"The band of criminals on the hooker, in their panic, might have thrown anything heavy overboard. So we might find it strewn along the bank of the dredged channel. Or it might still be aboard the hooker. I don’t think it is in the Tor, or on the whaler—come! It’s now!" And Isaac moved with short quick steps to the head of the stair that ran down to the upperdeck. His box of gear was slung over his shoulder on a leather strap, and it banged on his hip as he went, and threatened to pull him off balance. Daniel scurried up behind him and put a steadying hand on the box, and in this way the two old philosophers moved down the steps and across to where the longboat was a-dangle from a pair of out-thrust yards. Soon enough they, Barnes, Shaftoe, eight dragoons, and an able seaman from the sloop’s crew were aboard; though Daniel nearly toppled into the water, and in the scramble, lost his periwig. Lines were worked, and the boat jostled and slanted beneath them. They fell into the looming shadow of the sloop’s hull. Between the darkness and the loss of his wig, Daniel felt chilly, and called for someone to throw a blanket down to him. Soon a wadded-up lump of gray wool thudded down, followed by a knit watchman’s cap, which Daniel gratefully pulled down over his naked skull. As the sloop pulled away from them he saw his wig spinning in a vortex, its long white ponytail pointing this way and that, like a compass needle that has lost its fix on true north.