“I only hope the harbour-watch may be as drunk as they are. It’s our best chance to get them aboard without a row. There’s her light Eugène. If the sky would lift a little, you might make out her spars, the beauty! but I’m almost afraid now you’ll have to wait for dawn.” The harbour-watch was drunk, or at least fast asleep in the sentry-box on wheels that afforded him shelter, and the sky did _not_ lift in the least degree; so very soon after the waving of the lantern a boat from ‘The Bashful Maid’ touched the stone steps of the quay, having been cunningly impelled thither by a screw-driving process, worked with one oar at the stern, and which made far less noise than the more powerful practice of pulling her with even strokes. Two swarthy ill-looking fellows sat in the boat, and a scowl passed over their features when they saw their Captain’s attitude of precaution, with one hand on the pistol he wore at his belt. Perhaps they were disappointed not to be able to elude his vigilance, and have one more run on shore before they sailed. It was no use trying to “gammon the skipper,” though. They had discovered that already, and they lent their aid with a will, when they found it must be so, to place their future comrades in the same predicament as themselves. The whole affair was managed so quietly that, even had the harbour-guard, a brandy-faced veteran of sixty, remained wide-awake and perfectly sober, he might have been excused for its escaping his vigilance. Bob himself, standing with his empty cart on the quay, could hardly hear the dip of the oars as his late guests were pulled cautiously away. He did not indeed remain there very long to listen. He had done with them one and all—for was not the score paid? and it behoved him to return home and prepare for fresh arrivals. He turned, therefore, with a well-satisfied glance towards the light in the foretop of the brigantine, and wished ‘The Bashful Maid’ a good voyage, while at the same moment Beaudésir stumbled awkwardly up her side. To the latter this was, indeed, a new and startling phase of life, but it was full of excitement, and consequently very much to his taste. Captain George, taking him below, and pointing out a couch in his cabin on which to pass the rest of the night, though he had seen a good deal of worse material for a privateer’s-man, or even a pirate, than this pale gentle young adventurer, late of the Grey Musketeers.