"I lay flat along the bulwark," Jack went on, "by the main rigging. The skylight-covers were on, of course, but the frames were half up, and I could get scraps of the talk in the cabin. The men Uncle Randolph's got along with him are old Melford and Tom Bardale. I thought I'd die to hear them go on. Old Melford was grumbling away,—he's always an awful croaker, you know. He piped up once, and said it was just his luck to have to suffer both fog and bridge when he came for solid cruising. Uncle Randolph and Bardale both poo-poohed him, and asked him if he'd rather play slap-Jack. The old boys are going to play bridge somewhere,—I didn't find out where, but it doesn't matter; they're settled, anyway. I didn't hear anything else, for I'd hardly time to drop into the pea-pod and get out of the way of the men from the fo'c'sle that came out to haul in the cutter on the boat-boom. I rushed ashore as tight as I could pelt, and you saw the rest. This dance business, too! Luck's with us!"
He stopped, all but breathless. With one accord the pair started for the stairs, and took their way to the pier, where the lantern made a dim and watery illumination in the midst of the fog. Castleport seized Jerry by the arm and led him to the edge of the pier.
"With this wind," he said with great earnestness, "we'd best run out to the westward, and beat along the south of Vinal Haven. We'll have more sea-room, and with the weather as thick as this, I don't deny that even that's risky enough."
"It is a nasty night," Taberman assented with emphasis. "Are you for going outside Wooden Ball Island?"
"Tell that when we've got by Dogfish and the rest of 'em," replied Jack briefly. "I mean to leave that to Dave, anyhow."
"You're dead sure you want to do it, old man?" queried Tab with the air of one who would not have asked the question had he not been confident that the answer would be in the affirmative.
"I'd do it ten times over just for the lark!" snorted Jack. "Now then—business!"
They descended the ladder to the eastern float, and Castleport called out guardedly to the men who had all this time been lying concealed in the market-boat under the wharf. A slight bumping, a muttered oath, the rattle of an oar on the thwart, and then the nose of the boat emerged from beneath the pier. A vigorous thrust with the boat-hook against one of the outer stringers shot her up alongside the float.
"All right?" inquired Jack.