"
The tailor was idiotic enough to repeat the affront, on which, and as
though a perfect understanding as to what was to be done subsisted
among the three sailors, old Joe, Plum, and Robins fell upon Sloper,
and, lifting him up in their arms, ran with him to the boat, into
which they flung him, paying not the least heed whatever to his cries
for help and for mercy, and instantly headed for the cutter, leaving
the tailor's friends white as milk and speechless with alarm near the
cannon upon the lawn.
When the boat reached the cutter, Plum jumped aboard and received
little Sloper from the hands of old Joe, making no more of the burthen
than had the tailor been a parcel, say, of a coat and waistcoat, or a
pair of trousers. Old Joe then actively got over the rail. He lifted
the little main-hatch, and Mr. Sloper was dropped into the space
below, where the darkness was so great that he could not see, and
where there was nothing to sit upon but Thames ballast.
"In boat, up anchor, and away with us!" said Joe Westlake.
The breeze was fresh, the cutter was always an excellent sailer, and
in a very short space of time she was running down Long Reach with
Erith and its adjacent shores out of sight, past the round of land
where Dartford creek is to be found.
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