"There's a night watchman," observed Harborough.
"Yes, for the whole of this yard," added Jack. "He can't be everywhere at once."
"Very good," agreed Harborough. "Pick out two of the crowd and warn 'em for sleeping aboard."
"I'll take the first week," volunteered Villiers. "Beverley will, too. And we may as well have Tommy on board."
Tommy was an Aberdeen terrier belonging to Sir Hugh—a sharp-faced, long-nosed little animal who seemed to be perpetually asleep with one eye open all the time.
"Good enough," agreed Harborough. "Seen O'Loghlin about? I want to speak to him about those diving-dresses."
Four more days passed—the days in strenuous activity, the nights in utter tranquillity. Villiers and Beverley found the new arrangement quite comfortable. They were afloat once more, even though the Titania was berthed alongside a wharf in a sheltered tidal river. During working-hours a "brow" or gangway gave access to the vessel, but when the working-party packed up, the brow was removed, and the only means of direct communication with the shore was a wire "Jacob's Ladder" that led to a long raft moored between the Titania and the jetty, whence a wooden ladder, its lower rungs slippery with weed as the tide fell, enabled access to the wharf.
It was Saturday evening. Manual work on board had been set aside to be resumed early on Monday morning. Beverley, who was beginning to feel the strain of long hours and hard toil, had turned in early. Villiers, with the small table of his cabin covered with technical books, was deep in Norrie's Epitome and The Nautical Almanac for 1920.
"Yacht, ahoy!"
Jack heard the hail but did not stir. Calls of that sort were common, considering that there were half a dozen yachts, with hands living on board, lying in the tier out in the stream.