Page:Braddon--The Trail of the Serpent.djvu/169

Rh his pipe in his mouth and a contemplative face, which ever and anon looks earnestly up the river. Presently he stops by a boat-builder's yard, and speaks to a man at work.

"Well," he says, "is that boat finished yet?"

"Yes, sir," says the man, "quite finished, and uncommon well she looks too; you might eat your dinner off her; the paint's as dry as a bone,"

"How about the false bottom I spoke of?" he asks.

"Oh, that's all right, sir, two feet and a half deep, and six feet and a half long. I'll tell you what, sir,—no offence—but you must catch a precious sight more eels than I think you will catch, if you mean to fill the bottom of that 'ere punt."

As the man speaks, he points to where the boat lies high and dry in the builder's yard. A great awkward flat-bottomed punt, big enough to hold half-a-dozen people.

Gus strolls up to look at it. The man follows him.

He lifts up the bottom of the boat with a great thick loop of rope. It is made like a trap-door, two feet and a half above the keel.

"Why," said Gus, "a man could lie down in the keel of the boat, with that main deck over him."

"To be sure he could, sir, and a pretty long un, too; though I don't say much for its being a over-comfortable berth. He might feel himself rather cramped if he was of a restless disposition."

Gus laughed, and said,—"You're right, he might, certainly, poor fellow! Come, now, you're rather a tall chap, I should like to see if you could lie down there comfortably for a minute or so. We'll talk about some beer when you come out."

The man looked at Mr. Darley with rather a puzzled glance. He had heard the legend of the mistletoe bough. He had helped to build the boat, but for all that there might be a hidden spring somewhere about it, and Gus's request might conceal some sinister intent; but no one who had once looked our medical friend in the face ever doubted him; so the man laughed and said,—

"Well, you're a rum un, whoever the other is" (people were rarely very deferential in their manner of addressing Gus Darley); "howsomedever, here's to oblige you." And the man got into the boat, and lying down, suffered Gus to lower the false bottom of it over him.

"How do you feel?" asks Gus. "Can you breathe?—have you plenty of air?"

"All right, sir," says the man through a hole in the plank, "It's quite a extensive berth, when you've once settled yourself, only it ain't much calculated for active exercise."