He drew his unwilling companion round a corner of the wharf which they were just then patrolling and showed him a narrow creek which, hemmed in by ancient buildings, some of them half-ruinous, sail-lofts, and sheds full of odds and ends of merchandise, cut into the land at an irregular angle and was at that moment affording harbourage to a mass of small vessels, just then lying high and dry on the banks from which the tide had retreated. Along the side of this creek there was just as much crowding and confusion as on the wider quays; men were going in and out of the sheds and lofts; men were busy about the sides of the small craft. And again the feeling of uselessness came over Copplestone. "What's the good of all this, Spurge!" he exclaimed testily. "You'll never--" Spurge suddenly laid a grip on his companion's elbow and twisted him aside into a narrow entry between the sheds. "That's the good!" he answered in an exulting voice. "Look there, guv'nor! Look at that North Sea tug--that one, lying out there! Whose face is, now a-peeping out o' that hatch? Come, now?" Copplestone looked in the direction which Spurge indicated. There, lying moored to the wharf, at a point exactly opposite a tumble-down sail-loft, was one of those strongly-built tugs which ply between the fishing fleets and the ports. It was an eminently business-looking craft, rakish for its class, and it bore marks of much recent sea usage. But Copplestone gave no more than a passing glance at it--what attracted and fascinated his eyes was the face of a man who had come up from her depths and was looking out of a hatchway on the top deck--looking expectantly at the sail-loft. There was grime and oil on that face, and the neck which supported the unkempt head rose out of a rough jersey, but Copplestone recognized his man smartly enough. In spite of the attempt to look like a tug deck-hand there was no mistaking the skipper of the _Pike_. "Good heavens!" he muttered, as he stared across the crowded quay. "Andrius!" "Right you are, guv'nor," whispered Spurge. "It's that very same, and no mistake! And now you'll perhaps see how I put things together, like. No doubt those folk as sent Sir Cresswell that message did see the _Pike_ going east last evening--just so, but there wasn't no reason, considering what that chap and his lot had at stake why they shouldn't put him and one or two more, very likely, on one of the many tugs that's to be met with out there off the fishing grounds. What I conclude they did, guv'nor, was to charter one o' them tugs and run her in here. And I expect they've got the stuff on board her, now, and when the tide comes up, out they'll go, and be off into the free and open again, to pick the _Pike_ up somewhere 'twixt here and the Dogger Bank. Ah!--smart 'uns they are, no doubt. But--we've got 'em!" "Not yet," said Copplestone. "What are we to do. Better go back and get help, eh?"