“What’s this?” I exclaimed. “You made fast to your boat. It should have been cast adrift.”
“Boat loose is,” he replied, with unfailing suavity.
“The line is fast,” I retorted.
I felt his hands on the sheet, and he leaned past me out of the window.
“Your dunnage, of course!” I muttered, and, regretful of my impatience, I fell to hauling with him.
One good heave cleared our load from the boat, which was left free to drift up the harbor with wind and tide. The thought that it might be sighted and overhauled by the guard-boat patrol quickened my pull at the line. A few more heaves brought up to the window a cylindrical bundle or bale, which the Japanese grasped and drew inboard before I could lend a hand.
My visitor was aboard, dunnage and all, and, so far as I could tell, he had not been detected either by the men of the guard-boats or the watch above us on the poop.