker desires me to thank you for your prompt and efficient work in this matter, though I can tell you on the side, Captain Burns, that the old man is rather put out that he didn’t get the fellow himself. We chased up and down the Banks looking for him, but never got within sight of as much as his main truck sticking over the horizon.
“And the Petrel––that’s our steamer, you know––well, sir, maybe he didn’t make a fool of her. Payson, on the Petrel, is the ugliest man in the service, and when this fellow Schofield led him a chase of a hundred and fifty miles, and then got away among the islands of Placentia Bay, they say Payson nearly had apoplexy. So your getting him ought to be quite a feather in your cap.”
“I consider that I did my duty. But would you mind telling me what you have signaled me for?” Burns resented the gossip of this young whipper-snapper of the service who seemed, despite his frankness, to have something of a patronizing air.