Long and earnestly and anxiously had Morley Jones watched for an opportunity to carry his plans into execution, but as yet without success. Either circumstances were against him, or his heart had failed him at the push. He walked up and down the deck with uncertain steps, sat down and rose up frequently, and growled a good deal—all of which symptoms were put down by Stanley to the fact that there was no wind.
At last Morley stopped in front of his passenger and said to him—
“I really think you’d better go below and have a nap, Mr Hall. It’s quite clear that we are not goin’ to have a breeze till night, and it may be early morning when we call you to go ashore; so, if you want to be fit for much work to-morrow, you’d better sleep while you may.”
“Thank you, I don’t require much sleep,” replied Stanley; “in fact, I can easily do without rest at any time for a single night, and be quite able for work next day. Besides, I have no particular work to do to-morrow, and I delight to sit at this time of the night and watch the shipping. I’m not in your way, am I?”
“Oh, not at all, not at all,” replied the fish-merchant, as he resumed his irregular walk.
This question was prompted by the urgency with which the advice to go below had been given.
Seeing that nothing was to be made of his passenger in this way, Morley Jones cast about in his mind to hit upon another expedient to get rid of him, and reproached himself for having been tempted by a good fare to let him have a passage.
Suddenly his eye was attracted by a dark object floating in the sea a considerable distance to the southward of them.
“That’s lucky,” muttered Jones, after examining it carefully with the glass, while a gleam of satisfaction shot across his dark countenance; “could not have come in better time. Nothing could be better.”
Shutting up the glass with decision, he turned round, and the look of satisfaction gave place to one of impatience as his eye fell on Stanley Hall, who still sat with folded arms on the skylight, looking as composed and serene as if he had taken up his quarters there for the night. After one or two hasty turns on the deck, an idea appeared to hit Mr Jones, for he smiled in a grim fashion, and muttered, “I’ll try that, if the breeze would only come.”