"And shall we knock out the ports and loose the tacklings?" another asked.
"Be still! Jacob, Jacob!" Phil cried, running up on the quarter-deck.
There was no one on the quarter-deck; there was no one on the poop. The wind was blowing up into a fair breeze and small waves were licking against the dark sides of the Rose of Devon. But the after decks were deserted.
"Jacob!" Phil cried once more, and sent his voice out far across the water. But there was still no answer. Jacob had gone.
For a moment the lad stood by the rail and intently listened. The calling on shore had ceased, but a boat was rowing out from the town and the beat of oars was quick and irregular. Further, to swell his anxiety, there was a great bustle on board the unknown ship, which had been lying hitherto with no sign of human life.
Then Philip Marsham took the fate of the Rose of Devon in his hands and leaned out over the quarter-deck gun. "Holla, there!" he called, but not loudly, "Let the younkers lay quietly aloft and lie ready on the yards to let the sails fall at a word."
Seeming encouraged and reassured by a summons to action, the younger men went swarming up the rigging, and as quietly as one could wish; but even the low sound of their subdued voices drummed loud in the ears of the lad on the quarter-deck.
Jacob had gone! The boatswain, for one, remembered old tales of rats leaving ships of ill fortune.