“Yes,” declared Frank, “it seemed to me tonight that he was beginning to regret being a party to our captivity. He doesn’t want us to fall into the hands of the Chinamen. And he’s disgusted, too, with his employer. Maybe, we’ll get him on our side yet.”
“He’ll protect us from the Chinamen all right,” said Bob. “But when his boss, ‘Black George,’ recovers, he will be powerless. If this scoundrel is saving us in order to exact vengeance on us for the way we laid him out, we’ll be in a pretty fix.”
“Listen,” said Jack. “I have an idea.”
“What?”
“Why, here is ‘Black George’ helpless, with only a fright-crazed little pudding of a doctor to help him.
Let us take possession of ‘Black George’ and gain the whip hand over Murphy. Then we can compel Murphy to come over to our side, perhaps.”
“How?”
“Why, we’ll buy our freedom with the freedom of Murphy’s master.”
“I don’t believe it can be done, Jack,” said Mr. Temple thoughtfully. “It isn’t only Murphy with whom we have to reckon, but these Chinamen, too. With them above all. ‘Black George’ probably doesn’t mean much to them. They would rather see him killed than see us escape their clutch. They probably feel that when we reach the smugglers’ cove they can compel ‘Black George’ to turn us over to their tender mercies, and that is the only reason they have been content to keep hands off so far.”
Jack was silent. The force of Mr. Temple’s reasoning was apparent to him.