A few sharp words from Ned put them all on the alert. Each one had a station assigned to him, which he was expected to hold, in case of a renewal of hostilities; while Jimmy might bemoan the fact that he could not have a bucket of boiling water with which to startle the intended boarders, he evidently did not intend to let that deficiency keep him from doing his duty. Crouching there at a point where he could fire through the breach in the stern of the wreck, he only waited for the word to be given, when he evidently meant to start some others among the enemy to limping on one leg.
"Gee!" Jack heard him saying softly to himself, with a chuckle, "wouldn't it be a funny thing now, if we went and crippled the whole shooting match, by tapping every one in the left leg. Think of how they'd go hobbling around here, like a bunch of old pensioners comin' after their money. Watch my smoke, now, and see how I fix 'em."
When everything was prepared in this way it made the boys nervous to wait, for minutes passed and nothing happened. All the while they were imagining the enemy creeping up the sides of the old hulk, grimly bent on doing them injury.
Ned passed from one point to another, trying to discover just what kind of peril it might be that menaced them. Did the miners have some way of springing on board at a given signal, so that they might attack from all sides at once?
When a full hour had gone and still there was no attack, Ned began to wonder if after all any assault had been intended. Surely these men knew by now that those on board the wreck were well armed, and that they could hardly hope to carry the fort by assault. Perhaps they had come to the wise conclusion that there was a far better means at their disposal than bloodshed. Famine could accomplish what violence failed to do. All they had to figure on was keeping the scouts there just so long, when, lacking food and fresh water, they must give in.
After the chances for another desperate charge through the breach had begun to grow fainter, Ned started to figuring again how he might get his comrades and himself out of so uncomfortable a scrape.
As Jimmy had said, since they had no airship, they could not fly in that way; and lacking boats, the sea offered no solution to the puzzle. All that was left then, apparently, was the land, with those fierce foes lying in wait to attack them the minute they quitted their fortress.
Ned believed that he had the most difficult problem to solve that had come his way this many a day. From every side he viewed it, the puzzle seemed as unanswerable as ever. If only they could manage to slip away along about an hour or so after midnight, when the darkness was densest; but there was only the one way to leave, and that was evidently watched closely, if those silent figures flitting hither and thither on the beach stood for anything.
But was the breach the only means for leaving? Ned remembered that those three men had climbed aboard through the aid of a dangling rope. What was sauce for the goose might be sauce for the gander, too; and if only they could discover more rope they might also slide down it to safety.
He moved over to where Jimmy was squatted like a big toad, with his gun resting on his knee, and aimed straight at the frowning breach in the stern.