"There are three men on board," said Jack, as the boat came nearer, running straight for the shore before a fresh breeze. "I suppose they've brought a police officer along to make inquiries on the spot."
"I hope he won't ask us to go to Narva as witnesses!" I laughed. "That would be a bad look-out for poor Strong, Jack, eh?"
Jack was gazing at the boat as it neared the land; I gazed too, watching the jolly little craft cut the water into an endless V as it flew scudding towards us, as though rejoiced at the prospect of getting home.
"Peter," said Jack presently, "look at the fellow in the bows; he's got his head round this way. If I were not absolutely certain that such a thing were impossible, I should say it was James Strong."
"What?" I shrieked, "which? where?" I stared at the man; it was Strong, there could not be a doubt of it—there was no mistaking his face, even at this distance.
"Good gracious! Jack, what are we to do?" I said, trembling at the knees like any coward. "Heaven help us, what will happen now?" I added. My nerve seemed to have taken to itself wings at the sight of James Strong!
"Why, what's the matter, man?" said Jack. "It's a mystery to me how the fellow happens to be in that boat, but you may take your oath that he's pretty harmless as far as we are concerned; he won't catch us napping again, if we have to watch him all day and night till the steamer comes!"
I recovered presently, and called myself many evil names for yielding to a craven instinct at sight of this ill-omened person. I was not really afraid of the fellow; it was the unexpected that upset me—it always does.
As a matter of fact, there was little to be afraid of in the wretched man. It was not the James Strong whom we had known in Africa that landed among us that afternoon in Hogland. It was a poor, broken-spirited, hopeless creature that raised his arms with a cry of despair at seeing us, and hid his face and trembled and refused to leave the boat when Kuzmá and others beached it and ran it, with him still seated in the bows, up the shore. I felt quite sorry for the terrified wretch.
"Well, James Strong," said Jack, "this is an unexpected meeting, after all that has passed! How come you here, pray?"