"Has he been searched?" asked Mr. Gayles, when he had reported the result of his mission to his employer.
"No; I proposed it to Mr. Cooke, but he declined to do it until a warrant had been obtained," replied Mr. Watson.
"It should be done at once;" and Mr. Gayles hastened to attend to this important duty.
Dock blustered, and attempted to resist the indignity, as he termed it; but the constable was determined, and heeded not the prisoner's protest or his struggles. On his person was found a variety of papers, and among them the letter which Captain Gauley had written in the cabin of the Caribbee. But this document had no signature, and was hardly more satisfactory than the letter which Mr. Watson had received from Bessie; at least it contained no accurate information. One sentence, however, was sufficiently definite to make a beginning upon. "We are somewhere inside of Sandy Hook, ready to go to sea at a moment's notice," Captain Gauley wrote. "You know where to leave a letter in New York, when you are ready to go on board; and one of us goes up to the city every day now."
"It's no use," said Dock, maliciously. "You can't find the Caribbee. Mr. Watson, I may rot in jail; but you will never see your daughter again if you go on with this matter. If you want to get her back, pay me the money I ask, let me go, and you shall have her in a week."
"I will not pay you a dollar," replied Mr. Watson, firmly.
"All right," added Dock, with a sneer. "You will wish you had in the course of a year or two. I know what I'm about this time."
Mr. Watson, Mr. Gayles, and Levi went to another room to consider the situation, leaving Constable Cooke in charge of the prisoner.
"Cooke, do you want to make a hundred dollars easy?" said Dock, in a whisper.
"I don't know," replied the officer. "I can't compromise myself."