"That's good," cried Pyne quite pleasantly. "Where is your pouch? I feel like a smoke. If I hadn't fired that question at you I should have wasted a lot of time in hard thinking."
Brand had to scheme that night to reach the store-room unobserved. The Falcon, steaming valiantly to her observation post near the buoy, aided him considerably. He permitted the night watch to gather in the service-room whilst he supplied the men with tobacco, and stationed the officer on the gallery to observe the trawler in case she showed any signal lights.
Since the attempt on the lock Constance gave the key to her father after each visit. For the rest, the inmates of the pillar were sunk in the lethargy of unsatisfied hunger. Constance and Enid, utterly worn out with fatigue, were sound asleep in the kitchen, and the tears coursed down the man's face as he acted the part of a thief in securing the measured allowance of flour and bacon for one meal. The diet of one hungry meal for eighty-one people gave twenty-seven hungry meals for three. He ought to have taken more, but he set his teeth and refused the ungrateful task.
It is oft-times easy for a man to decide upon a set course, but hard to follow it.
"A week!" he murmured. "Perhaps ten days! That is all. Pray Heaven I may not go mad before they die!"
Pyne, watching the light, knew that Brand had succeeded. The Falcon went; gradually the watch dispersed.
"Where is the hoard?" asked Pyne, making believe that they were playing some comedy.
"Hidden in the kitchen lockers. I could obtain only distilled water. You must persuade the girls in the morning that something went wrong with the apparatus."
As opportunity offered, Brand transferred the tins to the lockers of the service-room. Pyne, who missed nothing, shook his head when it became evident that the last consignment was safely stored away.
"Not much there," he commented.