Our
vessel was hove up in the wind, and the boat was lowered. The master and
one of the men took the oars. All told, our crew were seven in number.
Two away in the boat, a third at the helm, and, to my amazement, when
I looked round, the other four behind me making our number complete.
At the same moment Mahogany Dobbs, who was looking through a telescope,
called out, 'Who the devil can he be? The man is floating on a hen-coop,
and we have got nothing of the sort on board this pilot-boat.'"
The one person present who happened to notice Richard Turlington's
face when those words were pronounced was Launcelot Linzie. He--and he
alone--saw the Levant trader's swarthy complexion fade slowly to a
livid ashen gray; his eyes the while fixing themselves on Sir Joseph
Graybrooke with a furtive glare in them like the glare in the eyes of a
wild beast. Apparently conscious that Launce was looking at him--though
he never turned his head Launce's way--he laid his elbow on the table,
lifted his arm, and so rested his face on his hand, while the story went
on, as to screen it effectually from the young surgeon's view.
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