I descended the ladder, jumped into the boat, and gave the orders to pull out into the fog. When we had gone some four or five hundred yards, I made a trumpet of my hands, and shouted:
"Oh, Mr. Chips! Where are you?"
"Here we are, sir!" came the reply close to us.
In another moment we were alongside, and the carpenter, in the uniform of a British quartermaster, helped me on board.
"Mr. Chips," I said, hurriedly, "there will soon be some passengers come off from the frigate. It is supposed that we are bound for Dublin."
"It is a roundabout way we'll take to get there, sir," he said, grinning. "Who are they?"
"Never mind as to that," I answered. "Treat them with all courtesy, and show them to my cabin."
When Mr. Middleton and his granddaughter, whose name the reader has guessed by this time, were put on board of us, I made myself very scarce, hiding in the fore-castle luckily, I thought it better to start to the eastward and sail down to the frigate to allay any suspicion that might still linger in Captain Mallet's mind. It was the best thing I could have done, for we came up to her, finding her yet hove-to.
"Follow in our wake," came the order through the trumpet, as she rounded off on the same course we were holding.