The steps above them had indeed stopped suddenly, though the aroma of the cigar the Turkish officer was smoking was still wafted down to that space beneath the stern where Geoff and Philip were hiding. They heard a cough, a gentle cough, as the Turk cleared his throat, and later the sound of whistling, while within a minute the man began to pace to and fro again, very slowly, very languidly, as if there was no haste and no hurry, and the Commander was enjoying his little solitary tramp and the peace and quietness of his surroundings.
"Go on," said Geoff; "what's the plan? We kidnap the beggar, of course—that's the plan we set out with this evening. I can see farther than that naturally enough; for, as you've hinted already, we shy him overboard, and then come to his rescue. Now?"
"There'll be a tremendous row and ruction," Philip told him. "The new sentry that they've posted for'ard will give the alarm, and, once it's found out that the Commander's disappeared, every man aboard will be turned out, and if they've got boats, as is most likely the case, for we saw a number trailing behind this steamer, they'll man them and row about in order to try to find the beggar. Now suppose we counter that move?"
"Yes?" asked Geoff eagerly, for he realized the truth of Philip's statement, and could see that, whereas the loss of a humble sentry had caused no great commotion, that of the Commander of the vessel might very well lead to a general alarm, to the disturbance of the whole ship's company, and to a frantic search in which they might easily be discovered. "Yes?" he asked again impatiently.
"That's where my extra little plan comes in," said Philip, and the young fellow chuckled, whereat Geoff gripped his wrist savagely, and shook it.
"Shut up!" he said; "the fellow's only just above our heads, and might easily hear you. Idiot!"
"Thanks!" giggled Philip. "But really, if it comes off, it will be tremendously funny. Now here's the plan: I hop into the water just here, and swim up alongside the steamer, and when I get to her bows, I clamber aboard somehow. We all know that she's anchored in mid-stream, and I'm pretty well sure, from the sounds which came when she dropped her anchor, that she's moored by a hawser. A chain would have clanked out over the side, and we should have heard it, whereas there was a sharp splash and nothing followed. See the point, eh?" he asked eagerly. "She's moored by a rope, and I have a knife here that would cut through a ship's cable."
It was Geoff's turn to exclaim, a smothered exclamation, while he gripped Philip's arm again with fingers which were like a vice.
"Fine!" he told him in a whisper. "And then? You've cut the cable, you've set the ship free, and of course she floats down the stream without any of them being the wiser. The chances are she'll be washed about three or four or more hundred yards before the crew know what's happened, and then it'll only be because she strikes ground, and comes to a stop on a sand-bank farther down the stream. But—but, won't it rather throw us out of our bearings. Just remember that it's pitch-dark in the marshes, and that we've got to find our way back to the steam-launch. It'll want some doing in any case, I can tell you, and if we once get off our bearings it'll be almost an impossibility. But what follows when you've cut the cable?"
"What you'd expect," Philip told him with glee. "I'm on the ship, and I've set her loose, and for the matter of that I should saw through the hawser till it's not quite parted, and leave the stream and the weight of the vessel to do the rest; then I slip aft, and if I find that it's out of the question to pass the sentry, I drop overboard again, and float down beside her till I am nearer the stern; then I clamber to her deck again, crawl right aft, and give that old chap above us a punch that will topple him right over."