“All serene, my boy,” said Muir, when I told him that I wanted Quickly’s help for a few days on a matter about which I was not at liberty to speak for the present. “You’re just in time. Quickly was going out with me in the boat, but I’ll call him in.” “Quickly,” he said, when the skipper presented himself, “this is my friend Mr. Max Rissler, whom you know. Well, Mr. Rissler’s a very particular friend of mine, and by obliging him you’ll be obliging me. He’s to be your master for the next day or two, and I want you to do just as he tells you, and to keep your mouth shut about it. Now Mr. Rissler’s going to have some lunch with me. In the meantime, you go into the kitchen and play ‘Rule Britannia’ on the cold beef and beer, and be ready to go into Southend with him by the next train, as he’s in a hurry and wants to set to work this afternoon.” And set to work we did that very afternoon, the plan pursued being to make out a list of all the vessels lying off the neighbourhood, and to ascertain the owners, and whether there was any one else on board. The task was not difficult, as Quickly seemed to know the name and history of almost every craft afloat, but the result was disappointing, for not all our inquiries could discover any one answering to Mullen’s description, or indeed any one whose presence was not satisfactorily accounted for. Even the Nore lightship, which lies several miles out to sea, was not forgotten, for the very first idea which occurred to me in connection with Southend and Mullen was, what a snug and out-of-the-world hiding-place the vessel would make, were it possible to obtain shelter there. Had there been only one man in charge, it was not inconceivable that he might--like the jailer who assisted the head centre, James Stephen, to escape from Dublin jail in 1865--have been a secret sympathizer with the conspirators, or at all events in their pay, and that a fugitive who could offer a sufficiently tempting bribe might succeed in obtaining shelter and the promise of silence. I found on inquiry, however, that there was quite a crew on board, and that the lightship is frequently visited by the Trinity House boats, so the chance of any one being concealed there was out of the question. But though I dismissed the lightship from my consideration, I could not help asking myself if there might not be some similar place in the neighbourhood of Southend to which the objection which rendered the Nore lightship impossible as a hiding place would not apply, and even as I did so the thought of the dynamite hulks off Canvey Island occurred to me. CHAPTER VIII THE DYNAMITE HULK