“Guess I ought to. I’ve been dorymate with Code when the old man was skipper. A finer young feller ain’t on this island.”
“Do you happen to know where he is?” asked Templeton. “I came to Grande Mignon on several important matters, and one of them was to see him. I’ve tried to locate the fellow, but he seems to have disappeared.”
“Why, I seen him to-day myself in Castalia!” cried Thomas. “He’s up there hirin’ men to ship with him. Said he was goin’ to stay all night. I know the very house he’s in.”
“You do?”
“Yes.”
“Do you think I could get there to-night?”
“You might.” Jimmie looked at his watch. “The Seal Cove mail-wagon’s gone long ago, but I’ll take you down in my motor-dory if you’ll come right now.”
Templeton did not even wait to finish his supper, but went out with Thomas immediately. A few minutes’ walk brought them to the little beach where the dory was drawn up and they were soon on their way. But before they left, Templeton scribbled a message on a piece of paper and left it 76 with Mrs. Shannon to be given to Nat Burns, who, he said, was to call for him at half-past seven.
Thomas kept the nose of his dory pointed to the lights of several houses that gleamed across the bay. They were not, however, the lights of Castalia, which were almost invisible farther south. But Templeton, who had never been on Grande Mignon before, sat blissfully ignorant of this circumstance.
Later, however, he remembered that his accommodating guide had chuckled inexplicably during most of the trip.