Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 1).djvu/126

 police were on duty for four or five nights at a stretch. He was just too late to catch the ill-fated vessel! He was left behind on the pier at Sheerness; and with regret watched it leave, tull of merrymakers. What must have been his thoughts when he heard the news?

You may pick out any of these thick-set fellows standing about. They have one and all roamed the seas over. Many are old colonials, others middle-aged veterans from the navy and merchant service—every one of them as hard as a rock, capable of rowing for six or eight hours at a stretch without resting on the oar.

"Don’t be long inside, sir," shouts a strapping fellow, buttoning up his coat to his neck.

"Aye, aye, skipper," we shout, becoming for the moment quite nautical.

Inside the station-house you turn sharply to the right, and there is the charge-room. Portraits of Sir Charles Warren and other police authorities are picturesquely arranged on the walls. In front of the desk, with its innumerable little wooden rails, where sits the inspector in charge, is the prisoners’ dock, from the ground of which rises the military measurement in inches against which the culpit testifies as to his height. The hands of the clock above are slowly going their rounds. In a corner, near the