“Certainly,” replied the man. “But that is not quite all?”
“You are right,” said Gray. “I shall bring one with me; we will take with us wherewithal to make us merry. I am abstemious, but my friend is not, and I have often told him that some of these days, when drinking in a wherry he will become so confused, that he will accidentally fall into the Thames, do you understand?”
“Your reward shall be ample,” continued his tempter.
“I don’t see why I should turn away a job,” said the man; “if I wasn’t to take it, some one else would, of course.”
“A very true remark,” cried Jacob Gray. “You consent then to do this little service?”
“Sheldon is my name, and I am always at the stairs at which you hired me, unless away as might be now, when I return again as, soon as possible.”
“That will do,” said Gray. “Now turn your boat’s head and go back with the stream.”
The wherry, with the two rowers, had kept at a considerable distance in the rear; and now that Gray’s boat was suddenly turned and rapidly going down the stream, there seemed some little confusion on board the other wherry; but before the two boats could meet or pass each other, the pursuers had shot off on one side, as if with the intention of landing near Westminster.
“Follow them,” cried Gray; “and wherever they land, do you land me.”
The waterman was a powerful man, and he bent to the oars with such effect, that the wherry shot through the water with amazing speed.
It was curious to see the pursued become the pursuers, for such seemed to be the state of things, as no sooner did it become evident that Jacob Gray’s waterman was making fast for the boat with the two rowers, than in obedience to a violent gesture from the person in the cloak they pulled rigorously towards the shore.
“I must see that man in the cloak,” said Gray, “if it be possible.”
The waterman said nothing, but with his long sinewy arms, he took tremendous sweeps with the oars, and sent the boat forward at each pull with a force that astonished Gray.
The two wherries were not now above a quarter of the width of the river apart from each other, when the foremost one ran upon the muddy beach, and the man, in the cloak springing up, made an effort to jump on shore, in which he fell over the seats of the boat. In the next moment the other wherry was within two boats’ lengths of the shore.