Again he awoke. The picture was still there. The moon had risen higher, however, and the pathway of silver light across the river was more diffused. The river rippled and danced beneath the mellow flood. But the picture was not just the same, either. There was something in it which he had not seen before—the masts and rigging of a vessel, clearly outlined in the moonlight. Henry Burns gave one look, rubbed his eyes to convince himself that he was really awake, then sprang to his feet.
“It’s the Brandt,” he said, softly. “I can’t be mistaken. I’ll just slip down and make sure.”
It was, indeed, Haley’s bug-eye, anchored for an hour, for Haley to pick up some stuff he had left up on the bank—a bit of rigging and a small anchor he had bought—for he would not stop on his way down the river, but would make all sail for the Eastern shore.
Henry Burns dressed himself hurriedly, but quietly, without waking Young Joe. He would make sure, before arousing the household. If he should get them up and then prove to be mistaken, he knew what Edward Warren would think. He was warmly clad, but he found a short reefer, which was a thick, warm overcoat, on the rack in the hall below, and he put that on, for the night was sharp.
Cautiously, he slipped the bolt of the front door and stole out of the house, closing the door gently after him. Then he set off for the shore at a rapid pace.
He came to the bank overlooking the river, shortly, and crouched down by some bushes, looking off at the vessel carefully. He was sure he could not be mistaken in her. She lay not over quarter of a mile off shore, and he could see her lines and rig sharply defined.
“I’d stake my half of the Viking on its being the Brandt,” he murmured. “I’d like just one glimpse of her name, though, to make sure.”
As he spoke the words, there flashed into his mind the idea of going out to see. It was easy. There was the skiff that went with the canoe, on long trips. It lay at a stake, just a few feet from the canoe. He knew where the sculling oar was hidden, under a log at the foot of the bank. Henry Burns arose and stole quickly down to the shore, a short distance up river from where he had been hiding. In a moment more, he was seated in the skiff.
He was no novice in small boat handling. It was the work of but a few minutes for him to be close upon the bug-eye. He waited a moment, a few rods away, listening intently. There was no sound aboard. There was no light showing. He drew nearer, and drifted alongside. There was no mistaking the craft now. There, in dull and worn lettering, but plainly to be read, was the name on the bow, “Z. B. Brandt.”
It was an exciting moment for Henry Burns. Two ideas met in conflict in his brain. One was, to hasten ashore and alarm the Warren household; the other, to slip aboard the vessel and see if he could not arouse Harvey in the forecastle, and carry him off triumphantly then and there. The second idea overmastered him. It was too tempting to be resisted. Think of appearing in one brief half-hour at the old house, presenting Jack Harvey to their astonished gaze and saying, proudly, “Here he is—and without a warrant.”