The visitor looked nervously round. At the adjoining wharf a sailing barge was also getting under way, and a large steamer was slowly turning in the middle of the river. She took a pace or two towards the side.
“Cast off,” said Fraser, impatiently, to the watchman.
“Wait a minute,” said the visitor, hastily, “I want to think.”
“Cast off,” repeated the mate.
The watchman obeyed, and the schooner’s side moved slowly from the wharf. At the sight the visitor’s nerve forsook her, and with a frantic cry she ran to the side and, catching the watchman’s outstretched hand, sprang ashore.
“Good-bye,” sang out the mate; “sorry you wouldn’t come to France with us. The lady was afraid of the foreigners, George. If it had been England she wouldn’t have minded.”
“Aye, aye,” said the watchman, significantly, and, as the schooner showed her stern, turned to answer, with such lies as he thought the occasion demanded, the eager questions of his fair companion.
CHAPTER III.
Captain Flower, learning through the medium of Tim that the coast was clear, came on deck at Limehouse, and took charge of his ship with a stateliness significant of an uneasy conscience. He noticed with growing indignation that the mate’s attitude was rather that of an accomplice than a subordinate, and that the crew looked his way far oftener than was necessary or desirable.
“I told her we were going to France,” said the mate, in an impressive whisper.