“Cosy enough ’ere,” said Orace, switching on his lamp for a moment. “Ain’t much air, though, an’ if ennyone spots the ’atchis undid an’ battens it dahn we shall sufficate in an owrer two,” he added cheerfully. “We mighter done wuss, on the ’ole. But wot’s nex’ on the mean-you, Miss Patricia?”
“How’s Algy?”
Orace focussed the light. Where Mr. Lomas-Coper was not ashen pale he was blue, but apparently his wound had closed up in the salt water, for the bandage round his head was clean. He grinned feebly.
“I’m rather weak, but I’ll be lots better when I’ve warmed up. I’m afraid I’m not much use as a pirate, Pat—it’s this blinkin’ whang on the nut that’s done me in.”
The girl curled up against the bulkhead to give him as much room as possible to stretch out and rest.
“Orace and I will have to go out scouting in relays till you’re better,” she said. “We’ve got to find out where all the Tiger Cubs are before we move—I don’t suppose there’ll be many aboard, but we’ve got to locate them all and arrange to deal with them in batches so that the rest won’t know what’s happening. Then there are those men you saw on the quay. Bloem and Bittle will be here, and the Tiger—they’re the most important and the most dangerous, and we can’t afford to make any mistake about them.”
“I’m fer tykin the single ones as we meet ’em,” said Orace. “I’ll go fust—startin’ naow. An’ when I git me ’ands on ennyer them blankety-blanks they’ll wish they’d never bin bornd. I gotta naccount ter settle wiv this bunch o’ fatherless scum.”
“I’ve also got an account to settle,” remarked Patricia quietly. “So I think I’ll go first.”
Orace was not a man to waste time on argument; he was also something of a strategist.
“We’ll go tergether,” he compromised. “I won’t innerfere, but I’ll be a pairer vize in the backa yer ’ed. Mr. Lomas-Coper won’t ’urt ’ere alonely, will yer, sir?”