The boat’s head was turned in the required direction, and the waterman, with regular and long sweeps of his oars, propelled the wherry towards Westminster Bridge, and presently glided beneath one of its gloomy arches. For a few moments the rowers in the boat in which Jacob Gray suspected was some one upon his track, appeared quite undecided what to do; then, in obedience to some order apparently from the cloaked figure, they gently followed in the wake of Gray’s wherry. “So,” muttered Gray to himself between his clenched teeth; “I am followed;—and with what intent?—my safe destruction, of course. Waterman,” he said, in a louder tone, “we are going with the tide?” “Scarcely,” replied the man; “it is just on the turn.” “When it is fairly running down,” said Gray, “I will go back. Keep on, however, as you are for a short time.” The waterman now shading his eyes with one hand from the sun, while the oar idly played in the rollocks, said:— “It seems to me, master, that yon skiff is following us for some reason.” “Indeed!” says Gray. “What have you been doing, that you should be followed on the Thames?” “I doing!” cried the man. “Ay.—You suspect you are followed.” “Mayhap it’s yourself, master, they follow,” remarked the man, rather surlily. Gray smiled as he replied:— “Oh, no;—they suspect you of being one of the notorious pirates of the Thames we have heard so much of lately.” “The tide has turned,” said the waterman, looking into the stream as it appeared, in preference to making any reply to this vague charge. “Hark ye!” said Gray, as if a sudden thought had struck up in his brain. “If you are inclined sometimes to earn more money at once than a year’s plying as waterman on the river could produce you, it is possible I may throw a job in your way.” The man glanced uneasily at Gray, as he replied in a low tone,— “Your lordship might trust me—if—” “If what, my friend?” “If I might trust your worship.” “You may, or rather the trusting is all on my side. All I want of you is this; when I shall some day give you notice that I shall want a wherry at a particular hour and at the stairs I shall name, will you be there?” “Certainly,” replied the man. “But that is not quite all?” “You are right,” said Gray. “I shall bring one with me; we will take with us wherewithal to make us merry. I am abstemious, but my friend is not, and I have often told him that some of these days, when drinking in a wherry he will become so confused, that he will accidentally fall into the Thames, do you understand?” “I—think—I—do.” “I am sure you do,” added Gray. The man nodded. “Your reward shall be ample,” continued his tempter. “I don’t see why I should turn away a job,” said the man; “if I wasn’t to take it, some one else would, of course.” “A very true remark,” cried Jacob Gray. “You consent then to do this little service?” “I do, master.” “Give me your name and address then.”