“No; we ain’t never seen dat craft yere.  Dis port’s more for lumber and—­”

Mr. Heatherbloom looked down.  “I saw an item in the paper”—­he strove to speak unconcernedly—­“a Marconigram—­that a certain Russian prince’s private yacht—­the Nevski—­had damaged her propeller, or some other part of her gear, and was being towed into this harbor for emergency repairs.”

“Oh, yes, boss!” said the man.  The listener took a firmer grip on the parapet.  “You done mean de big white boat w’at lies on de odder side ob de island; can’t see her from yere.  Dey done fix her up mighty quick an’ she gwine ter lebe to-night.”

“Leave to-night!” Mr. Heatherbloom’s face changed; suppressed eagerness, expectancy shone from his eyes; he turned away to conceal it from the other.  “Looks like good fishing over there near the island,” he observed after a pause.

“Tain’t so much for fishin’ as crabbin’,” returned the other.

“Crabbing!” repeated Mr. Heatherbloom.  “A grand sport!  Now if—­are you a crabber?” The darky confessed that crabbing was his main occupation; his boat swung right over there; for a dollar he would give the other several hours’ diversion.

Mr. Heatherbloom accepted the offer with alacrity.  A few moments later, seated in a dilapidated cockle-shell, he found himself slamming over the water.  The boat didn’t ship the tops of many seas but it took in enough spray over the port bow to drench pretty thoroughly the passenger.  In the stern, the darky handling the sheet of a small, much patched sail, kept himself comparatively dry.  But Mr. Heatherbloom didn’t seem to mind the drenching; though the briny drops stung his cheek, his face continued ever bent forward, toward a point of land to the right of which lay the island that came ever nearer, but slowly—­so slowly!

He could see the top of the spars of a vessel now over the high sand-hills; his body bent toward it; in his eyes shone a steely light.  Their little boat drew closer to the near side of the island; the hillocks stood up higher; the tapering topmasts of the craft on the other side disappeared.  The crabber’s cockle-shell came to anchor in a tranquil sandy cove.

Mr. Heatherbloom, although inwardly chafing, felt obliged to restrain impatience; he could not afford to awaken the darky’s suspicions, therefore he simulated interest and—­“crabbed”.  He enjoyed a streak of good luck, but his artificial enthusiasm soon waned.  He at length suggested trying the other side of the island, whereupon his pilot expostulated.

What more did his passenger want?  The latter thought he would stretch his legs a bit on the shore; it made him stiff to sit still so long.  He would get out and walk around—­he had a predilection for deserted islands.  While he was gratifying his fancy the darky could return to his more remunerative business of gathering in the denizens of the deep.

Five minutes later Mr. Heatherbloom stood on the sandy beach; he started as if to walk around the island but had not gone far before he turned and moved at a right angle up over the sand-hill.  The dull-hued bushes that somehow found nourishment on the yellow mound now concealed his figure from the boatman; the same hardy vegetation afforded him a shelter from the too inquisitive gaze of any persons on the yacht when he had gained the summit of the sands.