“I says to myself,” he went on, “directly you hove in view, yonder’s Gaffer, and in luck again, by George if he ain’t! Scull it is, pardner⁠—don’t fret yourself⁠—I didn’t touch him.” This was in answer to a quick impatient movement on the part of Gaffer: the speaker at the same time unshipping his scull on that side, and laying his hand on the gunwale of Gaffer’s boat and holding to it.

“He’s had touches enough not to want no more, as well as I make him out, Gaffer! Been a knocking about with a pretty many tides, ain’t he pardner? Such is my out-of-luck ways, you see! He must have passed me when he went up last time, for I was on the lookout below bridge here. I a’most think you’re like the wulturs, pardner, and scent ’em out.”

He spoke in a dropped voice, and with more than one glance at Lizzie who had pulled on her hood again. Both men then looked with a weird unholy interest in the wake of Gaffer’s boat.

“Easy does it, betwixt us. Shall I take him aboard, pardner?”