And with that, he went into the great cabin, where they heard him speaking to Harry Malcolm.
As for Martin Barwick and Paul Craig, they went over to where the one had all this time been lying whom they had trussed up in ropes and hoisted on board. All the time he had been in the ship he had neither moved nor spoken, nor did he speak now as they picked him up, one at his head and one at his feet, and carried him into the cabin. The door shut and for a long time there was silence.
There were some to whom the matter was a mystery, and the boatswain was among them; but the whispering and nodding showed that more knew the secret than were ignorant of it. The ship thrust her nose into a heavy swell and pitched until her yards knocked on the masts; the breeze blew up and whipped the tops off the waves and showered the decks with spray; the sky darkened with clouds and threatened rain. But in the ship there was such a deep silence as stifles a man, which endured and seemed—were it possible—to grow minute by minute more intense until a low cry burst from the cabin.
The men sitting here and there on deck stirred and looked at one another; but Philip Marsham leaped to his feet.
"Sit down, lad," said the carpenter.
"Drop your hand!"
"Nay, it is better that I keep my hand on your arm."
"Drop your hand! Hinder me not!"
"Nay, I am obeying orders."
There came a second cry from the cabin, and Phil laid his free hand on his dirk.