“Let’s board her and take her,” hissed Jean Lafitte. “We can do it easy.”
“No, wait,” said I. “Perhaps we can think of a better plan. Wait till we get two drums of gasoline aboard. Then we’ll make a run for it, if yon varlet is here on the Sea Rover. Probably not, for every one seems gone to bed.”
“I’ll find out,” said Jean Lafitte boldly, and before I could stop him was gone, springing lightly on the deck of the Sea Rover.
“Hello in there,” he hailed. “Are you all asleep?”
A voice muttered something from the shallow cabin, I could not tell what. “We got a barrel of rum for you from Thibodeau’s,” said Jean Lafitte.
“No, you ain’t. Must be some mistake,” said a sleepy voice; and now a tousled head appeared, indistinct in the gloom. “Anyhow, I don’t know anything about it, and it’ll have to stay on the dock until morning. I’m only the engineer, I come from Natchez. Mr. Davidson, he’s up-town.”
“Oh, all right,” said Jean Lafitte, apparently mollified, and soon was at my side again. So then, we had the information we sought. I was sure my own engineer, Williams, was busy as usual below, oiling and polishing his double sixties.
“Hurry now,” I whispered to Peterson. “Get that stuff aboard quick. Don’t forget the crates of fruit and vegetables.”
We were nearly done with this work, when for a moment all seemed on the point of going wrong with us. I heard shufflings and door slammings from the after cabin. “Help! Help!” sounded the voice of Aunt Lucinda, somewhat muffled. It chanced that my engineer, Williams, at that moment poked his head up his ladder to get a breath of fresh air.
“What’s that?” he demanded of me as I passed. “I thought I heard some one calling.”