"'Sure,' I says, 'search away.'
"And they went and dropped straight into the cabin and made for the lazaretto, Durks waiting and whistling to himself on deck. Pretty soon the officer comes up and reports nobody in the lazaretto. Durks goes up in the air. 'Where is he?' he says to me.
"'He? Who?'
"'Johnnie Sing.'
"'What you talkin' about?' I asks, and at the same time Archie carelessly hauls out a hundred-dollar bill and lights a cigarette with it. And Durks suddenly changes, and with the officer's permission steps with me into the cabin. And the first thing he does is to count out seven hundred dollars good money and hand it to me. 'I took that other from the wrong pile,' he says, and smiles, but not as if he expects to be believed. And he holds out another five hundred—good money—and says, 'Where are they?' And I looks wise and says, 'Suppose that Chink gave me a thousand to get 'em clear?' 'A thousand? Well, here—here's a thousand when you turn him over to me. Where are they?'
"And I whispered, so the lockers themselves couldn't hear me: 'They swam ashore and are hid away. To-morrow morning I give them the signal and they'll come back aboard.'
"'Then,' says Durks, 'you can get his five hundred and my thousand. Will that satisfy you?'
"And I said I'd think it over, and we went on deck, where Durks told the officer there might be a way to get hold of the contraband Chinamen yet. And the officer eyes us both and finally says: 'You'd better both come with me to the ship and make it clear to the captain. He is now up the Sound, but will be aboard in the morning. And we went, leaving Archie to look after the vessel.
"We went aboard the gunboat, not exactly under guard, but just so's to be sure we'd be there when we were wanted. It was now getting on toward six o'clock, and the first thing meal call blew, and up steps an old shipmate, Ed Gurney, and invites me down to the chief petty officers' mess for supper.
"Ed and me we'd been snapper-fishing together in the Gulf o' Mexico, on the Campeche Bank, in one of those little short bowsprit schooners out o' Pensacola, and now he was high-line marksman of the ship, wore extra marks on his sleeve and got extra money, and all that kind o' stuff, for his shooting. Well, Ed always could tell an oil-tanker from a banana steamer as far as any man in the Gulf, and we talked of those days during supper, and after we'd had a good smoke we walked the deck together, talking of one thing and another, and before I got through I told him all about the scrape I was in.