"In that case," interrupted Tommy, with a short laugh, "we ought to have rather an interesting evening. Seems to me, Neil, we're what you might call burning our boats this journey." The old compunction I had felt at first against dragging Tommy and Joyce into my affairs suddenly came back to me with renewed force. "I'm a selfish brute, Thomas," I said ruefully. "I think the best thing I could do really would be to drop overboard. The Lord knows what trouble I shall land you in before I've finished." "You'll land me into the trouble of telling you not to talk rot in a minute," he returned. Then, standing up and peering out ahead over the long dim expanse of water, dotted here and there with patches of blurred light, he added cheerfully: "You take her over now, Neil, We're right at the end of the Yantlet, and after this morning you ought to know the rest of the way better than I do." He resigned the tiller to me, and pulling out his watch, held it up to the binnacle lamp. "Close on a quarter to nine," he said. "We shall just do it nicely if the engine doesn't stop." "I hope so," I said. "I should hate to keep a Government official waiting." We crossed the broad entrance into Queenborough Harbour, where the dim bulk of a couple of battleships loomed up vaguely through the haze. It was a strange, exhilarating sensation, throbbing along in the semi-darkness, with all sorts of unknown possibilities waiting for us ahead. More than ever I felt what Joyce had described in the morning--a sort of curious inward conviction that we were at last on the point of finding out the truth. "We'd better slacken down a bit when we get near," said Tommy. "Latimer specially told me to bring her in as quietly as I could." I nodded. "Right you are," I said. "I wasn't going to hurry, anyhow. It's a tricky place, and I don't want to smash up any more islands. One a day is quite enough." I slowed down the engine to about four knots an hour, and at this dignified pace we proceeded along the coast, keeping a watchful eye for the entrance to the creek. At last a vague outline of rising ground showed us that we were in the right neighbourhood, and bringing the _Betty_ round, I headed her in very delicately towards the shore. It was distressingly dark, from a helmsman's point of view, but Tommy, who had gone up into the bows, handed me back instructions, and by dint of infinite care we succeeded in making the opening with surprising accuracy. The creek was quite small, with a steep bank one side perhaps fifteen feet high, and what looked like a stretch of mud or saltings on the other. Its natural beauties, however, if it had any, were rather obscured by the darkness. "What shall we do now, Tommy?" I asked in a subdued voice. "Turn her round?"