"We've so many captains and sailors in and out from year's end to year's end, that I don't remember them by name," said Dennis Wayman; "but I do remember your friend, mate, now you remind me of him; and I remember you, too."

"Yes," said Joyce, with a grin; "there ain't so many of my pattern.

I'll take a glass of rum for the good of the house; and if you can lend me a paper, I'll skim the news of the day while I'm waiting."

Joyce passed into the little room, where Dennis took him the newspaper and the rum.

Twelve o'clock struck, and the clerk began to watch and to listen for the opening of the door, or the sound of a footstep in the passage outside. The time seemed very long to him, watching and listening. The minute-hand of the Dutch clock moved slowly on. He turned every now and then towards the dusky corner where the clock hung, to see what progress that slow hand had made upon the discoloured dial.

He waited thus for an hour.

"What does it mean?" he thought. "Valentine Jernam so faithfully promised to be punctual. And then he's so fond of his brother. He'd scarcely care to be a minute behindhand, when he has the chance of seeing Captain George."

Joyce went into the bar. The landlord was scrutinizing the address of a letter--a foreign letter.

"Didn't you say your friend's name was Jernam?" he asked.

"I did."

"Then this letter must be for him. It has been lying here for the last two or three days; but I forgot all about it till just this minute."

Joyce took the letter. It was addressed to Captain Valentine Jernam, of the 'Pizarro', at the 'Jolly Tar', care of the landlord, and it came from the Cape of Good Hope.

Joyce recognized George Jernam's writing.

"This means a disappointment," he thought, as he turned the letter over and over slowly; "there'll be no meeting yet awhile. Captain George is off to the East Indies on some new venture, I dare say. But what can have become of Captain Valentine? I'll go down to the 'Golden Cross,'

and see if he's there."

He told Dennis Wayman where he was going, and left a message for his captain. From Ratcliff Highway to Charing Cross was a long journey for Joyce; but he had no idea of indulging in any such luxury as a hackney-coach. It was late in the afternoon when he reached the hotel; and there he was doomed to encounter a new disappointment.

Captain Jernam had been there on the second of the month, and had never been there since. He had left in the forenoon, after saying that he should return at night; and in evidence that such had been his intention, the waiter told Joyce that the captain had left a carpet-bag, containing clean linen and a change of clothes.

"He's broken his word to me, and he's got into bad hands," thought Harker. "He's as simple as a child, and he's got into bad hands. But how and where? He'd never, surely, go back to the 'Jolly Tar', after what I said to him. And where else can he have gone? I know no more where to look for him in this great overgrown London than if I was a new-born baby."

In his perfect ignorance of his captain's movements, there was only one thing that Joyce Harker could do, and that was to go back to the "Jolly Tar," with a faint hope of finding Valentine Jernam there.

It was dusk by the time he got back to Ratcliff Highway, and the flaring gas-lamps were lighted. The bar of the tavern was crowded, and the tinkling notes of the old piano sounded feebly from the inner room.

Dennis Wayman was serving his customers, and Thomas Milsom was drinking at the bar. Joyce pushed his way to the landlord.

"Have you seen anything of the captain?" he asked.

"No, he hasn't been here since you left."

"You're sure of that?"

"Quite sure."

"He's not been here to day; but he's been here within the week, hasn't he? He was here on Tuesday, if I'm not misinformed."

"Then you _are_ misinformed," Wayman said, coolly; "for your seafaring friend hasn't darkened my doors since the morning you and he left to go to the coach-office."

Joyce could say nothing further. He passed through the passage into the public room, where the so-called concert had begun. Jenny Milsom was singing to the noisy audience.

The girl was very pale, and her manner and attitude, as she sat by the piano, were even more listless than usual.

Joyce Harker did not stop long in the concert-room. He went back to the bar. This time there was no one but Milsom and Wayman in the bar, and the two seemed to be talking earnestly as Joyce entered.

They left off, and looked up at the sound of the clerk's footsteps.

"Tired of the music already?" asked Wayman.

"I didn't come here to hear music," answered Joyce; "I came to look for my captain. He had an appointment to meet his brother here to-day at twelve o'clock, and it isn't like him to break it. I'm beginning to get uneasy about him."

"But why should you be uneasy? The captain is big enough, and old enough, to take care of himself," said the landlord, with a laugh.

"Yes; but then you see, mate, there are some men who never know how to take care of themselves when they get into bad company. There isn't a better sailor than Valentine Jernam, or a finer fellow at sea; but I don't think, if you searched from one end of this city to the other, you'd find a greater innocent on shore. I'm afraid of his having fallen into bad hands, Mr. Wayman, for he had a goodish bit of money about him; and there's land-sharks as dangerous as those you meet with on the sea."

"So there are, mate," answered the landlord; "and there's some queer characters about this neighbourhood, for the matter of that."

"I dare say you're right, Mr. Wayman," returned Joyce; "and I'll tell you what it is. If any harm has come to Valentine Jernam, let those that have done the harm look out for themselves. Perhaps they don't know what it is to hurt a man that's got a faithful dog at his heels.

Let them hide themselves where they will, and let them be as cunning as they will, the dog will smell them out, sooner or later, and will tear them to pieces when he finds them. I'm Captain Jernam's dog, Mr. Dennis Wayman; and if I don't find my master, I'll hunt till I do find those that have got him out of the way. I don't know what's amiss with me to-night; but I've got a feeling come over me that I shall never look in Valentine Jernam's honest face again. If I'm right, Lord help the scoundrels who have plotted against him, for it'll be the business of my life to track them down, and bring their crime home to them--and I'll do it."

After having said this, slowly and deliberately, with an appalling earnestness of voice and manner, Joyce Harker looked from Dennis Wayman to Black Milsom, and this time the masks they were accustomed to wear did not serve these scoundrels so well as usual, for in the faces of both there was a look of fear.

"I am going to search for my captain," said Joyce. "Good night, mates."

He left the tavern. The two men looked at each other earnestly as the door closed upon him.

"A dangerous man," said Dennis Wayman.

"Bah!" muttered Black Milsom, savagely; "who's afraid of a hunchback's bluster? I dare say he wanted the handling of the money himself."

All that night Joyce Harker wandered to and fro amidst the haunts of sailors and merchant captains; but wander where he would, and inquire of whom he would, he could obtain no tidings of the missing man.

Towards daybreak, he took a couple of hours' sleep in a tavern at Shadwell, and with the day his search began again.

Throughout that day the same patient search continued, the same inquiries were repeated with indomitable perseverance, in every likely and unlikely place; but everywhere the result was failure.

It was towards dusk that Joyce Harker turned his back upon a tavern in Rotherhithe, and set his face towards the river bank.

"I have looked long enough for him among the living," he said; "I must look for him now amongst the dead."

Before midnight the search was ended. Amongst the printed bills flapping on dreary walls in that river-side neighbourhood, Joyce Harker had discovered the description of a man "found drowned." The description fitted Valentine Jernam, and the body had been found within the last two days.

Joyce went to the police-office where the man was lying. He had no need to look at the poor dead face--the dark, handsome face, which was so familiar to him.

"I expected as much," he said to the official who had admitted him to see the body; "he had money about him, and he has fallen into the hands of scoundrels."