“No-o-o,” answered Tim; “but don’t fire the cannon till you get around the point.”
“We won’t,” said Harvey. “Here’s the key to the cabin.”
Little Tim rowed out aboard.
It seemed, however, as though his vigil was to be a fruitless one. Certainly, Harry Brackett failed to put in an appearance. Little Tim stretched himself out on the seat and waited impatiently.
“I don’t see what Jack wanted to make me stay here for,” he remarked, when eight o’clock had come and gone and it was close upon nine, and the moon was rising.
Presently, however, he sat up and listened. Yes, there was somebody rowing out from shore. Tim strained his eyes eagerly. Then shortly he made out a somewhat familiar figure.
“Hello, Mr. Carleton,” he called; “I thought they said you were going up to the launching.”
The man in the boat stopped rowing abruptly, and turned in his seat. But if he was surprised to find anybody aboard the Viking he did not show it.
“So I am,” he replied. “Don’t you want to go up with me?”
“Can’t do it,” replied Little Tim. “I’m on watch. You’d better hurry, though. The tide is about up. She’ll be afloat soon now.”