"Please Providence smallpox will clutch the swine; then an honester man may get his billet," said Leverett.
Thus they uttered folly and went stormily to their rest; but upon the morning of the next day the Seven, strolling together, listened to reason and formulated a plan of action. Their sick mate, Caleb Carberry, was this day discharged cured from hospital, and he listened to Burnham, who narrated the events of the previous evening.
"We've done what we might by fair means. Now it remains for us to trust to our wits and our right arms," said Stark.
"The wall men have built, men can climb," declared Burnham. "What say you, Commodore?"
Miller gazed upward at the mighty ring of the inner circumvallation, scarlet-dotted with the sentries.
"I'm with you—over—or under. At Chatham eighteen brave lads escaped from the prison ship, Crown Prince, by cutting through the side of her. Well, oak or granite, 'tis all one."
"If we no fly, we burrow berry nice, gentlemen," declared Samuel Cuffee.
"Then 'tis our life's work from this hour to get out," said Carberry. "By hook or crook we'll do it. And with a boss like Commodore Miller, I lay the way will come clear."
"We don't want a lot o' poppy-cock talk, I reckon," added Leverett. "'Tis just a secret for the seven of us—though," he added under his breath to Carberry, "I'm consarned if I like to work with a slave."
Caleb Carberry was a thin, feeble-looking young man who had been cook's mate on the Marblehead. He glanced at Cuffee, to whom Leverett referred, and answered aside—