Tom Tiddler's Island, стр. 30
“I wonder who——” Jean began, inquisitively. Then a twitch on her line diverted her mind. “I’ve got another, Colin!”
She began to pull in her line. Colin detached the fish, peered closely as it in the semi-darkness, and then, without more ado, pitched it overboard again.
“What was it, Colin?”
“A dog-fish,” Colin announced in a disgusted tone. “That’s one thing I won’t eat, even to please you. Time to chuck it, now, dear.”
“I suppose it is,” Jean admitted, reluctantly. “Well, I haven’t done badly for a beginner. We’ll come out again to-morrow night, Colin.”
“H’m!” Colin protested. “Am I supposed to be taking up a fish diet, or what? And next time it’ll most likely be lythe.”
“What are lythe?”
“Pollack’s another name for ’em. A bit like cod. You can have my share of all you catch. If fish is what you want, what about a lobster salad? Or you might go crab-hunting among the rocks and pick up a partan or two. Tastier than mackerel. More exciting to catch ’em, too, with the chance of a good nip thrown in.”
“You can have the nips for your share,” Jean rejoined. “If you’re so keen on crabs, catch them yourself. I hate the look of them when they’re alive.”
She changed the subject in her next words :
“I wonder who these people are in the yacht. Hazel didn’t know they were coming to-night. She didn’t say anything about them to me, at any rate; and if she’d known they were coming I’m sure she’d have told me.”
Colin made no comment on this, but busied himself with starting the motor.
“That yacht’s anchored almost bang in the fairway,” he pointed out, after a long scrutiny in the dim light. “Makes it awkward to get in to the pier, confound ’em! We’ll have to go in gently so as not to scrape our paint against ’em.” He took the tiller, let the clutch in, and throttled down until the little motor-boat was moving as slowly as possible. He had a good knowledge of the channel from daylight trips, but this was his first attempt at a night-passage and he meant to take no chances. As he drew nearer, he found the position more difficult than he had guessed from a distance. The yachtsmen, either ignorant or inconsiderate, had anchored their vessel in the end of the channel, where the fairway was at its narrowest; and in the deepened dusk this made the passage too tricky for Colin’s comfort, since he was still a raw hand with the motor-boat.
“If they’re going to stay on Ruffa, we’ll need to get them to shift out of that,” he grumbled to Jean in an undertone. “Twenty yards farther on they’d have just as good holding-ground and they’d be in nobody’s way. I’ll give ’em a hint as we pass.”
He took out the clutch and let the boat run forward under its own way. As he passed the yacht’s counter, he saw above him two dim figures on her deck. One of them, kneeling, seemed to be throwing some powder into the water, handful by handful. Colin got the impression that he was emptying a sack piecemeal. Other small sacks, like ballast-bags, lay beside him on the deck. The second man, put on the alert by the noise of the exhaust, stared intently at the motor-boat as it forged alongside.
Colin stooped forward to throttle down the engine still further, so as to quiet the exhaust while he was speaking. As he did so, a flashlight shone over him; Jean gave a faint cry; and he looked up to face a heavy pistol which covered him from hardly a couple of yards range.
“Au large!” said the man behind the pistol, keeping his flash-lamp fixed blindingly on Colin’s face. Then, realising that Colin was bewildered, he repeated the order in English. “Sheer off, you! And quicker than that!”
The second man rose to his feet in a leisurely fashion and produced an equally ugly pistol from his coat-pocket. As he did so, he seemed to catch sight of Jean, who had been hidden from him before. He whispered something to his companion, who nodded rather doubtfully.
“Is that Mademoiselle Arrow?” the first man demanded.
Colin’s indignation had now swamped his stupefaction.
“What d’you mean by this?” he exclaimed. “What——”
His interrogator seemed to grow suddenly more menacing.
“ ’Ands up!” he ordered tersely.
Colin guessed from the tone that these people meant to stand no nonsense; so, shaking with suppressed anger, he obeyed perforce. Nice figure he was cutting before Jean, he reflected furiously. And who were these fellows? Foreigners, from the accent, like the Heather Lodge guards.
The spokesman on the deck turned to Jean.
“You are not Miss Arrow? No?”
Jean had some difficulty in finding her voice.
“No,” she confirmed at last, rather huskily. “Our name’s Trent. We’re living at Wester Voe—that house up yonder. Miss Arrow’s a friend of mine. She lives at Heather Lodge, over there.”
The two men on deck consulted together in whispers. Colin, who was no linguist, could not follow their rapid interchange; but the result, at least, was satisfactory. The weapons were lowered, though not pocketed, and the spokesman turned again to Jean. His voice took on a certain underbred oiliness which Colin liked as little as the earlier truculence.
“We make you most ’umble apologies, madame. We ’ave evidently made a very foolish mistake, for which we ask your pardon. You will overlook it, hein? Your sudden appearance out of the dark—very startling; and we did not see that a lady was in the boat. But that is all right now, hein? You overlook it.” He paused for a moment as though to collect his thoughts. “My nerves are . . . out of order a little. I ’ave been ill, recently, you understand? I am all on edge. And