"Then you're going to let them stay there?"
"Certainly. They can't do us any harm. After we get away with our cargo we don't care what happens to them."
The men went away or stopped talking, at any rate, and Jack did not hear any further conversation between them.
"They will probably let us out as soon as they are ready to go," he said to Percival, "but we don't want to stay here till they get ready to let us out, and then there is just a chance that they may forget us altogether. It was just as well that we sent Jesse W. off on his errand."
"I think so myself, and I don't doubt that he will carry it out."
"If Rollins knows the way out through the reefs," said Jack presently, "we might either force or persuade him to pilot us out. If we should capture him we might force him to do it. Otherwise, I might persuade him to do it on consideration of allowing him to escape after we were perfectly safe outside. Very few know of the way out, and it is not likely that the vessel which they are sending to our relief will have any good pilot for these waters on board."
"You don't know positively that this man knows the passage!"
"No, I do not, but he does know some one who does, to judge by his talk, and if he cannot be bargained with perhaps the other man can. I am averse to having anything to do with the man, as you can readily understand, but I do not want to see the whole Hilltop Academy kept prisoners here for an indefinite time."
When it began to grow dark one of the men who had brought them to the place came in with some food and a bottle of wine, and said, as he put it on a chest:
"There's something for you to eat. Other boy asleep, h'm? Well, there is all the more for you then."