e? You'll be for getting
the next train to Berwick?"

"I'm not so sure, captain," I answered. "I don't want that man to know
I'm alive--yet. It'll be a nice surprise for him--later. But there are
those that I must let know as soon as possible--so the first thing I'll
do, I'll wire. And in the meantime, let me have a sleep."

The steamer that had picked me up was nothing but a tramp, plodding along
with a general cargo from London to Dundee, and its accommodation was as
rough as its skipper was homely. But it was a veritable palace of delight
and luxury to me after that terrible night, and I was soon hard and fast
asleep in the skipper's own bunk--and was still asleep when he laid a
hand on me at three o'clock that afternoon.

"We're in the Tay," he said, "and we'll dock in half an hour. And
now--you can't go ashore in your underclothing, man! And where's
your purse?"

He had rightly sized up the situation. I had got rid of everything but
my singlet and drawers in the attempt to keep going; as for my purse,
that was where the rest of my possessions were--sunk or floating.

"You and me's about of a build," he remarked. "I'll fit you up with a
good suit that I have, and lend you what money you want. But what is it
you're going to do?"

"How long are you going to stop here in Dundee, captain?" I asked.

"Four days," he answered. "I'll be discharging tomorrow, and loading the
next two days, and then I'll be away again."

"Lend me the clothes and a sovereign," said I. "I'll wire to my
principal, the gentleman I told you about, to come here at once with
clothes and money, so I'll repay you and hand your suit back first thing
tomorrow morning, when I'll bring him to see you."

He immediately pulled a sovereign out of his pocket, and, turning to a
locker, produced a new suit of blue serge and some necessary linen.

"Aye?" he remarked, a bit wonderingly. "You'll be for fetching him along
here, then? And for what purpose?"

"I want him to take your evidence about picking me up," I answered.
"That's one thing--and--there's other reasons that we'll tell you about
afterwards. And--don't tell anybody here of what's happened, and pass the
word for silence to your crew. It'll be something in their pockets when
my friend comes along."

He was a cute man, and he understood that my object was to keep the news
of my escape from Sir Gilbert Carstairs, and he promised to do what I
asked. And before long--he and I being, as he ha