n,
rose, and without word or glance rolled heavily up the companionway.

The conduct of a careful man, accustomed to mind his eye. And
indisputably correct. One never knew who might be watching, what
slightest sign of secret understanding might not be seized upon and
read. Furthermore, Mr. Mussey had not stilled his mutter in the night
until their joint and individual lines of action had been elaborately
mapped out and agreed upon down to the smallest detail. It now remained
only for Lanyard to fill in somehow the waste time that lay between
breakfast and the hour appointed, then take due advantage of the
opportunity promised him.

He found the day making good Mr. Mussey's forecast. Under a dull, thick
sky the sea ran in heavy swells, greasy and grey. The wind was in the
south, and light and shifty. The horizon was vague. Captain Monk,
encountered on the quarterdeck, had an uneasy eye, and cursed the
weather roundly when Lanyard made civil enquiry as to the outlook. Ca
va bien!

Lanyard killed an hour or two in the chartroom, acquainting himself
with the coast they were approaching and tracing the Sybarite's
probable course toward the spot selected from the smuggling
transaction. His notion of the precise location of the owner's estate
was rather indefinite; he had gathered from gossip that it was on the
Connecticut shore of Long Island Sound, between New London and New
Haven, where a group of small islands--also the property of Mister
Whitaker Monk--provided fair anchorage between Sound and shore as well
as a good screen from offshore observation.

It was not vital to know more: Lanyard had neither hope nor fear of
ever seeing that harbour. It was the approach alone that interested
him; and when he had puzzled out that there were only two practicable
courses for the Sybarite to take--both bearing in a general
north-westerly direction from Nantucket Shoals Light Vessel, one
entering Block Island Sound from the east, between Point Judith and
Block Island, the other entering the same body of water from the south,
between Block Island and Montauk Point--and had satisfied himself that
manifold perils to navigation hedged about both courses, more
especially their prolongation into Long Island Sound by way of The
Race: Lanyard told himself it would be strange indeed if his plans
miscarried ... always providing that Mr. Mussey could be trusted to
hold to his overnight agreement.

But as to that, one entertained few fear