“What do you mean by that?” cried Mike excitedly.
“Vat I say. I do not know.”
He pressed them towards the hatchway, and they descended, feeling that they could do nothing else, while the captain followed and opened a door opposite to that of the cabin.
“Zere,” he said. “You can sleep in zose bunk. I keep zat for my friend, and I give zem to mine ennemi, you see. I vill not lock ze door, but you listen, bose of you. I am ze capitaine, and I am le roi—ze king here. If a man say he vill not, I knock him down. If he get up and pull out ze knife, I take ze pistol and shoot: I am dangéreux. If I hear ze strange noise, I shoot. Don’t you make ze strange noise in ze night, mes amis, but go sleep, as you Anglais say, like ze sound of two top hummin. You understand. Bon soir! You come to ze déjeuner—breakfast in ze morning.”
He shut them in, and the two boys were left in the darkness to their thoughts. But they were too weary to think much, and soon felt their way into their bunks, one above the other.
An hour later the door was softly opened, and a lanthorn was thrust in, the captain following to look at each face in turn.
There was no sham this time. Utterly worn out by the excitement of the past hours, Vince and Mike were both off—fast in the heavy, dreamless, restful slumber of sixteen—the sleep in which Nature winds up a boy’s mainspring terse and tight, and makes him ready to go on, rested and fresh, for the work of another day.