Here the two villains parted company, one betaking himself to his ship, the other returning to the drinking-saloon, where he spent the remainder of the night in drunken revelry.
In the meantime the man against whose life Randall had plotted unsuccessfully was preparing another disappointment for the mate.
On leaving the ship, not dreaming how important to him had been the ten minutes by which his comrades had preceded him, Bill Sturdy struck for the central part of the city by the most direct route.
Turning a corner, he unexpectedly fell in with a sailor who had been a messmate on a former voyage. Bill ascertained that his comrade was about to sail in two days for Liverpool, and from thence to New York.
"Can your captain take another hand?" asked Sturdy.
"I have no doubt he would like one, for we are short-handed. We lost a sailor overboard just before we got into Rio."
"Do you carry any passengers?"
"A few."
"I shall want to secure a berth for one."
"You don't mean to say, Bill, that you've been spliced?"