“You forget, Mr. Mulford, the revenue craft that steamed up, on the ebb. That vessel must be off Sands’ Point by this time, and _she_ may hear something to our disparagement from the feller in the boat, and take it into her smoky head to walk us back to town. I wish we were well to the eastward of that steamer! But there’s no use in lamentations. If there is really any danger, it’s some distance ahead yet, thank Heaven!” “You have no fears of the man who calls himself Jack Tier, Capt. Spike?” “None in the world. That feller, as I remember him, was a little bustlin’ chap that I kept in the cabin, as a sort of steward’s mate. There was neither good nor harm in him, to the best of my recollection. But Josh can tell us all about him—just give Josh a call.” The best thing in the known history of Spike was the fact that his steward had sailed with him for more than twenty years. Where he had picked up Josh no one could say, but Josh and himself, and neither chose to be very communicative on the subject. But Josh had certainly been with him as long as he had sailed the Swash, and that was from a time actually anterior to the birth of Mulford. The mate soon had the negro in the council. “I say, Josh,” asked Spike, “do you happen to remember such a hand aboard here as one Jack Tier?” “Lor’ bless you, yes, sir—’members he as well as I do the pea-soup that was burnt, and which you t’rowed all over him to scald him for punishment.” “I’ve had to do that so often, to one careless fellow or other, that the circumstance doesn’t recall the man. I remember him, but not as clear as I could wish. How long did he sail with us?” “Sebberal v’y’ge, sir, and got left ashore down on the Main, one night, when ’e boat war obliged to shove off in a hurry. Yes, ’members little Jack, right well I does.” “Did you see the man that spoke us from the wharf, and hailed for this very Jack Tier?” “I see’d a man, sir, dat was won’erful Jack Tier built like, sir; but I didn’t hear the conwersation, habbin’ the ladies to ’tend to. But Jack was oncommon short in his floor timbers, sir, and had no length of keel at all. His beam was won’erful for his length, altogedder—what you call jolly-boat or bum-boat build, and was only good afore ’e wind, Capt. Spike.” “Was he good for any thing aboard ship, Josh? Worth heaving-to for, should he try to get aboard of us again?” “Why, sir, can’t say much for him in dat fashion. Jack _was_ handy in the cabin, and capital feller to carry soup from the galley, aft. You see, sir, he was so low-rigged that the brig’s lurchin’ and pitchin’ couldn’t get him off his pins, and he stood up like a church in the heaviest wea’der. Yes, sir, Jack was right good for _dat_.” Spike mused a moment—then he rolled the tobacco over in his mouth, and added, in the way a man speaks when his mind is made up—