"Can you take her in as close as that?" I asked.
"I could take her to hell," he replied cheerfully, "if there was enough water. The only thing is, can you chaps get on board?"
Billy laughed grimly. "Some of us will," he said, "and the others can swim."
With a white curve of water foaming away from either bow, the little vessel ran on down the centre of the river. Far ahead of us, a beautiful picture in the cloudless afternoon sunshine, the Seagull swept forward on her way towards the sea. Crouched in the bows, I stared silently out over the long grey stretch of intervening water, which every minute was perceptibly lessening in distance.
Billy, who had been rummaging in the tool-chest, which Cumming had pointed out to him, crept forward and held out a heavy steel bar.
"Here you are, Jack," he said. "You freeze on to this. I've got a gun."
I took the short but deadly little weapon and thrust it into my side pocket. I felt somehow that my fists would be all that I should want.
"Billy," I said, "if we both get on board together, leave Sangatte to me."
He nodded. "That'll be all right," he replied. "There'll be quite enough fun for me with the rest of the crew; you shall have his lordship all to yourself." Then he paused and looked out at the stern of the Seagull, now no more than half a mile distant. "Don't you think, Jack," he added, "that you'd better go down into the cabin, just in case Sangatte's on the watch? If he spotted you, he'd guess we meant mischief at once, and we might find it a bit of a job to get on board. You can pop out as we run alongside."
Billy's suggestion was so obviously a sensible one that although I was loth to quit the deck, I immediately adopted it. It would never do for Sangatte to see me in the boat, for the Seagull stood so much higher out of the water than our own little craft that our only chance of boarding her was to take the crew by surprise. So into the cabin I went, where I found the impassive Wilton, who seemed to consider the whole business as part of his ordinary day's work, stretched out peacefully on the bunk.