He did not look toward the wharf. He strolled on past the forward house, where the engineer was stoking his boiler, getting up steam for the schooner's windlass engine. When he patrolled aft again, after a conscientious wait, he found the passenger leaning against the coachhouse door, smoking a cigarette. The electric light showed his face, and it wore a look of peculiar satisfaction.
Just then some one fumbled inside the coach-house door at the stranger's back, and when the latter stepped away the first mate appeared, yawning.
“I'm the passenger—Mr. Bradish,” the young man explained, promptly. “I just made myself at home, put my stuff in a stateroom, and locked the door and took the key. Is that all right?”
“May be just as well to lock it while we're at dock and stevedores are aboard,” agreed the mate.
“How soon do we pull out of here?”
The mate yawned again and peered up into the sky, where the first gray of the summer dawn was showing over the cranes of the coal-pockets. “In about a half-hour, I should say. Just as soon as the tug can use daylight to put us into the stream.”
The roar of the coal in the main-hatch chute had ceased. The schooner was loaded.
“Go strike eight bells, Jeff, and turn in!” ordered the mate, speaking to Mayo.
“Well, I'll stay outside, here, and watch the sun rise,” said Bradish. “It will be a new experience.”
“It's an almighty dirty place for loafing till we get into the stream and clean ship, sir. I should think taking an excursion on a coal-lugger would be another new experience!” There was just a hint of grim sarcasm in his tone.