"Who has got the key?" asked Enoch. "If I can't find the key I shall have to chop the grating down."
"Do you know the boatswain?"
Enoch shook his head.
"Well, he is the one that has the key, and you will have to find him in order to get it. Say!" said Caleb, seizing his friend by the arm and pulling him up close to him. "I ought to 'start' that fellow. He was going to be awful mean to me if we had started for New York. Why don't you go and get the key?"
Enoch went but he did not know where he was going to find the boatswain. At the head of the gangway he met a Britisher coming down with his arm in a sling, and he asked him if he could show the man to him.
"Yes, I can," said the sailor. "He has gone to Davy's locker sure. I'll bet he won't start me any more. Come on and I will show him to you."
Enoch followed him to the deck and there, where the British had gathered to meet the boarders from the sloop and but a little way from his captain, lay the boatswain with an ugly thrust from a cutlass near his heart. By feeling of his pockets on the outside Enoch soon discovered his bunch of keys, and he soon had possession of them.
"You will not get a chance at that boatswain on this trip," said Enoch, as he proceeded to open the door. "He has gone where he can't hurt you nor anybody else by 'starting' him. He is killed."
He opened the door and Caleb fairly jumped into his arms. After they had embraced each other for a minute or two Caleb asked after his mother.
"Of course she felt very bad to know that you had been taken prisoner, but she did not cry," said Enoch. "I told her that when I came back to-night I should fetch you with me, and I am going to keep my promise."