At the top of the companionway he turned to Floyd, who was below him.
"Don't show yourself above the bulwarks," said he. "Crawl along the deck after me to the caboose. That's the place for us to hide and wait for them."
"Right!" said Floyd.
They crawled along on hands and knees till they reached the caboose door. It opened to the starboard, and as the Southern Cross was swinging to the incoming tide, with her nose to the break in the reef, the door of the caboose faced the Domain, and consequently could not be seen from the shore.
Cardon opened the door, and they went in, closing the door behind them.
The place was terribly stuffy and filled with the smell of grease and cooking. The copper was still hot, which did not improve matters, and cockroaches were in evidence even in that darkness.
There was a scuttle giving aft, and in a moment Floyd had opened it. It gave a view of the whole of the deck aft, and though there was no moon the starlight showed everything. The main hatch, with its cover of tarpaulin, the saloon hatch, the bulwarks, and the planking of the deck so clearly that the lines of division between the planks could be traced, and even the dowels that fixed the planking to the beams.
It was a noisome hole to be cooped up in, but it was a splendid post of observation, though, from the size of the scuttle, only one man could keep a lookout at a time.
"We'll take it turn about," said Cardon, "and the chap that's off duty can sit on the copper and keep it warm. We haven't a watch, and a watch would be no use to us, as we daren't show a light; so we'll have to guess the length of the trick. Ten minutes each will be the length of the lookout as far as we can make it. I'll take first, if you don't mind."
Floyd had no objection, and he sat on a ledge by the copper, listening and waiting in the dark while Cardon stood on watch. The ship was full of sounds. On deck everything seemed bathed in dead silence, but here, listening in the dark, all sorts of little noises came to greet the ear and imagination.