“Name them,” said Mr Strive.
“In the first place, please to bring in that grapnel, Mr Gray, and if you are going to Newhaven, I will thank you to call on the harbour-master and just tell him what you have seen; and if you can pick up and tell him anything more about the Wedwell Park fugitives, do so.”
“I read something about them in a Sussex paper,” said Blucher Gray.
“What sort of man was the other one who is missing?” asked the fly man, Trimmons.
“A fine, tall-looking man,” said Harry Goodall, “the very reverse of the fellow we are now in pursuit of.”
“It strikes me very forcibly,” said Blucher Gray, scratching his head in a reflective way, “that the captain of the French lugger is a person I know.”
“Then just dot his name down on paper,” cried Warner.
“Now, can you tell us, Mr Strive,” asked the aeronaut, “if that lugger had anything peculiar in her rig and cut by which we may be better able to make her out from aloft?”
“Certainly. Here I will sketch you an outline of her general appearance, and the number on her sails, sir, and I don’t fancy that you will see many fishing luggers crossing the Channel so soon after last night’s gale. You will make her out, therefore, the more easily; but with the fresh northerly breeze she will be a long way ahead of you.”
“Precisely. I am allowing for that, Mr Strive, but a balloon will travel very fast in this fresh upper current into which we shall soon mount. Perhaps one or other of you may hear of the other party who is wanted. And do, please, accept my best thanks for your valuable hints, gentlemen,” said Harry Goodall.