“Then they will know I have gone.”
“No matter if they do, after you are secure on shore. But very likely they will find that you have gone before I show myself. I can get the boatman to come back to the ship after he has landed you, and then I can say that I have come on board again after something I had left in my state-room; and I can leave something there to make it seem all right. Of course you will take all my luggage with you when you go on shore.”
“Perhaps that will all work very well, so far as I am concerned; but how about Clinch?” asked Gregory.
“Oh, bother about Clinch!” exclaimed the Briton. “We don’t want him any way. He will spoil the whole thing; and this will be a good plan to get rid of him.”
“But he has stood by me in all this business; and I can’t desert him,” answered Gregory. “It would be mean for me to do that.”
“But Lord Fillgrove must go in the boat with you, and come back with the boatman. It won’t look regular if he don’t,” protested Sir Philip. “I don’t see any way to get Clinch out of the steamer, unless we get him into the boat in some manner before you and Fillgrove get in. You can manage that better than I can; for you know the rules of your bloody ships, and I do not.”
“Shakings overlooks every boat that comes to the steamer, or leaves it. We couldn’t get Clinch into the boat any more than we could get the engine into it,” replied Gregory.
“Then you must leave him on board, unless you are willing to give up the journeys we have planned.”
“I am not willing to give them up, or to give up Clinch.”
“I’ll tell you what we can do. Tell Clinch I have a scheme by which I shall get him out of the ship after you and Fillgrove have gone,” suggested the Briton.