Chapter Thirty Two.
“Hatching Mischief.”
A long, busy day similar to the last, as they slowly crept along by the coast. The weather glorious, the blacks docile to a degree, and the Americans perfectly silent in their prison.
Provisions and bottles of water were lowered down to them by means of a line through the ventilator; but the prisoners made no sign.
“My!” said Tom, with a laugh, as he fastened a string round the neck of a well-corked bottle to lower it down, “won’t the Yankee skipper be mad when he puts that to his lips. Being a bottle, he’ll think it’s rum. Some folks can’t think as a bottle would hold anything else.”
But no sound came even then, and Mark began to feel anxious.
“We haven’t suffocated them, have we?” he said in a low voice. “They are so very quiet.”
“Not we, sir. They aren’t the chaps to lie down and die without making a pretty good flurry over it fust. No sir; they’re a-settin’.”