About eight o’clock in the evening a squad of sailors came down to the captives.
These had no choice but to obey the order to follow him which the second officer gave them.
What was going on above? Was their liberty about to be restored to them? Or had a party been formed against Robert Borupt to restore Captain Gould to the command of the Flag?
When they were brought up on to the deck in front of all the crew, they saw Borupt waiting for them at the foot of the mainmast. Fritz and Frank cast a vain glance within the poop, the door of which was open. No lamp or lantern shed a gleam of light within.
But as they came up to the starboard nettings, the boatswain could see the top of a mast rocking against the side of the ship.
Evidently the ship’s boat had been lowered to the sea.
Was Borupt preparing, then, to put the captain and his friends aboard her and cast them adrift in these waters, abandoning them to all the perils of the sea, without the least idea whether they were near any land?
And the unfortunate women, too, were they to remain on board, exposed to such appalling danger?
At the thought that they would never see them more, Fritz and Frank and James determined to make a last attempt to set them free, though it should end in dying where they stood.
Fritz rushed to the side of the poop, calling Jenny. But he was stopped, as Frank was stopped, and James was stopped before he heard any answer from Susan to his call. They were overpowered at once, and despite resistance were lowered with Captain Gould and John Block over the nettings into the ship’s boat, which was fastened alongside the vessel by a knotted cable.