“Nay, I won’t say that, lad.”
“’Cause I did; and arter the tight nip of a bit where them two stuck, it were pretty easy, and I got along fast, though of course it’s all ups and downs like. Then there’s the widish bit ’tween them two big cases, where I twisted round; and after that the cargo’s closer together, and nigher the beams, till it got too stiff for me, and I give it up; for I knowed that if I got stuck there, I should have to stay.”
“Then there is a way on?” I said excitedly.
“Kind of a sort of a way, sir. I don’t think I could ha’ got along if I’d tried ever so hard, ’cause the cargo’s jammed up so close to the roof; but a small sort o’ man might do it, or p’r’aps I might if old Frenchy keeps me here long enough to get precious thin.”
“But a boy could get along?” I said.
“Oh yes, sir, I dessay a boy could; but don’t you get thinking it’s a regular pipe or a passage, ’cause it arn’t. It’s all in and out, and over chests and cases and things as don’t fit together, or has got settled down; and you have to feel all this as you go, and trust to the tips of your fingers for leading of you right. It arn’t as if there was any light, you see; ’cause their ain’t enough to show a mouse the way to the inside of a Dutch cheese.”
“Then if any one got along there far enough, he would come to the forecastle bulk-head?” I said eagerly.
“Well, that I can’t say, sir; ’cause, you see, he might find he had to creep along right under the forksle floor, and the men’s bunks.”
“If he got to the place where our friends are, that would not matter,” I cried excitedly. “The distance must be very small.”
“O’ course, sir.”