I was going to answer, when I heard a loud shouting overhead. ’Twas the sound of someone hailing the ship, and thought I, “the troopers are on us!”
They were, in truth. Soon I heard the noise of feet above and a string of voices speaking one after another, louder and louder. And next Master Pottery began to answer up and drown’d all speech but his own. When he ceas’d, there was silence for some minutes: after which we heard a party descend to the cabin, and the trampling of their feet on the boards above us. They remain’d there some while discussing: and then came footsteps down the second ladder, and a twinkle of light reach’d me through the bunghole of my cask.
“Quick!” said a husky voice; “overhaul the cargo here!”
I heard some half dozen troopers bustling about the hold and tugging out the bales of wool.
“Hi!” call’d Master Pottery: “an’ when you’ve done rummaging my ship, put everything back as you found it.”
“Poke about with your swords,” commanded the husky voice. “What’s in those barrels yonder?”
“Water, sergeant,” answers a trooper, rolling out a couple.
“Nothing behind them?”
“No; they’re right against the side.”
“Drop ’em then. Plague on this business! ’Tis my notion they’re a mile a-way, and Cap’n Stubbs no better than a fool to send us back here. He’s grudging promotion, that’s what he is! Hurry, there—hurry!”