I felt a horrible pang of dread at these thoughts, and softly thrusting out my hand, I felt for and gripped Bob Hampton’s great paw as it held on to the rope, and then whispering to Mr Frewen to do the same, I took tightly hold of the man’s wrist with some idea of saving him if the scoundrel on deck should hear, and cut the rope.
The next minute, to my horror, as with one hand grasping the rope and the other Bob Hampton’s arm, Mr Frewen and I stood face to face close to the cabin-window, we heard the voices on deck come nearer, then stop just overhead, and as far as I could judge, the speaker stood leaning against the bulwarks, so that we could distinctly hear Walters say—
“Why don’t you send them all adrift in one of the boats?”
“Because we are not near enough to land, my son,” replied Jarette; “and I am so anxious about my young lieutenant. It would grieve me to death to see him hung for a pirate.”
“I wish you would talk common-sense, Jarette, and not be so fond of chaffing me. You’ll make me wish some day that I had not joined you.”
The Frenchman laughed derisively. “Why, my little brave,” he cried, “what a dust-filled-eyed one you think me. Do I not know that you have been in a tremble ever since?”
“No, you don’t,” said Walters, sharply. “I’m sure I’ve done everything I can.”
“My faith, yes; we will say it is so,” said Jarette, with another sneering laugh. “It is wonderful how nervous men are who have their necks in the noose—boys too.”
At that moment we felt Hampton softly loosen his hold of the rope with one hand, and pass it and his arm in at the window so as to get a grip inside, for evidently he expected that the rope would be discovered and cut. Though even then, unless Jarette were willing to save him, it would only be prolonging his existence for a few minutes, since it would have been impossible for us to draw so bulky a man through the circular hole which lit and ventilated Mr Frewen’s cabin.
But he was safe for the time, come what might, and we remained there listening to the conversation overhead, gathering that there was very little friendship existing between Walters and his new captain, who let us know that he was in great perplexity about his prisoners, and certainly not in the mind then to end their lives. What might happen afterwards we could not say.