“Well, all I can say,” exclaimed Tom Edwards to Harvey, “is that I hope we get caught right quick and put into jail, or anywhere else out of this infernal hole. I’d go to jail in a minute, if I could see Haley go, too. Wouldn’t you?”
Harvey smiled. “I’d rather be outside the bars looking in at Haley,” he answered.
Tom Edwards impulsively put out his hand.
“Shake on that!” he cried. “Jack, my boy, we’ll put him there yet. We’ll sell him a line of goods some day, eh?”
The two shook hands with a will.
That evening they fared better than ordinarily aboard the Brandt. There were pork scraps, fried crisp, with junks of the bread browned in the fat, and potatoes; and plenty of the coffee. They made a hearty meal, and went on deck, at the call, feeling better and stronger than for days.
The night was not clear, yet it was not foggy; the moon and stars were nearly obscured by clouds. It was comparatively mild, too, and the wind blowing from the East across the river did not chill them, as in the preceding days. Opposite where they lay, the gleam of Drum Point lighthouse shone upon the water; while, out to the Eastward, another, on Cedar Point, twinkled, more obscured. An island of some considerable size lay to the northwest, from which there came across the water the sound of voices, and of dogs barking. There were sounds of life, too, from the nearer shore, coming out from a lone farmhouse.
The captain of the other vessel came aboard presently, and he and Haley stood together, earnestly conversing.
“She’s up just the other side of Spencer’s wharf, I tell you,” said the strange captain, once. “We can hug the other shore and slip past.”
Harvey turned inquiringly to the sailor, Sam Black, with whom, somehow, he had struck up an intimacy that was almost friendly, despite the man’s evident contempt for the green hands.