"Oh, of course I mean in wood, painted white with red cheeks," said Captain Tolley. "It brings good luck to have a fine woman for a figure-head—pleases old Nep, you know."
"But we must get her off first," rejoined Master Raymond. "Now to keep out of that hateful jail, she has given her word to Keeper Arnold not to escape. You know she cannot break her word."
"Of course not," replied the Captain; "a lady is like a sailor, she cannot go back on her promise."
"And there is where the trouble comes in."
"Buy Keeper Arnold over."
"I am afraid I cannot—not for a good while at least. They are all down upon him for Captain Alden's escape. They might give him a terrible whipping if another prisoner got off."
The Captain shrugged his shoulders. "Yes, I saw them whip some Quakers once. It was not a good honest lash, but something the hangman had got up on purpose, and which cut to the very bone. I have seen men and women killed, down on the Spanish main, but I never saw a sight like that! Good, harmless men and women too! A little touched here, you know," and the Captain tapped his forehead lightly with his fore-finger.
"Yes—I should not like to hear that Master Arnold had been tortured like that on our account."
"Suppose we carry her off some night by force, she having no hand in the arrangements? She can even refuse to go, you know, if she pleases—we will handle her as gently as a little bird, and you can come up and rescue her, if you choose, and knock down two or three of us. How would that do? Half-a-dozen of the Storm King's men could easily do that. Choose a night with a brisk nor'wester, and we would be past the castle's guns before the sleepy land-lubbers had their eyes open."
Master Raymond shook his head dubiously. "I do not like it—and yet I suppose it must do, if nothing better can be found. Of course if we carry her off bodily, against her will, it would neither be a breaking of her pledge nor expose Keeper Arnold to any danger of after punishment, though he might perhaps get pretty seriously hurt in resisting us, and she would not like that much."