Not only is a hulk-keeper who happens to be married forbidden to have his children with him, but even the presence of his wife is disallowed, his instructions being that no one but himself is under any circumstances to come on board. These rules are not, however, very rigidly complied with. A hulk-keeper is only human, and as his life is lonely it often happens that when visitors row out to the ship he is by no means displeased to see them, and half-a-crown will frequently procure admittance, not only to his own quarters, but to the hold where the explosive itself is stored in small oblong wooden boxes, each containing fifty pounds. Nor are instances unknown where the solitude of a married hulk-keeper’s life has been cheered by the presence of his wife, the good lady joining her husband immediately after an inspection and remaining with him until such time as another visit may be looked for. Even if the fact of her presence on board becomes known on the island the matter is considered as nobody’s business but the inspector’s, and the love of an officer of the Crown is not so great among watermen and villagers as to lead them to go out of their way to assist him in the execution of his duty. Had I not had reason to suppose that Mullen was somewhere in the neighbourhood of Southend, the possibility of his being on one of these hulks would never have occurred to me. But the more I thought of it the more I was impressed with the facilities which such a place afforded for a fugitive to lie in hiding, and I promptly decided that before I dismissed the hulks from my consideration I must first satisfy myself that the man I was looking for was on none of them. A point which I did not lose sight of was that it was quite possible for a hulk-keeper who was taciturn by nature, and not prone to encourage gossip, to remain in entire ignorance of what was taking place throughout the country, and of the reward which had been offered for the apprehension of Captain Shannon. In fact there is at this moment in charge of one of the hulks off Canvey a man who is never known to go ashore, to receive visitors, or to enter into conversation. Whether he is unable to read I cannot say, but at all events he never asks for a newspaper, so that it is conceivable that he may not know--happy man!--whether the Conservatives or Liberals are in power, or whether England is ruled by Queen Victoria or by Edward the Seventh. The first thing to be done was to make out a list of the dynamite hulks--just as I had made a list of the boats off Southend--and then to take the vessels one by one and satisfy myself that no one was there in hiding. I need not more fully describe the details of the various inquiries than to say that, in order to avoid attracting attention, they were made as at Southend by the waterman Quickly.