"'Not now,' I says, 'but there will be.'
"'I hope so,' says Archie, and calls Johnnie and tells him, and I gives him his money which he didn't want to take but had to and we slip her chain cable but left her riding light on a buoy in case the gunboat watch were having an eye on her. 'And now,' I says, 'to that lighter where those bales of hemp are.'
"'Hadn't we better put straight for the open sound and head to sea,' says Archie, 'while it's dark? What do we want with a lot o' hemp?' growls Archie.
"'We'll go after the hemp, all the same, Archie,' I says.
"It took us three hours from our anchorage to make the lighter, where the hemp was, and that made it midnight. We let the schooner drift a couple of hundred yards off the little pier, and Archie and me paddled ashore in our quarter-boat with a spare lantern.
"There was the lighter, but no bales of hemp. Up on the pier, about two hundred yards, we see a streak of light. We crept up to that, and through a pane of glass high up—me standing on Archie's shoulders to get a look through—was four men playing cards, with money and a bottle of whiskey and a kerosene lamp on the table. We looked around. On the narrow-gauge railroad track we found the little flat hand-car, and on that, under a tarpaulin, were the bales of hemp.
"We crept around to the door of the shack. By feeling we saw it opened out; so the two of us felt around for big-sized stones, a hundred pounds apiece, or so, and them we piled in front of the door, fifteen or twenty of 'em, very softly, and then I whispers to Archie to hustle the flat car along to the pier.
"And he did, but in getting started the car wheels grinded a little, and somebody inside yells, 'What's that!' and again, 'Listen!' and then I could hear one of 'em jumping up and cursing and swearing: 'What started her?' Next thing somebody rattled the door-latch and pushed. And pushed again. And then—bam! his whole weight against the door. The top part springs out, but the bottom half sticks.
"Then there was a quiet, and then somebody said something quick, and I could hear 'em all jumping up and yelling out, and they came piling bang-up for the door and slammed against it, but the big stones held 'em. Then they stopped, and one of 'em says: 'We're locked in all right.' 'Yes,' I calls out, 'and you'd better stay locked in, for the first man, and the second man, and the third man comes out the door he gets his. And now, men,' I calls out, 'keep that door covered and cut loose if it's knocked open.' And then I hurried after Archie's lantern, which I see is now to the pier.
"It didn't take us more than a couple o' minutes to pitch those little bales off that car, tote 'em across the lighter and drop 'em into our quarter-boat. Then we rowed out to our vessel and threw them over the rail and let 'em lay there amidships till we could get a chance to rip 'em open and see what we got.