Mr Parkley held out his hand, and the two men grasped each other’s for a moment, and then turned back to the cabin.
“Mr Pugh goes with us, Studwick; Rasp I know will come when he hears that Mr Pugh is with us.”
“Indeed,” said Dutch, “I should have thought not.”
“You’ll see,” said Mr Parkley, writing a few lines in his pocket-book and tearing off the leaf. “Now, then, about Rasp. Whom can we trust to take this ashore?”
“Let me go,” said Mr Meldon, the young doctor, “I will deliver it in safety.”
“You will?” cried Mr Parkley. “That’s well; but mind you don’t get tampered with, nor the man this is to fetch.”
Mr Meldon started, being rowed ashore in a boat they hailed. The captain was ready to suspect everyone now, but in an hour old Rasp come grumbling aboard, with a huge carpet bag, which dragged him into the boat in which he came off, and nearly pulled him back into it when he mounted the side.
“Oh, yes, I’ll go,” he said, as soon as he encountered his employers on the deck. “Hain’t got enough clean shirts, though. I allus thought that Tolly was good for nowt, and the forrener a bad un.”
“And now, Rasp, I want you to go ashore again for me,” said Dutch.
“I’ll take him with me,” said the captain, “and keep a sharp look-out. Mr Parkley is going too.”