Twenty minutes later Frank came down to the boat with the skipper, carrying a large roll of charts, and a man with a handcart containing a bundle of jerseys and caps, and fifty white duck trousers. A large shore boat was alongside when they reached the Osprey.
"Is this the last lot?" the captain asked the man in charge of the pile of casks and boxes with which it was filled.
"Yes, sir, this is the last batch."
"Get them on deck, Hawkins," Frank said, "and we can get them down and stowed when we are under sail. Get the anchor short at once, the sail covers off and the mainsail up.
"I don't want to lose a minute," he went on, turning to George Lechmere. "I know that an hour or even a day will make no material difference, but I am in a fever to be off."
"Have you found out which way they have gone, Major?"
"I have found out that they have sailed for the south, but whether for the Mediterranean or for the West Indies or South America I have no idea; but I have some hopes of finding out by the time we get to Gibraltar."
"And they have got a three days' start of us?"
"Yes, I can hardly believe that it is not more. It seems to me a fortnight since I went ashore to dine at the club. Three days is a long start, and unless the change of rig has spoiled her, the Phantom is as fast, or very nearly as fast, as we are. We can't hope to catch her up, unless she stops for two or three days in a port, and that she is certain not to do. No, I don't think that there is any chance of our overtaking her until she has got to whatever may be her destination. Of course, what Carthew counts upon is that, in time, he will get Miss Greendale to consent to marry him. That is one reason why I think that he will not go up the Mediterranean. The further he takes her the more hopeless the prospect will seem to her."
"But she will never give in, Major," George Lechmere said, confidently.