“Why, the paymaster, of course. Who else did I want to catch? I saw him going along the lane, so I just jumped out and nabbed him.”
“Oh,” exclaimed Archie, for he it was who was seated in the stern of the boat. “I wondered what you could want of me. Seeing that I am not the fellow you’re after, you’ll let me go, won’t you?”
“Winters!” cried the clerk, in great amazement. “Now you have made a mess of it, Bob. You’ve grabbed the wrong chap.”
“Jump in here,” replied the ticket-of-leave man, seizing the bow of the boat preparatory to shoving off. “I know just what I’ve done. I got orders from Waters.”
“But I tell you that you don’t know what you’ve done. I left the paymaster and saw him go into the house not ten minutes ago,” insisted Fowler. “This fellow is of no use to us.”
“Not a bit,” chimed in Archie. “If money is what you’re after I can’t help you to a guinea. I am dead broke.”
The ticket-of-leave man let go of the boat, and straightening up looked first at his fellow-convict and then at Fowler. “Well it’s his own fault,” said he, after thinking a moment. “He had no business to have them clothes and that hat on. What shall we do with him?”
“Let me go,” said Archie. “That’s all you can do with me.”
“Not by a long shot we won’t let you go,” replied the ticket-of-leave man. “You’d talk too much when you got back to your friends. If I only had a piece of rope, I’d tie him and leave him out in the bushes with the others; but I ain’t got it. He’ll have to go with us; there’s no other way. Jump in, Fowler. We’ve wasted too much time already. The schooner must be a mile or two outside.”
Fowler picked up one of the oars, Bob and the other convict, having pushed the boat away from the shore, sprang in and picked up two more, while Archie, in obedience to orders, laid hold of the tiller ropes. He did not remonstrate with his captors, for his past experience had taught him that in circumstances like these words were useless. He devoted his whole attention to steering the boat and looking out for the schooner. They found her a mile outside of the mouth of the river, lying to and waiting for them. Waters stormed a little at Fowler because so much precious time had been wasted, and looked as though he wanted to swear when he found that Bob had captured Archie instead of the paymaster; but a few words from the ticket-of-leave man smoothed his ruffled temper, and Archie was ordered below under guard.