“Yes;” and Vince’s hand went to his pocket for his knife, as his busy, overstrung brain asked why it was that they had not been searched and their knives taken away.
But he did not withdraw the knife, for he found that it would be easy enough to cast the rope loose, and he turned to Mike.
“Down with you!” he said.
“No: you first.”
A noise as of a heavy blow.
A savage yell, followed by a scuffling sound from where the sleeping man had been standing, and the boys stood holding on there, paralysed for the moment.
“Curse you if you hit me!” began a rough voice from out of the darkness; but the speech was cut short by a sharp clicking, and the familiar voice of the French captain arose, sharpened by rage and sounding fierce and tigerish in spite of the peculiarity of his broken English, mingled with words in his native tongue.
“Dog! Canaille! Vite sleep-head fool! Anozaire vord I blow out you brain and you are ovaire-board.”
The sleeper growled something, which was again cut short by the French skipper.
“Vat? How you know zat ze boy do not get on deck to take a boat and go tell of my store cachette? To-morrow you are flog by all ze crew, and zey sall sare all ze monnaies zat vould come to you.”