"I would in a minute," answered the Resurrection Man. "Nothing dare, nothing have."
"So I say," added the Buffer.
"And you wouldn't find me flinch!" cried Moll.
"Now, then, we shall soon understand each other," resumed Swot, helping himself to another supply of grog. "Please to listen to me for a few minutes. A very fine schooner, the Lady Anne of London, trades to the Gold and Slave Coasts of Guinea. She takes out woollens, cottons, linen, arms, and gunpowder, which she exchanges for gold dust, ivory, gums, and hides. A few days since, as she was beating up the Channel, homeward bound with a fine cargo, something occurs that makes it necessary for her to run for the Medway, instead of coming direct up to London. But the night before last it blew great guns, as you may recollect; and as she was but indifferently manned, she got out in her reckoning—for it was as dark as pitch—and ran ashore between the mouth of the Medway and Gravesend. Now, there she lies—and there she's likely to lie. She got stranded during spring-tide; and she does not float now even at high water. The gold dust would be very acceptable; the gums, ivory, hides, and such like matters, may stay where they are."
"Then the fact is the owners haven't yet moved out the cargo?" said the Resurrection Man, interrogatively.
"No—nor don't intend to, neither—for the present," answered Swot. "And what's more, there's a police-boat pulling about in that part of the river all day and all night; but I can assure you that it gives the schooner a precious wide berth."
"Well, I can't understand it yet," said the Buffer.
"The fact is," continued Swot, "the Lady Anne was on its way to Standgate Creek in the Medway, when it got ashore on the bank of the Thames. Do you begin to take?"
"Can't say I do," answered the Resurrection Man. "Is the crew on board still?"
"The crew consisted this morning, when I heard about it last, of three men and a boy," returned Swot; "and one of them men is a surgeon. But the Lady Anne has got the yellow flag flying;—and now do you comprehend me?"