iman, considerably thrilled, watched them go on board and disappear
into the captain's cabin.

So it was clear, then, that he and Hilliard were seriously suspected by
the syndicate and were being traced by their spy! What luck would the
spy have? And if he succeeded in his endeavor, what would be their
fortune? Merriman was no coward, but he shivered slightly as he went
over in his mind the steps of their present quest, and realized how far
they had failed to cover their traces, how at stage after stage they had
given themselves away to anyone who cared to make a few inquiries. What
fools, he thought, they were not to have disguised themselves! Simple
disguises would have been quite enough. No doubt they would not have
deceived personal friends, but they would have made all the difference
to a stranger endeavoring to trace them from descriptions and those
confounded photographs. Then they should not have travelled together to
Hull, still less have gone to the same hotel. It was true they had had
the sense to register under false names, but that would be but a slight
hindrance to a skillful investigator. But their crowning folly, in
Merriman's view, was the hiring of the boat and the starting off at
night from the docks and arriving back there in the morning. What they
should have done, he now thought bitterly, was to have taken a boat at
Grimsby or some other distant town and kept it continuously, letting no
one know when they set out on or returned from their excursions.

But there was no use in crying over spilt milk. Merriman repeated to
himself the adage, though he did not find it at all comforting. Then his
thoughts passed on to the immediate present, and he wondered whether he
should not try to get out of the barrel and emulate Hilliard's exploit
in boarding the Girondin and listening to the conversation in the
captain's cabin. But he soon decided he must keep to the arranged
plan, and make sure nothing was put ashore from the ship under cover of
darkness.

Once again ensued a period of waiting, during which the time dragged
terribly heavily. Everything without was perfectly still, until at about
half past eleven the door of the captain's cabin opened and its three
occupants came out into the night. The starboard deck light was on and
by its light Merriman could see the manager take his leave, cross the
gangway, pass up the wharf and enter the shed. Bulla went down towards
his cabin door and Beamish, snapping of