He was not long left in doubt as to the captain's attitude towards him when the launch had run alongside the steamer, and he had climbed the ladder to the deck. Brant met him as he stepped aboard, but ignored his presence, and called down to Bully Cheeseman and the two men who had remained in the launch—
"Now turn her right round and go back again to the same spot. You know what to do. You'll find Mr. Nugent waiting for you, I guess."
"Aye, aye, sir," came out of the darkness, and Leslie heard the tick-tack of the motor as the little craft sped for the shore. He could hardly believe his ears. Why should a second trip be necessary, and why should Nugent, who had declined to accompany him to the beach, be waiting there now, when his car had left The Hut shortly after his own departure?
"Good evening, captain," he said, forcing himself to speak civilly. "Is it not rather risky to hang about off shore now that I am aboard?"
Brant's baleful eyes blazed like coals of fire in the blackness of the darkened ship. "And who the h—ll are you, sir, to dictate to me what's a risk and what isn't?" the commander of the Cobra piped in his shrill falsetto. "I understand that it's your damned foolishness that's made all this jiggery-pokery necessary. A nice one to talk about risks, when we're taking them on your account. You just have patience, and amuse yourself till I have time to attend to you."
He swung on his heel and mounted the stairs to the bridge, where he entered into a low-voiced colloquy with one of his subordinates. Only a few words of it reached Leslie, but they were enough to show that a keen look-out was being kept for the approach of fishing or other small boats to the steamer. That was all in order. Being engaged in the punishable offence of assisting a fugitive from justice to escape arrest it was intelligible that the captain should be anxious to cover the traces of his misdemeanour. But why the delay? Why the return trip of the launch to the shore, where, so far as he was aware, she had fulfilled her mission in bringing him safely off?
He could find no satisfactory answers to the questions, and, giving up the attempt, he tried to accept the situation philosophically. Not knowing what accommodation had been allotted to him, he could not seek his cabin; so he put his handbag down on the deck and set to pacing to and fro. It was so dark that it was almost impossible to distinguish objects close at hand, and though the crew were evidently alert and at their stations, he could make nothing of them individually. The discipline was perfect.
He passed and repassed ghostlike figures on his promenade, sometimes singly and sometimes in groups, but they never spoke in so much as a whisper. The silence of the dead reigned over the ship.
He tired of walking at last, and, leaning over the stern-rail, let his eyes range towards the twinkling lights of distant Ottermouth. At this late hour they were momentarily growing fewer, only the larger residences on the hill behind the town showing up in bold relief, and the row of lodging-houses on the parade flanked by the more brilliant glow from the billiard-room of the club. The sight of the quiet haven which had yielded him a short and fickle respite renewed his remorse and filled him with regret. Such joys as the placid little pleasure-haunt had to offer were not for him. His proper place was on the scrap-heap of human failures.
The depression found vent in a sigh that was more than half a groan, and he was immediately surprised to hear it echoed near by. Turning sharply, he discerned the dim outline of a woman also leaning over the stern-rail within a few feet of him.