"Very good; bring Haye with you. I'll send a boat at seven bells."
Captain Syllenger readily gave the midshipmen permission.
"It looks as if it might blow a bit before very long," he added. "If so, remain on board until morning. It's no joke making a five-mile trip in a steamboat on a pitch-dark night with a sea running."
The lads were delighted at the prospect of the visit. They were both awfully keen on John Barry; besides, they were rather anxious to see what sort of command he had. The ship's name was enough to excite their curiosity. She had evidently arrived later than the Capella, for there was no sign of a craft bearing that name when the patrol-vessel passed Cromarty on the previous afternoon.
Punctually at seven bells a grey motor-boat dashed up alongside the Capella's gangway. Shrap, whose instinct told him that his young master was leaving the ship, anticipated him by making a prodigious bound from the side into the waiting boat, alighting upon the shoulders of the coxswain, much to that worthy's astonishment.
"Never mind, sir," replied the man, in answer to Vernon's apologies. "I've a dog myself at home, very much like this one."
"Let him come with us," suggested Ross. "He'll kick up an awful row if you don't."
So Shrap, coiled up in the stern-sheets, had his way.
Having received the midshipmen, the boat turned and threshed its way in the teeth of a strong easterly breeze.
"Yes, sir, that's the Hunbilker," replied the coxswain in answer to Vernon's query, as a large grey shape loomed through the twilight.