"I have been doing that all the afternoon," the Commander-in-Chief replied, "but so far without any success. If we are locked in our cabins, I don't see how it will be possible for us to do anything. A mouse confined in a trap, when a servant-girl plunges it into a bucket of water, is not more helpless than we shall be."
"Come, come, old friend," I said, "you must not give way like that."
"I don't think any man can accuse me of cowardice," he replied, "but I must confess that when I think of what may happen the day after to-morrow, my courage fails me."
"But it's not going to happen," I answered. "Make up your mind to that. As I said just now, there must be a way out of it, and we've got to find it. In the meantime, we must endeavour, if possible, to let the others know the position of affairs, though how that's to be managed, I must confess I don't quite see. It is not possible to approach their cabins, and, according to the new arrangement, we are not allowed to come into personal contact with them."
"Could it not be managed by means of the port-holes?" my companion enquired. "Your cabin and that occupied by Castellan adjoin, I believe?"
"That is so," I replied, "but I could not reach a quarter of the distance that separates his port-hole from mine, and I have nothing in my cabin to assist me. But we must think it over and see what can be done. Now we had better begin to pace the deck again, or they may grow suspicious."
With that we set out, and for upwards of an hour religiously patrolled the poop. At the end of that time we were ordered below, and when my cabin door was locked upon me, I sat myself down on my locker and put my brains to work. The first point to be decided, as I have said above, was how we were to communicate with the others; the second and all important, was to find a means of escape from the doom that had been prepared for us. At last, my head in a whirl, I turned into bed and endeavoured to divert my mind from the burden it carried. The attempt was useless, however, as may be easily understood. Think of what I would, my thoughts invariably came back to the same subject. I recalled that night in Paris, when the eyes of the woman we had known as the Countess de Venetza had exercised such a strange effect upon me. I remembered the nameless horror they had inspired in me, and the sleepless nights I had had in consequence. I also recalled our first meeting and our crossing to London together. Who would have dreamt then that that meeting would have ended in this terrible fashion?
Hour by hour the night wore on until the faint, weird light of dawn crept into the sky. We might now say that to-morrow we should know our fate. Then, tired of tumbling and tossing in my bunk, I left it, and stood at the open port-hole, watching the great, grey waves go by. There was a fair sea running, and, in consequence, the steamer was rolling heavily.
"If only I could find some means of communicating with Castellan," I said to myself for the hundredth time. "He and Woller might put their wits to work, and possibly hit upon a scheme that would save us." Then, in a flash, as is generally the way, an idea occurred to me. If I were permitted a chance of carrying it out, it was quite within the bounds of possibility that it might succeed.
Taking my letter-case from my pocket, I selected a clean half-sheet of note-paper, and wrote upon it a letter to the Colonial Secretary. In it I told him what the Commander-in-Chief had discovered, and what our suspicions were. I begged him to tell Woller, and between them to try and think out a scheme for our deliverance. When I had finished, I made the note into a cocked hat and slipped it into my pocket. I might here remark, that the doors of the various cabins opened directly into the saloon, and that at the foot of each door there was the space of nearly an inch. My object, therefore, was to get the note under the door without our gaolers observing what I was doing. At first glance this would appear a difficult matter to accomplish, but I had every confidence in my plan, and was determined to make the attempt. As good fortune had it, Castellan's cabin was almost directly behind my seat in the saloon, and this was a point in my favour. Having settled upon an idea for delivering this note, I was in a fever to put it into execution. It seemed as if the breakfast hour would never arrive, but at last the door was unlocked, and I was informed that the meal was upon the table. Now or never must my scheme be carried out.