The river-pirates, whose course we are following, pursued their way: the old Dreadnought, stripped of the cannon that once bristled on its lofty sides, and now resembling the worn-out lion that has lost its fangs, was passed;—the domes of Greenwich greeted the eye;—and now the boat merged upon the wide expanse which seems to terminate with Blackwall.
But, no! the stream sweeps to the right; and onward floats the skiff—skirting the Kentish shore.
At length the gloomy and sombre-looking hulks off Woolwich are reached: the boat shoots in between the shipping; and there the pirates landed.
At Woolwich they repaired to a low public-house with which they were acquainted; and, as the fresh air of the river had sharpened their appetites, they called into request every article of food which was to be found in the larder. Liquors in due proportion were ordered; the Resurrection Man paid the score for all; and in this manner the four pirates contrived to while away the time until the tide turned once more in their favour in the afternoon.
At three o'clock they retraced their steps to the boat; and in a few minutes were again gliding rapidly along on the bosom of the river.
"Now," said the Resurrection Man, "as we have drunk a glass and smoked a pipe together, we are better acquainted with each other."
These words were especially addressed to the two men whom the foreman at Mossop's wharf had provided.
"Of course," continued the Resurrection Man, "I needn't ask you if you know the exact nature of the business which we have in hand. I didn't think it prudent to talk about it when we were at the crib in Woolwich just now, because walls have ears; but I took it for granted, from certain words which you two chaps said, that it's all right."
"Yes, yes, master," returned one, who was called Long Bob, in consequence of his height: "Swot put us up to the whole thing."
"We know the risk, and we know what's to be got by it," added the other, who delighted in the name of the Lully Prig,[[1]] from the circumstance of his having formerly exercised the calling with which, in flash language, the name is associated, before he became a river-pirate.