“‘Well, then don’t dream so any more,’ I says huffishly, for I was in a hurry to be off.
“And I ask you, just as a fair question, is it pleasant, if your duty takes you on the water all day or all night, as the case may be, to have the wife of your bosom always dreaming that you are brought home drowned?
“I got to be obstinate at last, for it was all nonsense to think of giving up a decent position on chance; so the more my wife dreamed about me being drowned, the more I came home at regular times, sound as a roach, and dry as a bone, except in wet weather. Matters went on as usual; chaps were caught stealing or smuggling, and they were imprisoned or fined; and all this time I’d forgotten about River Jack, till one evening, when, from information I’d received, I had myself rowed, as soon as it was dark, on to one of half a score of lighters moored off the Surrey shore, and loaded with the freight they had been taking out of a full-rigged ship, just about a hundred yards ahead. For, you see, some owners won’t go to the expense of having their vessel in dock, but have it unladen where she lies. I had had a hint or two that there was likely to be something on the way; but as it was a light night, I knew very well that if our boat lay anywhere on the watch, the consequence would be that the plundering party would never come near.
“Well, I had myself rowed there, crept on to one lighter quietly, loosened an end of a tarpaulin, got underneath, and made myself snug as possible, giving my men orders to lay off behind a brig two hundred yards away, ready to come up to my help when they heard me whistle. Then, in a moment or two, I heard the oars dip, growing fainter and fainter each moment, till all was still but the sighing of the wind, and the lapping, rushing noise of the tide running down hard.
“What an easy thing it is to plan out anything on paper, or in your own head, and what a different affair it turns out when you work it out in practice! Here was I lying snug in hiding, and all I’d got to do was to wait patiently till anybody came to plunder the lighters, then jump up, staff or pistol in hand, and arrest the lot; whistle, when our galley would come up; the men be transferred into the boat; taken to the station; and praise and promotion for me would most likely follow.
“That’s how it was on paper; this is how it turned out in practice.
“I’d lain there for quite half an hour, in not the most comfortable of positions, when, growing tired, I took a glance out through a hole I slit with my knife in the tarpaulin; but all was still—nothing to be heard but the rushing of the river past the great barge, and I lay back once more, wondering whether the enemy would come, and, if they did come, how long they would be first.
“I don’t think I’m more of a coward than most men, but somehow just about then I began to wish that I had made a couple of our fellows stay with me; then I wished that it was morning; and then, as I turned cold and shivering, I began to think about that dream of my wife’s; and from being cold I now grew hot and wet with perspiration, so that I was thinking of lifting the tarpaulin a little, when I stopped the idea, for I heard all at once a sharp, scratching noise.
“‘Bats,’ I said to myself; and I began to think of the amount of mischief the little wretches do on shipboard, getting carried out, too, in the bales to the lighters, and from them into warehouse and bonded store.
“Then came the scratching again, and a slight rustling; and I uttered a loud, sharp hiss to drive them away; for, shut up as I was, I did not much like the idea of being nibbled by rats.