“Have you thought of anything?” I asked.
“Nothing, but that we must escape,” he answered.
“Could we manage that after the ship reaches Vera Cruz?”
“No, for a surety. We shall be watched as cats watch mice. If we ever set foot on a quay-side in that accursed port, master, we are dead men. God help us! I know what the mercies of these Spaniards are. I stood in the City of Mexico and saw two Englishmen burnt. That was ten years ago. But more of that anon. Let us see to the present. We are dead men, I say, if we set foot in Vera Cruz, or any port of that cruel region.”
“Then there is but one thing for us,” I said.
“And that, master?”
“We must leave this ship before she drops anchor.”
“That is a good notion,” said he, “a right good notion; but the thing is, how to do it?”
“Could we not take one of the boats some night, and get away in it?”
“Aye, but there are many things to consider. We should have to victual it, and then we might run short, for we should have no compass, and no notion, or very little, of our direction. We might starve to death, or die of thirst.”