e them boxes 'ud be conspicuous and easy
traced when inquiry was made. And yet they'd want to get 'em away--as
soon as possible. Very well--what's the other way o' getting any stuff
out o' Norcaster? What? Why--that!"

He jerked his thumb in the direction of a patch of grey water which shone
dully at the end of the alley and while his thumb jerked his eye winked.

"The river!" he went on. "The river, guv'nor! Don't this here river,
running into the free and bounding ocean six miles away, offer the best
chance? What we want to do is to take a look round these here docks and
quays and wharves--keeping our eyes open--and our ears as well. Come on
with me, guv'nor--I know places all along this riverside where you could
hide the Bank of England till it was wanted--so to speak."

"But the others?" suggested Copplestone. "Hadn't we better fetch them?"

"No!" retorted Spurge, assertively. "Two on us is enough. You trust to
me, guv'nor--I'll find out something. I know these docks--and all that's
alongside 'em. I'd do the job myself, now--but it'll be better to have
somebody along of me, in case we want a message sending for help or
anything of that nature. Come on--and if I don't find out before noon if
there's any queer craft gone out o' this since morning--why, then, I
ain't what I believe myself to be."

Copplestone, who had considerable faith in the poacher's shrewdness,
allowed himself to be led into the lowest part of the town--low in more
than one sense of the word. Norcaster itself, as regards its ancient
and time-hallowed portions, its church, its castle, its official
buildings and highly-respectable houses, stood on the top of a low
hill; its docks and wharves and the mean streets which intersected them
had been made on a stretch of marshland that lay between the foot of
that hill and the river. And down there was the smell of tar and of
merchandise, and narrow alleys full of sea-going men and raucous-voiced
women, and queer nooks and corners, and ships being laden and ships
being stripped of their cargoes and such noise and confusion and
inextricable mingling and elbowing that Copplestone thought it was as
likely to find a needle in a haystack as to make anything out relating
to the quest they were engaged in.

But Zachary Spurge, leading him in and out of the throngs on the wharves,
now taking a look into a dock, now inspecting a quay, now stopping to
exchange a word or two with taciturn gentlemen who sucked the