A guffaw of rough merriment, pierced by Darby's Irish wail, and the trapdoor crashed down. A hasp clacked home in a bolt, and footsteps thudded away. I sat on the bottom-most step of the ladder and peered hopelessly around me as Peter, swinging the lanthorn as high as the low deck-room allowed, prowled around the limited area of our prison.
A black rat as large as a cat rushed across my feet. Squeaks and rustlings sounded in the corners. There was the lap-lap-lap of water against the vessel's hull, the creak of the rudder and the strange moaning noises which any ship emits, whether at anchor or under way.
Peter returned to the ladder-foot, deposited the lanthorn on the floor and plumped himself beside it.
"What you t'ink, Bob?" he said blandly. "Do we stay or get oudt?"
I frowned at him.
"'Tis no joke," I snapped. "I had reasons for——"
"Ja," he agreed. "Der little gal."
The Dutchman said so little and revealed such scant interest in what went on about him that he frequently surprized even those who knew him best, as my father never tired of maintaining. He had not spoken, up to this evening, of Murray's plan to employ me as a hostage to conciliate Flint. He had never suggested that he would accompany me. He had never betrayed by any hint a supposition that I might prefer to remain aboard the Royal James during the cruise after the treasure-ship. But on all these points he had done considerable thinking as he now proceeded to demonstrate.
"How did you know!" I exclaimed.
"I know," he replied with his simpering imitation of a laugh. "You t'ink der little gal is a good gal. You t'ink it is not goodt dot she be taken aboard der James. You want to be there andt be sure dot she is safe."