u didn't see who it was. Confound that bob-stay!'
(his tactful way of reflecting on my clumsiness); 'which way did he
run?' I pointed vaguely into the west. 'Not towards the island? I
wonder if it's someone off one of those galliots. There are three
anchored in the channel over there; you can see their lights. You
didn't hear a boat pulling off?'

I explained that I had been a miserable failure as a detective.

'You've done jolly well, I think,' said Davies. 'If you had shouted
when you first heard him we should know less still. And we've got a
boot, which may come in useful. Anchor out all right? Let's get
below.'

We smoked and talked till the new flood, lapping softly round the
'Dulcibella', raised her without a jar.

Of course, I argued, there might be nothing in it. The visitor might
have been a commonplace thief; an apparently deserted yacht was a
tempting bait. Davies scouted this possibility from the first.

'They're not like that in Germany,' he said. 'In Holland, if you
like, they'll do anything. And I don't like that turning out of the
lantern to gain time, if we were away.'

Nor did I. In spite of my blundering in details, I welcomed the
incident as the first concrete proof that the object of our quest was
no mare's nest. The next point was what was the visitor's object? If
to search, what would he have found?

'The charts, of course, with all our corrections and notes, and the
log. They'd give us away,' was Davies's instant conclusion. Not
having his faith in the channel theory, I was lukewarm about his
precious charts.

'After all, we're doing nothing wrong, as you've often said
yourself,' I said.

Still, as a true index to our mode of life they were the only things
on board that could possibly compromise us or suggest that we were
anything more than eccentric young Englishmen cruising for sport
(witness the duck guns) and pleasure. We had two sets of charts,
German and English. The former we decided to use in practice, and to
hide, together with the log, if occasion demanded. My diary, I
resolved, should never leave my person. Then there were the naval
books. Davies scanned them with a look I knew well.

'There are too many of them,' he said, in the tone of a cook fixing
the fate of superfluous kittens. 'Let's throw them overboard. They're
very old anyhow, and I know them by heart.'

'Well, not here!' I protested, for he was laying greedy hands on the
shelf; 'they'll be found at low water.