"But—!" With an effort Kirkwood mustered up a show of dignity. "Am I to understand," he said, as calmly as he could, "that you deny knowing George B. Calendar and his daughter Dorothy and—"
"I don't 'ave to. Listen to me, young man." For the time the fellow discarded his clumsy facetiousness. "I'm Wilyum Stryker, Capt'n Stryker, marster and 'arf-owner of this wessel, and wot I says 'ere is law. We don't carry no passengers. D'ye understand me?"—aggressively. "There ain't no pusson nymed Calendar aboard the Allytheer, an' never was, an' never will be!"
"What name did you say?" Kirkwood inquired.
"This ship? The Allytheer; registered from Liverpool; bound from London to Hantwerp, in cargo. Anythink else?"
Kirkwood shook his head, turning to scan the seascape with a gloomy gaze. As he did so, and remarked how close upon the Sheppey headland the brigantine had drawn, the order was given to go about. For the moment he was left alone, wretchedly wet, shivering, wan and shrunken visibly with the knowledge that he had dared greatly for nothing. But for the necessity of keeping up before Stryker and his crew, the young man felt that he could gladly have broken down and wept for sheer vexation and disappointment.
Smartly the brigantine luffed and wore about, heeling deep as she spun away on the starboard tack.
Kirkwood staggered round the skylight to the windward rail. From this position, looking forward, he could see that they were heading for the open sea, Foulness low over the port quarter, naught before them but a brawling waste of leaden-green and dirty white. Far out one of the sidewheel boats of the Queensborough-Antwerp line was heading directly into the wind and making heavy weather of it.
Some little while later, Stryker again approached him, perhaps swayed by an unaccustomed impulse of compassion; which, however, he artfully concealed. Blandly ironic, returning to his impersonation of the shopkeeper, "Nothink else we can show you, sir?" he inquired.
"I presume you couldn't put me ashore?" Kirkwood replied ingenuously.
In supreme disgust the captain showed him his back. "'Ere, you!" he called to one of the crew. "Tyke this awye—tyke 'im below and put 'im to bed; give 'im a drink and dry 'is clo's. Mebbe 'e'll be better when 'e wykes up. 'E don't talk sense now, that's sure. If you arsk me, I sye 'e's balmy and no 'ope for 'im."