“No more trouble from this pair,” laughed the bearded one to his companion at the hatchway. “Now, I'll douse the cabin light, and then we'll cast off. This thing has moved along very slickly.”
Eph, after having made up his mind to turn in early, had found his sleepy fit passing. He read for a while in the cabin, then pulled on a reefer and went up on deck. Williamson was already in a berth, sound asleep.
“It would be a fine night if there was a moon,” Eph remarked to the marine sentry on deck.
“Yes, sir.”
The marine—“soldier, and sailor, too”—not being there for conversational purposes, continued his slow pacing, his rifle resting over his right shoulder.
As Eph strolled about in the limited space of [pg 180] the platform deck he heard a distant creaking. It was a sound that he well knew—the hoisting of sail.
“I wonder if the local fishermen start out at this time of the night?” Eph Somers remarked, musingly, to the sentry.
“It may be so, sir; I don't know,” replied the marine.
Presently Eph made out the lines and the spread of canvas of a handsome knockabout sloop standing on out of the harbor.
The course being narrow, the sloop was obliged to sail rather close to the fleet.