he question put by my honourable and gallant friend,'
said Eugene, who was lying on his back with his hat on his face, as an
attitude highly expressive of watchfulness, 'I can have no hesitation in
replying (it not being inconsistent with the public service) that those
accents were the accents of the T'other Governor.'

'You've tolerable good eyes, ain't you, Governor? You've all tolerable
good eyes, ain't you?' demanded the informer.

All.

'Then if I row up under the Fellowship and lay there, no need to
whistle. You'll make out that there's a speck of something or another
there, and you'll know it's me, and you'll come down that cause'ay to
me. Understood all?'

Understood all.

'Off she goes then!'

In a moment, with the wind cutting keenly at him sideways, he was
staggering down to his boat; in a few moments he was clear, and creeping
up the river under their own shore.

Eugene had raised himself on his elbow to look into the darkness after
him. 'I wish the boat of my honourable and gallant friend,' he murmured,
lying down again and speaking into his hat, 'may be endowed
with philanthropy enough to turn bottom-upward and extinguish
him!--Mortimer.'

'My honourable friend.'

'Three burglaries, two forgeries, and a midnight assassination.' Yet
in spite of having those weights on his conscience, Eugene was somewhat
enlivened by the late slight change in the circumstances of affairs. So
were his two companions. Its being a change was everything. The suspense
seemed to have taken a new lease, and to have begun afresh from a recent
date. There was something additional to look for. They were all three
more sharply on the alert, and less deadened by the miserable influences
of the place and time.

More than an hour had passed, and they were even dozing, when one of the
three--each said it was he, and he had NOT dozed--made out Riderhood
in his boat at the spot agreed on. They sprang up, came out from their
shelter, and went down to him. When he saw them coming, he dropped
alongside the causeway; so that they, standing on the causeway, could
speak with him in whispers, under the shadowy mass of the Six Jolly
Fellowship Porters fast asleep.

'Blest if I can make it out!' said he, staring at them.

'Make what out? Have you seen him?'

'No.'

'What HAVE you seen?' asked Lightwood. For, he was staring at them in
the strangest way.

'I've seen his boat.'

'Not empty?'

'Yes, empty. And what's more,--adrif