They were a sorry lot, both in face and clothing. Not one had a decent set of garments on him. The only difference between the soldiers and the sailors who composed the council was—the soldiers’ clothes were in rags, while the sailors mended theirs. In face they
were all alike unsavoury, but Victor Malin “took the cake.”
“Comrades,” he was saying, leaning forward and speaking with a harsh powerful voice into the space between the bowed heads of the others, where, by the way, there must have been some blue fire playing: “Comrades, we must not follow the advice of our brother Poivre there. Delay with us is dangerous. Every day makes it more likely that these soldiers,”—there was an adjective prefixed, a favourite one, applied by him to almost everything—“will find out what we are planning. The dark nights, now there is no moon, will favour us when once we get away. Now or never is the word. The men in all the other yards are waiting for the red flag to be hoisted over our prison. To-morrow morning, at daybreak, let us begin.”
Marc Poivre, the man he had alluded to, was a tall, lank fellow, with muscles of iron, and sunken fiery eyes, that betokened a fierce
temper which would not brook much contradiction.
“I say, wait!” was his sententious reply.
“What for?” said Malin.
“Till the days get shorter still. Till we know more for certain that the others are ready. Till the soldiers have lost the suspicions they certainly have, that something is up. Only to-day I heard one of the red-coats say to his fellow, ‘When are they going to kick up a row?’ You know, yourself, Malin, they have doubled the guard all round.”
“Are you afraid?” sneered Malin.
The sunken eyes burned. But it was not the time for quarrelling: so Poivre restrained himself, and only said, “I will answer you another time. Begin to-morrow if you will. Have your own way. I am content.”