"Can you do it, Red?" asked one.
"Yes, surely," John replied. "So I can to-night."
The whole of the gun-deck forward of the forecastle hatch had been divided, by a strong partition, into a sort of storeroom. There was one entrance into it from above from the topgallant forecastle, where part of the marine guard were stationed, and the other opening onto the hatchway, to be used in case of emergency.
It was just past the midnight watch when four stealthy figures crept out from the shadows into the light of the dingy lantern that hung at the foot of the companionway. At night there was only one sentry stationed there, and he generally sat halfway up the ladder, and it was impossible for the prisoners to tell without crossing the dead-line that was drawn at night whether he was asleep or not. This was the risk that had to be undertaken; for if the man should see any one pass beneath that old rope that was drawn across the deck, he would have a right to fire. If the fellow was asleep, yet to gain the deck above, the venturesome prisoner would have to pass within arm's length of him.
Perhaps John Vance had inherited from his long line of red ancestors the peculiar knack of moving without sound, the art of crawling on his belly like a snake, perhaps he had a acquired it by constant practice since he had been a prisoner. For it was his boast, and one that had been proved to be true, that contrary to rules he had visited every part of the ship, and after hours; as has been told, he had been retaken a number of times when just on the point of making good his escape.
The three seamen who accompanied him on this occasion could see the legs of the sentry from the knee down, as he sat on the steps of the ladder leading to the berth-deck above. They could also see the butt of his musket as it rested beside him. Vance had disappeared in the black shadow that lay along the starboard side, and now the watchers saw a curious thing take place. The sentry's musket suddenly tilted forward, as if of its own volition, and then disappeared backward into the darkness, without a sound, much in the manner of a vanishing slide in a magic lantern. The man's legs did not move.
"He is asleep," whispered Ned Thornton to Bill Pratt.
"He's asleep," reiterated Bill Pratt to Gabe Sackett, who made the fourth one of the "constant plotters," as they were termed by the other prisoners.
But in one minute that sentry was seen to be very wide awake indeed. That is, if movement signified wakefulness. His legs shot out in two vicious and sudden kicks. A hand, with wide-spread, reaching fingers, stretched out as if searching for the missing musket. The man wriggled from one side to another and floundered helplessly, with his body half-way off the edge of the ladder. But not one sound did he utter!
"Red's got hold of him," croaked Thornton, and with the assurance of hunters who had watched their quarry step into the trap that held him fast, they stepped forward without fear or caution.