More or less salt water was nothing to the Rockabie boys, and after a glance along the shore, followed by a sweeping of the pier, which ran out between them and the harbour, they waded a little way out till the water reached their chests, and then began to swim for the outermost boat, into which Big Jem climbed, to hold out a hand, and the next moment his comrade had followed and leaned over, dripping away, to cast loose the rope attached to the buoy, while Big Jem put an oar out over the stern and began to scull.
“Ibney allus leaves one oar in his boat,” said Jem, sculling away.
“But we mustn’t go yet.”
“You hold your mouth,” said Big Jem. “I’ll show you. You shall see what you shall see. Here, lay hold of the rope and make a hitch round that killick. See?”
The other boy evidently did see, for he knelt down and began to edge a big oval boulder stone from where it lay in company with three more for ballast amidship, worked it right forward into the bows, and then lifted it on to the locker, when he took hold of the boat’s painter at the end furthest from the ring-bolt, to which it was secured, and fastened the hempen cord round the boulder with a nautical knot.
By the time this was done and the boy looked round for orders he caught sight of something moving at the shore end of the pier.
“Here comes the sailors back to their boat,” he said. “They’ll see us.”
“Over with the killick, then—easy. Don’t splash.”
Big Jem drew in his oar, with which he had been making the boat progress by means of a fishtail movement, laid it along the thwarts, and then, as the other boy lifted the stone over the bows into the water, which it kissed without disturbance, it was let go and sank with a wavy movement, sending up a long train of glittering bubbles, running the rope out fast till bottom was reached and the boat swung from its stone anchor.
“Now, then, down with you,” said Big Jem, and the next minute the two boys lay in the bottom, each with a great boulder for pillow, quite out of sight, unless their presence had been suspected, when a bit of coarse blue-covered body might have been seen, but then only to be taken for some idle fisher making up for last night’s fishing with a nap.