While they were thus engaged, and darkness was deepening on the scene, Welton stood on the quarterdeck observing a small sloop that floated slowly towards the lightship. Her sails were indeed set, but no breath of wind bulged them out; her onward progress was caused by the tide, which had by that time begun to set with a strong current to the northward. When within about a cable’s length, the rattle of her chain told that the anchor had been let go. A few minutes later, a boat was seen to push off from the sloop and make for the lightship. Two men rowed it and a third steered. Owing to the force of the current they made the vessel with some difficulty.
“Heave us a rope,” cried one of the men, as they brushed past.
“No visitors allowed aboard,” replied Mr Welton sternly; catching up, nevertheless, a coil of rope.
“Hallo! father, surely you’ve become very unhospitable,” exclaimed another voice from the boat.
“Why, Jim, is that you, my son?” cried the mate, as he flung the coil over the side.
The boatmen caught it, and next moment Jim stood on the deck—a tall strapping young seaman of twenty or thereabouts—a second edition of his father, but more active and lithe in his motions.
“Why you creep up to us, Jim, like a thief in the night. What brings you here, lad, at such an hour?” asked Mr Welton, senior, as he shook hands with his son.
“I’ve come to have a talk with ’ee, father. As to creeping like a thief, a man must creep with the tide when there’s no wind, d’ye see, if he don’t come to an anchor. ’Tis said that time and tide wait for no man; that bein’ so, I have come to see you now that I’ve got the chance. That’s where it is. But I can’t stay long, for old Jones will—”
“What!” interrupted the mate with a frown, as he led his son to the forepart of the vessel, in order to be out of earshot of the watch, “have ’ee really gone an’ shipped with that scoundrel again, after all I’ve said to ’ee?”
“I have, father,” answered the young man with a perplexed expression; “it is about that same that I’ve come to talk to ’ee, and to explain—”