Page:Watts Mumford--Whitewash.djvu/280

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

WHITEWASH

disastrously failed at the last moment, he would have quietly embarked for the English capital and lost himself at once. He knew himself to be watched, thanks to the unforeseen raking up of the Breton episode; but he had outwitted keener hunters before, and had little or no fear of the police. Captain Brady was his friend, and if the worst came to the worst, he could depend on timely warning. Obviously, this time, though, the straightaway run would be useless. The Auray affair would be pressed half-heartedly, but to complicate matters, they were on to the Orleans trouble, and rewards were out for that—rewards sufficient to make the chase remunerative. There remained, then, as next choice, old Bordenten and the Bonnie Dundee bound for Glasgow. Bordenten, who believed him a whiskey smuggler, and heartily approved of the trade—a hint dropped to the effect that the authorities "wanted" him, would be taken by the captain as a suggestion that a stowaway would be no trouble. Valdeck saw himself quietly secreted, with a bottle of "white-horse" and a stock of back-number magazines, while the old sea-dog defied the law and indig-

268