For some time after their departure Pepper sat smoking, with his anxious face turned to the clock, until at length, unable to endure the strain any longer, and not without a sportsmanlike idea of being in at the death, he made his way to the station, and placed himself behind a convenient coal-truck. He waited impatiently, with his eyes fixed on the road up which he expected the captain to come. He looked at his watch. Five minutes to eight, and still no captain. The platform began to fill, a porter seized the big bell and rang it lustily; in the distance a patch of white smoke showed. Just as the watcher had given up all hope, the figure of the captain came in sight. He was swaying from side to side, holding his hat in his hand, but doggedly racing the train to the station. “He’ll never do it!” groaned the pilot. Then he held his breath, for three or four hundred yards behind the captain Mrs. Pepper pounded in pursuit. The train rolled into the station; passengers stepped in and out; doors slammed, and the guard had already placed the whistle in his mouth, when Captain Crippen, breathing stertorously, came stumbling blindly on to the platform, and was hustled into a third class carriage. “Close shave that, sir,” said the station-master as he closed the door. The captain sank back in his seat, fighting for breath, and turning his head, gave a last triumphant look up the road. “All right, sir,” said the station-master kindly, as he followed the direction of the other’s eyes and caught sight of Mrs. Pepper. “We’ll wait for your lady.” Jackson Pepper came from behind the coal-truck and watched the train out of sight, wondering in a dull, vague fashion what the conversation was like. He stood so long that a tender hearted porter, who had heard the news, made bold to come up and put a friendly hand on his shoulder. “You’ll never see her again, Mr. Pepper,” he said sympathetically. The ex-pilot turned and regarded him fixedly, and the last bit of spirit he was ever known to show flashed up in his face as he spoke. “You’re a blamed idiot!” he said rudely. A CASE OF DESERTION The sun was just rising as the small tub-like steamer, or, to be more correct, steam-barge, the _Bulldog_, steamed past the sleeping town of Gravesend at a good six knots per hour. There had been a little discussion on the way between her crew and the engineer, who, down in his grimy little engine-room, did his own stoking and everything else necessary. The crew, consisting of captain, mate, and boy, who were doing their first trip on a steamer, had been transferred at the last moment from their sailing-barge the _Witch_, and found to their discomfort that the engineer, who had not expected to sail so soon, was terribly and abusively drunk. Every moment he could spare from his engines he thrust the upper part of his body through the small hatchway, and rowed with his commander.