On saying good night, Terence insisted on Marie accepting, as a parting gift, his watch and chain. These were handsome ones, and of French manufacture, Terence having bought them from a soldier who had taken them from the body of a French officer, killed during Soult's retreat from Portugal. They could, therefore, be shown by her to her friends without exciting any suspicion that they had been obtained from an English source. Marie accepted them very unwillingly, and only after Terence declaring that he should feel very grieved if she would not take the one present he was capable of making.
"Besides," he added, "no one can tell what fortune may bring about. Your husband might lose his boat, or have a long illness; and it is well to have something that you can part with, without discomfort, in such a time of need."
Jules, although desiring no pay for his services and risks, was very much gratified at the present.
"I for my part do not say no, monsieur," he said. "What you say is right. We are careful people, and I have laid by a little money; but as you say, one cannot tell what may happen. And if the weather were bad and there was a risk of never getting back home again, it would be a consolation to me to know that, in addition to the few hundred francs we have laid by since we were married, two years ago, there is something that would bring Marie, I should say, seven or eight hundred francs more, at least. That would enable her to set up a shop or laundry, and to earn her own living. I thank you from my heart, monsieur, for her and for myself."
Terence and Ryan slept as soundly as usual until aroused by Jules. Then they put on their sea boots again, loaded themselves with the nets and the bags with the provisions and wine, while Jules took the water barrel and after saying goodbye to Marie, started. There was not a soul on the wharf and, putting the stores down at the top of the steps, they watched Jules who, after taking off his boots, went across a plank to the ship, made his way noiselessly out on to the bow, swinging himself down into the boat, loosening the head rope before he did so. A push with the oar against the ship's bow sent the boat alongside the quay, and he then worked her along, with his hands against the wall, until he reached the steps.
The stores were at once transferred to the boat, and they pushed it out into the stream. The tide had but just turned to run out and, for half a mile, they allowed her to drift down the river. By this time the light was broadening out in the sky. Jules stepped the mast and hoisted the sail, and then seated himself in the stern and put an oar out in the hole cut for it to steer with. Terence watched the operation carefully. The wind was nearly due aft, and the boat ran rapidly through the water.
"We are just right as to time," Jules said, as he looked back where the river made a bend. "There are two others coming down half a mile behind us, so that we shall only seem to be rather earlier birds than the rest."
Near the mouth of the river two gunboats were anchored. They passed within a short distance of one of these, and a solitary sailor, keeping anchor watch on deck, remarked:
"You are going to have a fine day for your fishing, comrade."
"Yes, I think so, but maybe there will be more wind presently."