"That's her, then," declared Pengelly.
"What's the silly fool doing so far to the west'ard?" demanded Captain Cain, whose temper had not been improved by his long vigil. "Port twelve, Quartermaster. Watch for the next flash and keep her on that."
A quarter of an hour later the two vessels met, the Fairy with her canvas stowed and her motor coughing noisily.
"Sorry we'm late," said Silas apologetically, as the Fairy was made fast alongside her big consort. "Wind fell light up-along. Motor jibbed sudden-like. Never knowed 'un to play the fule afore. Tide carried us well to loo'ard afore us could get un gwine agen."
"All right, I hope?" asked Captain Cain.
"Ay, an' why not?" rejoined Silas Porthoustoc, as if the question were unnecessary, and that running a cargo of munitions was a mere bagatelle. "I'll come aboard. She'll lie nicely there," he added, jerking his thumb in the direction of the Fairy, which was grinding softly against the fender-protected side of the Alerte.
Silas, who like many another of his fellow-fisherfolk would have related anecdotes of his wife's sister's husband's cousin or other remote connection, kept up a running fire of family history. Without the slightest provocation, he would launch out details of relatives whom one never knew, never wanted to know and in all probability never did know. But when it came to what he had done he was almost as mute as an oyster. There was precious little Ego in Silas Porthoustoc's Cosmos.
"What's the matter with your hand, Silas?" asked Pengelly, noticing in the lamplight that the old man's left hand was encased in bloodstained bandages.
"'Urt 'un," was the reply, surly and almost resentful, as if the skipper of the Fairy had been called upon to make a confession of professional incompetence.
He did not think it necessary to add that the injury had been sustained thirty-six hours previously, when, in a nasty lop off the Nord Hinder, the precious cargo consigned to Captain Cain was in danger of making a swift passage to the bed of the North Sea. Only Silas Porthoustoc's prompt action in jamming the slipping sling had prevented the disaster; but it was at the expense of a crushed hand and a badly lacerated finger.