The man looked keenly at me, and his features relaxed into a curious smile. Removing the long clay pipe from his lips, he gazed thoughtfully into his glass.
“Where do you want to land?” he asked.
“Anywhere that’s safe. My bag contains jewels—their description is in the hands of the police—you understand?”
“Stolen,” he muttered, nodding his head. “I’ve done the same thing afore for gents,” and he took a deliberate pull at his pipe. “Wenduyne ’ud be the best place to run into. Nobody about; and you could take the dilly-gance to Blankenberghe and then go by train direct to Brussels.”
“Very well; how much?”
“Twenty poun’.”
I tried to convince him that the sum asked was too much, but he argued that it was “a contraband job,” and that there were three of his mates to be paid out of it.
At last I consented.
“All right,” he said, “we’ll start at seven and land you afore daybreak.”
The evening was dark and stormy, but at the hour appointed I managed to get the portmanteau out of the inn unobserved, and met him on the beach. Quickly assuming the oilskin and sou’-wester he handed me, I jumped into a small boat with the four men—about as rough-looking a quartette as one could imagine—and a quarter of an hour later we boarded the smack that lay at anchor some distance from the shore.