Rasp took several pinches of snuff in succession.
“How rum this snuff is to-night,” he muttered, as he settled himself on the locker opposite where Lauré lay, and then proceeded to watch the night through, after refusing the help of Oakum and ’Pollo, both of whom had offered to relieve him, and in the course of half-an-hour he was sleeping heavily.
And so a couple of hours glided away; when, just as all was perfectly silent on board the schooner, and all save the watch on deck slept soundly, Lauré, the Cuban, rose from his simulated sleep, and after a glance at Rasp stole to the locker in which lay his clothes, slipped them on silently, and then made softly for the deck.
It was no tottering walk of a feeble man, but the quick, soft cat-like tread of some one full of life and energy, and bent upon some set design. And so it was; for the time for the execution of the fell purpose upon which his mind had been fixed ever since he had lain there, feeble at first from the shock, but daily growing stronger and meditating revenge, had arrived.
He was too well acquainted with the routine of the schooner not to be fully aware of what he could do, and while the man bent drowsily over the wheel, and Oakum and another were on the look-out in the bows, he took the falls in his hands, and cleverly let the boat on the davits glide down and kiss the softly heaving wave almost without a sound, but not until he had secured the painter to one of the pins, after which he slid down the falls with the activity of a boy, unhooked the boat, and climbed back on deck.
Next he paused to listen for a few moments in the darkness, and then with cat-like step descended into the portion of the vessel which had been set apart for the store connected with the diving apparatus.
It was evident that he had often been here before, as he seemed to know where everything was kept; and after lifting down the large jar of the galvanic battery, which, from the care with which he took it was evidently half-full of acid, he bore it to the steps, and then placing his hand on a particular shelf he took down a canister of dynamite cartridges and placed it against the bulkhead.
This done he felt along the shelf to where, days before, he had placed a large reel of thin silk-covered wire, and tying it to the loop of metal in one of the cartridges, he backed slowly out of the cabin, unwinding the wire as he went till he reached the deck, where he continued his way to the side, and lowered the reel into the boat.
The next thing was the awkward jar of the battery; but his plans had all been made, and with a piece of cord he lowered it down carefully, raising it again and again until he felt that it rested safely in the bottom of the boat.
Water was already there, and provisions that he had been storing up for days; and now the first sound that had left his lips escaped in the form of a low demoniacal chuckle as, lightly raising himself upon the bulwark, he sat there for a moment, and he shook his fist in the direction of the cabin.