Henry Burns, cool enough at a crisis, made his skiff fast forward, and climbed aboard. Another moment, and he had stepped to the companion-way and slipped below.
At the same moment, two figures on the shore, who had been watching his manoeuvres, in astonishment and wrath, stepped into another skiff and one of them sculled harder than he had ever sculled before, for the bug-eye.
Henry Burns, groping down into the forecastle, called softly, “Jack, Jack Harvey. Jack, old boy, where are you?” There was no response, only a stir in one of the bunks and a murmur from some drowsy sleeper. The sailors of the Brandt, worn out with work, were seizing the short stop on the way up the river for a snatch of sleep, and were slumbering as only tired sailors can.
Henry Burns felt through his pockets and produced a match, which he lighted and held to the faces of three of the sleepers in turn. No Jack Harvey! The match burned out, and he lighted another, and yet one more. When he had seen the last match flicker out on the face of the one remaining man in the forecastle, and that one was not Jack Harvey, Henry Burns felt his heart drop clear down till it seemed to leave his body. A sense of disappointment and alarm overpowered him. His legs were weak. There was no Jack Harvey in the forecastle! What had become of him?
Henry Burns, his brain in a whirl, climbed the companion steps weakly. He put his hand on the side of the hatch at the top and took one step on deck. As he did so, a rough hand grasped his wrist; another seized upon his throat so he could utter no sound, while the hoarse voice of Hamilton Haley sounded in his ears, “You little thief! Stealing, eh? I know you young shore-rats, always looking for a chance to run off with stuff. You won’t get away so easy this time. You’ll get a bit of dredging for this. Hang you! You can cull oysters, if you give out at the winders. Take that, and stay below till you’re called for.”
The heavy fist of Hamilton Haley shot out. Henry Burns, sent spinning down the companion way by the blow, landed in a heap on the forecastle floor, stunned, senseless. A moment more, and he was tossed into a bunk like a sack of dunnage. There was a call for the crew to turn out.
The bug-eye, Brandt, was going on up the river—not secretly this time, under cover of fog, but boldly in the full moonlight, in the middle of the river, getting the benefit of the flood tide, coming in with the rising moon.
Captain Hamilton Haley had nothing to hide—not now. He was merely going after another recruit. And he had gained still another, all unexpectedly. Luck seemed to be turning.
CHAPTER XVI
ARTIE JENKINS COMES ABOARD
Early in the afternoon, on the day of the events just related, a bug-eye had turned in at a little cove at a place some ten miles up the Patuxent river called Sotterly. The sails were dropped and a boat was lowered. A tall, sharp featured, keen-eyed man, who had been giving orders, called out to one of the sailors. “Get into this skiff, Sam Black,” he said; “I want you to row me ashore.”