“I must,” I replied. “This is a case where you’d get into trouble for keeping the rules, not for breaking them. You can’t talk about rules to a half-drowned man. It would be manslaughter. Help me on board and get me some brandy--I suppose you’ve some by you--and I’ll pay you well and not say a word to any one. And be quick about it for I can’t hold on here much longer. You’ll be half-a-sovereign the richer for this night’s job, and if you’re quick I’ll make it a sovereign.” Grumbling audibly about it being “a ---- fine lay this--making a poor man run the risk of getting the sack because ---- fools choose to play the ---- monkey,” he unlashed the dinghy, and having brought her round to where I was clinging, he assisted me in, and with a few dexterous strokes took us to the side of the hulk over which a rope ladder was hanging. “Afore you go aboord,” he growled, putting a detaining hand upon my arm, “’ave yer got any hiron concealed about yer person?” “Iron?” I said. “What do you mean? And where could I conceal anything? Every stitch of my clothes is lying over there on the beach.” “My instructions is,” he replied doggedly, “that I hask hevery one wot comes aboord this boat whether they’ve got any hiron concealed about ’em. That’s my dooty an’ I does it. ’Ave you or ’ave you not got hiron on your person?” “Certainly not,” I said, “unless the iron in my blood’s going to be an objection. And now stop this fooling and get me some spirit as fast as you can for I’m half dead.” As a matter of fact, I was beginning to feel chilled to the bone, besides which it was very necessary I should keep up the _rôle_ I had assumed. Hughes disappeared below, but soon returned with half a tumbler of rum and water and a dirty, evil-smelling blanket. The rum I tossed off gratefully, but the blanket I declined. “Very well,” said Hughes. “But you look as white as a ---- sheet already, and you’ll find it none too warm going back in the dinghy with nothing on.” “I’m not going back in the dinghy with nothing on, my good fellow,” I replied calmly. “You’ve got a fire or a stove of some sort below, I suppose, and I’m going down to sit by it while you row back and get my clothes for me. Then you can put me ashore, and I shall have much pleasure in handing you over the sovereign I’ve promised you, on condition you give me your word not to speak of this fool’s game of mine. I don’t want to be made the laughing-stock of the island. I told them I was a good swimmer, and if they heard that I had to sing out for help and had to be taken back to shore like a drowned kitten I should never hear the last of it, especially from that big brute of a Muir who’s always bragging about his own swimming.” Something like a grin stole over the fellow’s forbidding face. “Muster Muir’e don’t like no soft-plucked uns, ’e don’t; and you did sing out ---- loud, and no mistake. You told un you could swim, did ye? Why, Muster Muir, I seen him swim out two mile and more, and then--”