Bows swinging down-stream, the boat shot out from the shore.
"How's the tide?" demanded Kirkwood, his impatience growing.
For a long moment broadside to the current, the boat responded to the sturdy pulling of the port sweeps. Another moment, and it was in full swing, the watermen bending lustily to their task. Under their unceasing urge, the broad-beamed, heavy craft, aided by the ebbing tide, surged more and more rapidly through the water; the banks, grim and unsightly with their towering, impassive warehouses broken by toppling wooden tenements, slipped swiftly up-stream. Ship after ship was passed, sailing vessels in the majority, swinging sluggishly at anchor, drifting slowly with the river, or made fast to the goods-stages of the shore; and in keen anxiety lest he should overlook the right one, Kirkwood searched their bows and sterns for names, which in more than one case proved hardly legible.
In the course of some ten minutes, the watermen drove the boat sharply inshore, bringing her up alongside another floating stage, in the shadow of another tenement.--both so like those from which they had embarked that Kirkwood would have been unable to distinguish one from another.
In the bows old Bob lifted up a stentorian voice, summoning one William.
Recognizing that there was some design in this, the passenger subdued his disapproval of the delay, and sat quiet.
In answer to the third ear-racking hail, a man, clothed simply in dirty shirt and disreputable trousers, showed himself in the doorway above, rubbing the sleep out of a red, bloated countenance with a mighty and grimy fist.
"'Ello," he said surlily. "Wot's th' row?"
"'Oo," interrogated old Bob, holding the boat steady by grasping the stage, "was th' party wot engyged yer larst night, Bill?"
"Party name o' _Allytheer_," growled the drowsy one. "W'y?"
"Party 'ere's lookin' for 'im. Where'll I find this _Allytheer?_"
"Best look sharp 'r yer won't find 'im," retorted the one above. "'E _was_ at anchor off Bow Creek larst night."
Kirkwood's heart leaped in hope. "What sort of a vessel was she?" he asked, half rising in his eagerness.
"_Thank--you!_" replied Kirkwood explosively, resuming his seat with uncalculated haste as old Bob, deaf to the amenities of social intercourse in an emergency involving as much as ten-bob, shoved off again.