“What do you think, then? That they will go back for fresh boats’ crews?”
“That’s somewhere about it, or some stinkpots to heave aboard, or maybe, if they have got one, for a barge or pinnace with a boat’s gun.”
“Possibly,” said the skipper, and Poole gave Fitz a nudge with his elbow as if to ask, Did you hear that?—a quite unnecessary performance, for Fitz had drunk in every word.
“Yes,” continued the skipper; “they’ll be after something or another. Don Cousin is bound to take us by some means, and we must be on the look-out for a surprise. Can we wait till dark and slip out to sea again?”
“No,” said the mate abruptly; “I want broad daylight for anything like that. I couldn’t take the schooner a quarter of a mile in the dark without getting her on the rocks.”
“I suppose not,” said the skipper; “and I suppose it’s no use to try and get higher up the stream?”
“Not a bit,” replied the mate. “The boats would follow us anywhere. I am very sorry. I’ve brought you into a regular trap, and there’s only one way out, and the gunboat’s sitting on it. But under the circumstances there was nothing else to be done. How I do hate these tea-kettles! But one must look the plain truth in the face. They can go anywhere, and we, who depend upon our sails, can’t.”
“That’s all true enough,” said the skipper, “but it doesn’t better our position. What I want to know is, how things are going on lower down. Now, if you lads, or one of you,” he continued, turning to the boys, “could shin up that high cliff yonder you could see the boats and the gunboat too, and make signals to us so that we might know what to expect.”
“All right, father,” said Poole sharply, and he glanced at Fitz as he spoke; “have me landed in the dinghy, and I’ll go up and see.”
Fitz looked at the speaker, and his eyes said, “All right, I’ll come with you;” but the skipper made no answer for a time, but stood shading his eyes and sweeping the face of the cliff, before dropping his hand and saying—