“So it is,” he replied in a low voice. “Are you—are you Sam Steele, sir?”
“Yes.”
“Ah! I hoped it would be you. Can I go aboard, sir? I want to talk to you.”
I could not well have refused, unless I consigned the fellow to the waters of the bay again. Moreover, there was a touching and eager appeal in the lad’s tones that I could not resist. I turned and climbed to the deck, and he followed me as silently as a shadow. Then, leaning against the rail, I inquired somewhat testily:
“Couldn’t you wait until morning to pay me a visit? And hadn’t you enough sense to know that old dinghy wouldn’t float?”
“But it did float, sir, until I got here; and that answered my purpose very well,” he replied. “I had to come at night to keep from being discovered and recaptured.”
“Oh! You’re a criminal, then. Eh?”
“In a way, sir. I’m an escaped cabin-boy.”
That made me laugh. I began to understand, and the knowledge served to relieve the strain and dissolve the uncanny effect of the incident. An escaped cabin-boy! Well, that was nothing very wonderful.
“Here, come to my room and get some dry togs,” I said, turning abruptly to the gangway. The lad followed and we passed silently through the after-cabin, past the door of Uncle Naboth’s quarters—whence issued a series of stentorian snores—and so into my own spacious stateroom, where I lighted a lamp and carefully closed the door.