I handed it along and he told me to have the oars handy and then we sat whilst the junk came along at a six-knot clip, boosting the water and the great eyes in the bow of her showing in the moonlight as if they were staring at us, but not a soul to be seen or a light on deck.
She snored along to starboard of us not more than ten yards away, black as thunder against the moon, and she was showing us her stern when something went splash over her side, followed by something else as if two chaps had gone a dive, one after the other.
On top of that and almost at once a Holmes light was thrown over and went floating along, blazing and smoking and showing a man’s head squatting beside it.
“Man overboard,” I says.
“Row,” says Buck.
I turned my head as I rowed and saw the junk going along as if nothing had happened, and then I saw the thing in the water wasn’t a man’s head but a buoy. We closed with the buoy and Buck grabs it with the boat-hook and brings it on board. It had a rope tied to it and he hauls it in, hand over hand, till up came a bundle done round with sacking. He hooks it over the gunnel and into the boat.
“That’s done,” said he.
“It is,” said I.
I didn’t say a word more. We got the sail on her and put her on the starboard tack, heading straight for Angel Island.
Then we shoved through Racoon Straits. It was getting along for morning now and I felt stiff and beat, with no heart in me or tongue to tell Buck what I was thinking of him for dragging me into a business like this, only praying we might get out of it without being overhauled.