Sail Ho! Part 36

"I am trying, sir, if only to be prepared to have a witness against you when the time comes for your punishment."

"Oh yes, of course, doctor, we know all about that. This way, sir.

Now, boy. Come!"

"Good-bye, Captain Berriman," I said, as I leaned over my poor officer and pressed his hand. Then in a whisper--"Cheer up! Perhaps we shall re-take the ship after all."

Then I followed the doctor, and a minute later we were once more under lock and key, while as I crossed the saloon I saw that a couple of men were pacing up and down, pistol in hand.

I made a remark about this, and then I spoke about the way in which the powder had driven in all the end of the saloon.

"I suppose Jarette must have used about all there is now."

Mr Frewen shook his head.

"Didn't you know?" he said. "There is a large quant.i.ty on board. It is being taken--across for blasting purposes in New Zealand. Jarette, I suppose, helped with the lading, and knew where it was stowed. That accounts for its being brought out so soon."

"Pity we can't give them a dose of it," I said, "so as to frighten them into better order. Just fancy, Mr Frewen, dropping a bagful into the forecastle with a fuse attached and lit; how they would run for the hatch, and before they could reach it--bang!"

"Yes, with that part of the deck blown up and a dozen or so of wretched mutilated creatures lying about shrieking for help. Well, Dale, I dare say there is one of the bags somewhere about the cabins, but I don't think you could use it."

"Well, now you talk like that, I don't think I should like to," I said.

"I am sure you would not, boy. You and I could not fight that way. We must have a better way than that."

We lay there trying to think out some plan for the rest of that day, sometimes talking to ourselves, sometimes with Mr Preddle joining in; but for the most part he could talk about nothing else but his own troubles, and about his fish, which he was sure were dying off rapidly, for no one, he said, could attend to them like he would himself.

"Unless it was you, Dale," he whispered apologetically. "You certainly did seem to understand them almost as well as I did myself. Ah, I'd give almost anything to be out there attending to the poor little things, but I could not go at the cost that was proposed."

He sighed very deeply, drew back, and the little hole was darkened directly after, for Mr Preddle had lain down to meditate upon the sufferings of his fish, and when I peeped through at him a few minutes later he was still meditating with his eyes shut and his mouth open, while a peculiar sound came at regular intervals from between his lips.

Mr Frewen looked at me inquiringly as I turned round.

"Sound asleep," I whispered.

"Poor Mr Preddle," said Mr Frewen, "he is a very good amiable fellow, but I think that you and I must make our plans, Dale, and call upon him to help when all is ready."

I nodded, for I thought so too, and after listening for a few moments at the door, we came to the conclusion that there was nothing to mind about the sentries, so we proceeded to make our examination of our prison in a more determined way.

Several times my fingers had played about the knife I had in my pocket, and I had longed to bore holes in the cabin-door so as to watch the sentries; but of course I was checked by the knowledge that by making a hole through which I could watch them I was providing one by which they could watch us.

The cabins on either side of the saloon were only so many portions of the ship boarded off, and provided with doors, so that a couple of carpenters would have had little difficulty in clearing away the part.i.tion and making one long opening, but we had no tools, and the slightest noise would have drawn attention to our acts; and these ideas would, we knew, govern our actions in all we did.

Our idea was of course to get a board out between the doctor's cabin and Mr Preddle's, and if possible one at the darkest portion of the place close up to the ship's side; but examine as we would, there did not appear to be one that it would be possible to move, try how we would.

"It seems to be a very hopeless case, Dale," said my companion at last with a sigh, "unless we patiently cut a way through with your knife; one cutting, while the other keeps on throwing the chips out of the window so that they cannot be seen."

"But we shall make a big hole," I objected, "and the first time that Jarette comes in he will see it, and put us somewhere else."

"Of course. It looks very hopeless, my lad."

"You see we want holes, sir, so that we could take out one board from top to bottom quite whole, and put it back just as it was."

"Yes; but how are we to do that without tools?"

"I thought doctors always had a lot of tools," I said; "knives and saws and choppers for operations."

"Ah!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "My head has not come right yet after that injury.

Why, look here, lad!"

He went to a drawer fitted into a chest, and drew it open to take out a mahogany case in which, lying on blue velvet, were some of the things I had named--knives, and a couple of saws, beside other instruments whose purpose I did not grasp.

"We draw the line at choppers, Dale," he said, smiling; "and I suppose I ought not to devote my choice instruments to such a duty, but I think these will do."

"Splendidly!" I cried in delight, as I quite gloated over the bright steel saw. "Why, with one of those I can get a whole board out in an hour or two."

"Without being heard?"

"I didn't think of that," I said. "Let's see what noise it would make."

"No," said Mr Frewen, quietly. "We must wait till night; and it will be a very much longer task than you think, because we shall have to work so slowly."

"Wait till night!" I cried impatiently.

He nodded, and the dreary, slow way in which the rest of that day pa.s.sed was terrible. It was as if the sun would never set; but Mr Frewen was right. There were two interruptions to expect--the coming of the man who would bring us our evening meal, a sort of tea-dinner-supper, and possibly a visit from Jarette to fetch Mr Frewen to see the captain.

The man came with our comfortless, unsatisfactory meal, at which I grumbled, but which Mr Frewen said was far better than ordinary prison fare; and just at dark, as he had suggested, we were startled by the sudden rattling at the fastening of our door.

Then Jarette appeared, and signed imperiously to Mr Frewen to follow him.

My companion frowned, but he rose and followed; not to obey Jarette, as he afterwards said, but to go and attend upon the captain.

I rose to go too; but as I reached the door, Jarette rudely thrust me back, so that I staggered to the cabin-window.

"Non!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed sharply; and the door was banged to and fastened before I had recovered from my surprise.

"Never mind," I said to myself; "wait a bit," as I bit my lips and stood with clenched fists, thinking in my annoyance how much I should like to use them.

But I consoled myself by going to Mr Frewen's drawer and opening the case and looking at the bright steel saws, and then talking in a whisper to Mr Preddle, who came to the little opening to know whether anything was the matter.

I did not tell him about the saws after I had said that Mr Frewen had been fetched, but thought I would leave that for my companion to do, and then waited till he came; but he was so long that I began to be afraid he had been placed in another cabin, the mutineer chief having suddenly become suspicious of our hatching a conspiracy to escape.

He came at last, though, to my very great relief, and told me that he thought Jarette, in spite of his display of bravado and carelessness, was alarmed about Captain Berriman's state, and afraid that he would die.

"And is he in a dangerous state?" I asked anxiously.

"No; only a little feverish, as the natural result of his wound."

"That was what made you stay so long then?" I said.