eight
o’clock
At that moment who should come down but Mordecai Smith , the missing owner ? He was rather the worse for liquor . I should not , of course , have known him , but he bellowed out his name and the name of his launch . ` I want her to-night at eight o'clock , ' said he , -- ` eight o'clock sharp , mind , for I have two gentlemen who wo n't be kept waiting . ' They had evidently paid him well , for he was very flush of money , chucking shillings about to the men . I followed him some distance , but he subsided into an ale-house : so I went back to the yard , and , happening to pick up one of my boys on the way , I stationed him as a sentry over the launch . He is to stand at water 's edge and wave his handkerchief to us when they start .