A heavily built young man came from the aft deck, and, reaching down a boat-hook, drew the skiff alongside. The swarthy man held on to the side of the barge whilst the boat-hook was transferred to the taut line astern. The younger man did no more than fasten the soaking cord to a small bight. By this time the occupant of the skiff was on board. “Nobody about, Ligsey?” he asked gruffly. “Nobody, cap’n,” said the younger man. The captain said nothing more, but walked to the deck-house astern and disappeared down the companionway, pulling the hatch close after him. There he stayed till the estuary was a black void punctured with dim ships’ lights. Ligsey went forward to where his youthful assistant sat on an overturned bucket, softly playing a mouth-organ. He stopped being musical long enough to remark that the tide was turning. “We going up to-night?” he asked. Ligsey nodded. He had already heard the chuff-chuff of the motor in the stern of the barge, where the skipper was starting it. “What we hangin’ around here for?” asked the youth curiously. “We’ve missed one tide--we could have been up to Greenwich by now. Why don’t Captain Attymar----” “Mind your own business,” growled the mate. He heard the swarthy man calling him and went aft. “We’ll get that case in and stow it,” he said in a low voice. “I left a place in the bricks.” Together they pulled gingerly at the cord and brought the square, soaked packing-case to sight. Ligsey leaned over and gripped it with an instrument like a pair of huge ice-tongs, and the dripping case was brought to the narrow deck and stowed expeditiously in the well of the barge. The _Allanuna_ invariably carried bricks between a little yard on the Essex coast and Tenny’s Wharf. Everybody on the river knew her for an erratic and a dangerous-steering craft. The loud chuffing of her engine was an offence. Even nippy tugboats gave her yawing bows a wide berth. The boy was called aft to take charge of the engine, and Ligsey took the tiller. It was five o’clock on a spring morning when she came to Tenny’s Wharf, which is at Rotherhithe. As a wharfage it had few qualities attractive to the least fastidious of bargees. It consisted of a confined space with room for two builder’s lorries to be backed side by side (though it required some manœuvring to bring them into position) and the shabby little house where Joe Attymar lived.