“Very plain, sir,” said the boy; “but they’ll only make a muddle of it, sir. Fancy fat Sam and the cook and Dick!”
“Do as you’re told!” said the other irascibly.
“O’ course, sir,” said Henry, “but they’ll only worry me with a lot o’ questions as to who ’e is an’ wot you want ’im for.”
“You take it for’ard,” said the skipper, “and tell them there’s a couple of sovereigns for the first man that finds him.”
The youth took the photograph, and after another careful scrutiny, with the object of getting a start in the race for wealth, took it forward. Fat Sam, it seemed, had seen the very man only two days before at Poplar; the cook knew his features as well as he knew those of his own mother, while Dick had known him for years as an old and respected inhabitant of Plymouth. Henry went back to the skipper, and, having furnished him with this information, meekly suggested that they should drag Gravesend first.
It was midnight when they got the anchor up and dropped silently down the river. Gravesend was silent, and the dotted lines of street lamps shone over a sleeping town as the Seamew crept softly by.
A big steamer in front whistled warningly for the pilot’s boat, and slowing up as the small craft shot out from the shore to meet it, caused a timely diversion to the skipper’s melancholy by lying across his bows. By the time he had fully recovered from the outrage and had drunk a cup of coffee, which had been prepared in the galley, Gravesend had disappeared round the bend, and his voluntary search had commenced.
CHAPTER III
They made Brittlesea in four days—days in which the skipper, a prey to gentle melancholy, left things mostly to the mate. Whereupon melancholia became contagious, and Sam’s concertina having been impounded by the energetic mate, disaffection reared its ugly head in the foc’sle and called him improper names when he was out of earshot.
They entered the small river on which stands the ancient town of Brittlesea at nightfall. Business for the day was over. A few fishermen, pipe in mouth, lounged upon the quay, while sounds of revelry, which in some mysterious way reminded the crew of their mission to find Captain Gething, proceeded from the open doors of a small tavern opposite. The most sanguine of them hardly expected to find him the first time; but, as Sam said, the sooner they started the better. For all they knew he might be sitting in that very public-house waiting to be found.