Sick at heart, Howard marched away between his captors. The way led to the edge of the wide platform that constituted the village, down a gang-plank, and away for some distance across the wrecks. Finally it led through a rent in the side of a big iron steamer, and up to what had evidently once been the captain’s cabin. Into this he was thrust.
Gallegher paused, with his hand on the lock. “You heard what the cap’n said,” he growled. “You behave yourself and nobody’ll hurt you. And, remember, there ain’t a mite of use tryin’ to escape, because there ain’t nowhere to escape to.”
The door slammed and Howard was left to his own reflections.
His first act was, of course, to inspect his prison. It was not uncomfortable. Large, airy, and well furnished, it had evidently been selected because all its sides were of iron, three of them being formed by the sides of the vessel, and the fourth by one of her bulkheads. Numerous port-holes admitted air and light, but were too small for a man’s body to pass through them. A skylight overhead had been closed with heavy timbers. Altogether it was a strong place.
Before he had had much more than time enough to familiarize himself with his surroundings, the key grated in the lock, and one of his captors entered with a tray, which he placed on a table built around the mizzenmast of the ship.
“Here’s your dinner, sor,” he announced.
Howard came over and sat down. As he did so, his eyes fell on some curious-looking mechanism which the man had pushed aside in making room for the tray. A question sprang to his lips, but he choked it back as the other bent suddenly forward.
“I heard of what you said to Bill and Joe, sor,” he breathed. “Is it true that you could get away from here if you had the chance, sor?”
“True? Of course it’s true. Give me a boat, two or three men, and a compass, and I’d start away at an hour’s notice. I wonder that you men don’t see that.”
“And will you take me and Kathleen with you when you go, sor? Kathleen’s my wife—Joyce they call her, sor, though its nather chick nor child we’re after having, sor.”