Captain Ducie's window commanded a view of that end of the pier from which the steamer started. He could see a knot of passengers and their luggage already assembled. It was hardly likely that the mulatto would be one of the lot, still Ducie thought that he might as well satisfy himself on that point. On his dressing-table was a very powerful field-glass. Ducie took it up and directed it full on the clump of people at the end of the pier. His eye ranged over the component parts one by one, but no Cleon was to be seen. He was hardly disappointed, because he had not expected to find the mulatto there. Before putting down the glass, with an instinct that to him was like second nature, he swept the horizon of sky and sea with it. Elizabeth Castle and the whole expanse of St. Aubin's Bay were visible to him. The morning was clear--deceitfully clear--and Ducie's experienced eye told him that a change of weather was at hand. Coming back from the horizon his eye took in the features nearer home. One or two pair-oar boats were paddling lazily about just outside the harbour. Beyond them were three or four sailing boats with their white wings outspread to catch the light and fickle breeze which seemed this morning as if it could not make up its mind to blow steadily from one point for more than five minutes at a time. The outermost of the sailing boats was tacking out of the harbour with every inch of its tiny sails spread to catch the wind. In this boat were three men, two of them sailors, the third evidently a passenger, probably some visitor to the island going out on a fishing excursion. Such would have been Ducie's natural conclusion had he cared to think about the matter at all. The boat came for a moment within the range of his glass, and in that moment one of the three men turned his head as if to see what progress had been made from land. He turned his head and Ducie gave a start and a cry. The man who had looked back was none other than the mulatto.
One more steady look at the boat and its occupants and then Captain Ducie went on dressing with all speed. He understood the case in a moment. Cleon would not venture to leave the island by the steamer, fearing, probably, that she might be boarded by Ducie before leaving. His plan had been to hire a smack to take him either to the French coast or to Guernsey, and had it not happened to be dead low water about the time he ought to have got away, and the boats to be all lying high and dry in the harbour, two facts which had probably never entered into his calculations, he would have been a dozen miles from St. Helier by this time, and might have set pursuit at defiance.
In five minutes Captain Ducie was ready to start. His field-glass was slung over his shoulder. In one pocket of his gray shooting-jacket he carried a Colt's revolver, and in the other a flask containing brandy, and a few biscuits.
"Unless I am greatly mistaken," muttered Ducie to himself as he made his way with rapid strides towards the basin, "my friend Martin's little _Demoiselle_ will outsail yonder clumsy craft on a light wind, in which case Mr. Cleon and I may have an earlier reckoning than he dreams of."
Captain Ducie was fortunate enough to find his friend Martin smoking an early pipe by the edge of the basin, and watching his tiny craft with a loving eye as she curtsied lightly to the incoming tide. Martin was a handsome stalwart young fellow whose ancestors for five hundred years back had followed the same occupation in the same place. Ducie had employed him several times on fishing excursions, and the two were sufficiently well known to each other. His boat, _La Demoiselle_, was famed, in the hands of her master, as being one of the fleetest little craft on the island.
A few words sufficed to let Martin understand what was required of him, and three minutes later the Demoiselle with outspread wings was skimming saucily over the crests of the tide in pursuit of the other boat, which Martin pronounced to be the _Belle Rose_. Martin's assistant had been left behind in order that the _Demoiselle_ might sail as lightly as possible, Ducie himself engaging to assist in working the little craft.
_La Belle Rose_ had got a clear half-hour's start, and was working out nearly due south, that being her best tack for sailing as the wind then was. "She'll take a turn sou'east before another ten minutes is over," said Martin. "You see, sir, if she don't; and then she'll make straight for the Normandy coast."
"Martin," said Captain Ducie impressively, "on board yonder boat is a man who has robbed me of that which was of more importance to me than all else in the world."
"Master!" exclaimed Martin, in surprise.
"What I say is true. Now, listen. I want my revenge--as you would want yours were you in my place--eh?"