James leaned over the vessel's side towards the _Venture_, and thought of Captain Hall. He had seen him in a tavern of the town, and had been as little impressed by his looks as was Flemington. He had noticed the uncertain eye, the restless fingers, the trotting gait, and had held him lightly as a force; for he knew as well as most men know who have knocked about this world that character--none other--is the hammer that drives home every nail into the framework of achievement.
But he had no time to spend in speculations, for his interest was centred in the ferry-boat that was now slipping noiselessly towards them on the current, guided down-stream by the couple of soldiers who had unmoored her. As she reached the barque a rope was tossed down to her, and she was made fast. The stolen guns were hauled from their storage, and a six-pounder lowered, with its ammunition, into the great tub that scarcely heaved on the slow swirl of the river; and whilst the work was going on, Ferrier and James stepped ashore to the quay, and walked each a short way along it, watching for any movement or for the chance of surprise. There was nothing: only, from far out beyond the shipping, a soft rush, so low that it seemed to be part of the atmosphere itself, told that the tide was on the turn.
In the enshrouding night the boat was loaded, and a dozen or so of the little company pushed off with their spoil. Ferrier went with them, and Logie, who was to follow with the second gun, watched the craft making her way into obscurity, like some slow black river monster pushing blindly out into space.
The scheme he had been putting together since the arrival of the _Venture_ was taking reality at last, and though he could stand with folded arms on the bulwark looking calmly at the departing boat, the fire in his heart burned hot. Custom had inured him to risks of every kind, and if his keenness of enterprise was the same as it had been in youth, the excitement of youth had evaporated. It was the depths that stirred in Logie, seldom the surface. Like Archie Flemington, he loved life, but he loved it differently. Flemington loved it consciously, joyously, pictorially; James loved it desperately--so desperately that his spirit had survived the shock which had robbed it of its glory, for him. He was like a faithful lover whose mistress has been scarred by smallpox.