Tom persisted. “I’ll give you ten pounds for your family, and ten pounds more when you go down.”
J. Miggs took thought, hesitated, wavered, and at length capitulated. “I’ll do it, sir,” he said, “if you’ll do one thing. If they take my diving rig away, will you agree to pay for a new one?”
“I will,” said Tom, “and I’ll leave the price of it with Mr. Thompson to-night.”
His last scruples vanished, and J. Miggs was ours. “We’ve got two suits over at Brading Harbor, on the Isle of Wight, where we were working. If you’ll tell me your place, we’ll meet you to-night where you’re staying, take you across in the motor boat, get the suits, and get back in time to have five or six hours to work, wherever you say. But it must be to-night. To-night’s the last night without a moon.”
Leaving J. Miggs our address, we went back to our lodgings, by way of Southsea Castle and the piers, to take a preliminary observation of the buoy of the “R’yal Jarge.” We had swallowed a hasty supper, laid in a good store of clothing for the chill of night on the water, and were waiting patiently for the call, when there was a knock at the door. As it opened, there entered not J. Miggs, but his small boy helper, whom we had seen earlier.
“Miggs’s been jugged,” he cried breathlessly. “He and Joe Hines. The bobbies come and took ’em an hour ago. He told me, when he saw ’em comin’, to run and tell you.”
CHAPTER IX
The engines of the motor boat slowed, gave a final chug, and stopped. “Brading Harbor,” remarked our boy guide laconically, as he threw the anchor, and stepped to the stern to pull in the skiff that trailed after us. Before us lay the estuary of the Yar, its black water scarcely differentiated in color from the dark shores that rose above it. A huddle of buildings lifting on our left changed from blots of blackness into shadowy outlines, sprinkled here and there with light, as we rowed in. The lad pulled steadily, with but an occasional glance at the shore. The steady strokes of the oar slowed down, the blackness ahead seemed to rush towards us more swiftly, and the boat ran silently up on to the sand. I jumped out, the little anchor in my hand. We were at Brading Harbor.