Hughes grunted by way of reply, but whether this was to be taken as signifying acquiescence or dissent I was unable to say, his face being at the moment hidden in a corner locker, whence he presently emerged with a bottle of Old Tom and a glass. “There’s the ---- rum, and there’s the ---- glass; and now don’t you stir out of that ---- chair,” he said, with a liberal use of his favourite adjective. Then, much to my relief, he betook himself up the stairs and on to the deck, where I could hear him muttering and swearing to himself as he unlashed the dinghy. That I was excited and eager, the reader may believe; but though, the moment Hughes’ back was turned, my eyes were swivelling in their sockets and sweeping the sides of the cabin with the intentness of a search-light, I did not think it advisable to leave my seat and set about the search in earnest until he had actually left the hulk. But no sooner was he well out of the way than I was at work, with every sense as poised and ready to pounce as a hovering hawk. Not often in my life have I experienced so bitter a disappointment. I had hoped great things of this visit to the “Cuban Queen;” but though I searched every part of the hulk, including the hold, which, as there happened at that moment to be no dynamite on board, was not secured, I found no evidence as to the sex of Hughes’ visitor. To describe the fruitless search in detail is unnecessary. Whoever “Mrs. Hughes” might be, she had evidently taken pains to insure that every trace of her presence should be removed. I could not even tell whether she had shared the sleeping bunk with Hughes, for the coverings had been stripped off, leaving the bare boards without so much as a pillow, and the entire cabin had apparently been turned out and scrubbed from end to end immediately before or after her departure. The visit from which I hoped so much had proved a lamentable failure. I was not one penny the wiser and three pounds poorer for my trouble, not to speak of having got a chill, of which I should think myself cheaply rid if it ended in nothing worse than a cold. “The scheming rascal,” I said to myself. “I might have known he wouldn’t have let me down here if he hadn’t been aware that every sign of his having a companion on board had been cleared away. I suppose the secret of it all is that he has got word that the inspector’s coming to pay the hulks a visit shortly, and he’s packed off Mrs. Hughes until it’s all over. Very likely she set things straight herself before she went. All his pretended reluctance to go for my clothes and to leave me here was put on that he might bleed me to the tune of another pound. I should only be serving him out in his own coin if I gave information that he’s had a woman on board.