He sprang up, gave his hands and face a rinse, and ran on deck to find the ship under all sail, the wind having taken off very much during the night and the lightship off Selsea Bill, The Owers, only about five miles off. There was also a tug (by all appearance) creeping steadily up on the port quarter, and concerning her Scotty said quietly, “If she speaks us, don’t you think you’d better take her? He’ll open his mouth pretty wide, but, after all, it’d be a pity to spoil the ship for ha’porth of tar, wouldn’t it?”
Frank replied as quietly, “Well, Scotty, if he comes up and asks for a job I’ll agree to his price, but you do the talking; if he sees me, and this old pilot man gets a-talking to him, they may hatch up some devilment between ’em.”
Scotty was delighted, and went below at once to rig up a bit less like an old tar-pot, as he put it, while Frank, coffee-cup in hand, walked up to the pilot and said, “Good morning, pilot.”
“Good morning, sir,” replied the pilot; “the wind is dying away and looks like getting into the east’ard. Don’t you think you had better take steam if you can get it?”
To which Frank answered, “My mate and I have just been discussing the matter, and we have agreed to take that tug that’s coming up if we can get him on any sort of reasonable terms, but I must ask you not to interfere. You will please remember that you are the pilot, and I, boy as I am, am in command. I don’t say this to make a quarrel, but you must admit that I have some cause of complaint over the way you treated me yesterday.”
Poor old pilot, he was bursting with curiosity to know the ins and outs of this mysterious case—an English crew of less than half the usual number on board a Norwegian vessel, and in charge of a boy of eighteen—but in his eagerness to take charge of things generally he had spoiled all chance, he now plainly saw, of dipping into the rich dish of salvage which he scented somewhere near.
While he mused thus Frank moved aft and, with Scotty by his side, awaited the oncoming of the tug, which Scotty pronounced to be one of the best of Watkin’s lot that had evidently had a long tow of some ship as far as the Wight. Nearer and nearer she drew until she ranged alongside, and the burly skipper on the bridge shouted, “Good morning, sir, where are you bound?”
“London,” roared back Scotty, in his most important voice.
There was a prolonged pause, for the tug skipper was meditating many things. Norwegians don’t take steam until they are driven to it, and unless utterly disabled it is not to be imagined that any ship of that flag would take steam to the westward of the Foreland anyhow. But the tug was really bound to go up for coal—they often use this as an argument, regardless of truth, but now it really was a fact—and he felt that even a very low rate of towage was better than going up empty-handed. So, while entirely unwilling to give himself away, he knew it was of no use beginning a bluff here, as she was not an English or an American ship. And he shouted back, “Do you want a cheap tow up, captain?”
“What do you call cheap?” answered Scotty.