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watching. The back door.”
    With a final wave, Duff opened the back door, then slipped out into the night.

Chapter Five
     
    Firth of Clyde
     
    There were three ships on the Firth of Clyde. Two were steamships that lay anchored in the harbor. But one was tied up against the docks, and it was the Hiawatha, a three-masted, square-rigged, sailing ship.
    There was a sailor standing watch on the dock-side of the ship, which meant Duff was going to have to get onboard without the man on watch seeing him. As he considered how best to accomplish this, he saw a skiff tied up about one hundred yards down the dock.
    Looking around to make certain he wasn’t being observed, Duff untied the skiff, then rowed it out a short way before turning back to approach the Hiawatha from the opposite side. There he climbed up the side of the vessel, over the railing, then into the shadows of the ship. Finding a dark, out-of-the-way place on deck, he settled down to wait and see what would happen next.
    He had almost gone to sleep when he heard the sheriff’s voice.
    “You, aboard! Sailor on watch! I’m Sheriff Somerled. I would have a word with you.”
    “I ain’t done nothin’ that would draw the attention of a sheriff,” the sailor called back in a flat, twangy, American accent.
    “Still your concerns, sailor, ’tis not yourself I am questioning,” the sheriff replied. “Has a man come aboard seeking passage to America?”
    Looking out from behind a large stanchion, Duff followed the conversation between the sailor and Sheriff Somerled. On the dock with the sheriff, Duff noticed, was Deputy Malcolm.
    “Sheriff, this here is a merchant ship. We ain’t got no passenger a’tall.”
    “I’m looking for a murderer. He is a big man with light hair, brawny arms, and shoulders the width of an axe handle. He would have come on only in the last few minutes.”
    “Like I told you, we ain’t got no passengers a’tall. We got nothin’ but wool, bound for New York.”
    “Maybe he boarded without you seeing him,” Sheriff Somerled suggested.
    “There ain’t nobody what’s come onboard, Sheriff, by that or any other description,” the sailor replied. “Not while I been on watch.”
    “Lower the gangplank. I’m comin’ aboard to see for myself,” the sheriff said.
    “There ain’t nobody comin’ onboard this here ship without the cap’n sayin’ he can.”
    “Then do be a good man and inform the captain that Sheriff Somerled wishes to come aboard.”
    “I ain’t wakin’ the cap’n for you or nobody,” the sailor said.
    “Very well, I shall return in the morning and speak with your captain.”
    “We’ll be pullin’ anchor with the mornin’ tide,” the sailor on watch said. “Won’t do you no good to come back, ’cause we won’t be here.”
    “Come,” Sheriff Somerled said to Malcolm. “The brigand cannot have gone too far. I’ll see him hanged before sunrise.”
    Duff had stayed very quiet during the exchange and remained in place until the sheriff and his deputy were well away from the dock. Not until then did he improve his position, crawling from behind the stanchion into a tarp-covered lifeboat.

    The ship was well under way when Duff awoke the next morning, lifting and falling, rolling from side to side as it plowed over the long, rolling swells of the North Atlantic. When he looked out from under the tarp, he could see the sails of the Hiawatha shining brilliantly white in the bright sunlight, and filled with a following breeze. The propelling wind, spilling from the sails, emitted a soft, whispering sigh.
    The helmsman stood at the wheel, his legs slightly spread as he held the ship on its course. Working sailors were moving about the deck, tightening a line here, loosening one there, providing the exact tension on the rigging and angle on the sheets to maintain maximum speed. Some sailors were holystoning the deck, while others were manning the bilge pumps.
    Because all were busy, no one noticed Duff