I took them by surprise, be sure of it. That opening trap, the light flashing down upon them, the message when they had begun to despair of any message, the call to action—aye, how they leaped up to answer me with ready words!
"To God be the glory!" cries Peter Bligh, and I can hear him now. "To God be the glory! 'It was the captain's voice,' says I, before ever you spake a word."
"And oh, aren't we sick of it—just sick of it!" chimes in Dolly Venn as he climbs the ladder like a cat and stands willingly at my side.
I pressed his hand, and showed him the revolver I carried.
"Whip it out, lad, whip it out," said I; "we've work to do to-night for ourselves and another. Oh, I count on you all, Dolly, as I never counted before!"
He would have said something to this, I make sure, but the others came through the trap while I spoke, and four more astonished men never stood in a cavern to ask, "What next?"
"The ladder to the reef side," said I, putting their surprise by and turning to the Italian in whose hands our lives might lie; "can men hold the top of it, or is it best taken by the sea?"
He answered me with a dramatic gesture and a face which spoke his warning.
"At the rockside it is straight; they shoot you from the top, captain. No man go up there from this place. They fire guns, make noise."
"And the report will call the others," said I. "So be it; but we'll close that door, anyway."