The color came back once more into the world.
CHAPTER XI
What was Caught
The man at the oars rowed steadily and in silence with an easy swing of his broad shoulders. He wormed his way in and out of the shipping filling the harbor with the same instinct with which a pedestrian works through a crowd. He slid before ferry boats, gilded under the sterns of schooners, and missed busy launches by a yard, never pausing in his stroke, never looking over his shoulder, never speaking. They proceeded in this way some three miles until they were out of the harbor proper and opposite a small, sandy island. Here the oarsman paused and waited for further orders. Stubbs glanced at his big silver watch and thought a moment. It was still a good three hours before dark. Beyond the island a fair-sized yacht lay at anchor. Stubbs took from his bag a pair of field glasses and leveled them upon this ship. Wilson followed his gaze and detected a fluttering of tiny flags moving zigzag upon the deck. After watching these a moment Stubbs, with feigned indifference, turned his glasses to the right and then swung them in a semicircle about the harbor, and finally towards the wharf they had left. He then 125 carefully replaced the glasses in their case, tucked them away in the black bag, and, after relighting his pipe, said,
“What’s the use er fishin’?” He added gloomily, “Never catch nothin’.”
He glanced at the water, then at the sky, then at the sandy beach which lay just to port.
“Let’s go ashore and think it over,” he suggested.
The oarsman swung into action again as silently and evenly as though Stubbs had pressed an electric button.