is that?" I exclaimed.

"The dip of sweeps, sir," answered my captain, Aaron Caudel; "some
smack a-coming along--ay, there she is," and he shadowily pointed to a
dark, square heap betwixt the piers, softly approaching to the impulse
of her long oars, the rhythmic grind of which in the thole-pins made a
strange, wild ocean music of the far-off roar of the surf, and the sob
of water alongside, and the delicate wash of the tide in the green
piles and timbers of the two long, narrow, quaint old piers.

"How is your pluck now, Caudel?" said I in a low voice, sending a
glance up at the dark edge of the harbour-wall above us, where stood
the motionless figure of a _douanier_, with a button or two of his
uniform faintly glimmering to the gleam of a lamp near him.

"Right for the job, sir--right as your honour could desire it. There's
but one consideration which ain't like a feeling of sartinty--and that
I must say consarns the dawg."

"Smother the dog! But you are right, Caudel. We must leave our boots
in the ditch."

"Ain't there plenty of grass, sir?" said he.

"I hope so; but a fathom of gravel will so crunch under those hoofs of
yours that the very dead buried beneath might turn in their
coffins--let alone a live dog wide awake from the end of his beastly
cold snout to the tip of his tail. Does the ladder chafe you?"

"No, sir. Makes me feel a bit asthmatic-like, and if them duniers get
a sight of me they'll reckon I've visited the Continent to make a show
of myself," he exclaimed, with a low, deep-sea laugh, whilst he spread
his hands upon his breast, around which, under cover of a large, loose,
long pea-coat, he had coiled a length of rope-ladder with two iron
hooks at one end of it, which made a hump under either shoulder-blade.
There was no other way, however, of conveying the ladder ashore. In
the hand it would instantly have challenged attention, and a bag would
have been equally an object of curiosity to the two or three
Custom-House phantoms flitting about in triangular-shaped trousers and
shako-like headgear.

"There goes midnight, sir!" cried Caudel.

As I listened to the chimes a sudden fit of excitement set me trembling.

"Are ye there, Job?" called my captain.

"Ay, sir," responded a voice from the bows of the yacht.

"Jim?"

"Here, sir," answered a second voice out of the darkness forward.

"Dick?"

"Here, sir."

"Bobby?"

"Here, sir," responded the squeaky note of a boy.

"Lay a