Procuring the keys and the dark lantern, Mary started. There was some delay at setting out, in consequence of her being unable to open the first door. Try with all her force, though she would and did, she could not turn the key in the lock. And she was on the point of giving it up as hopeless, when the key yielded. At least a quarter of an hour must have been hindered over this.
It was colder by far in the passage than it had been those other nights, for the time of the year was later: cold, and damp, and wofully dreary. Mary's courage oozed out at every step. Once she paused, questioning whether she could go on with this, but she reasoned herself into it. She reached the other end, set her light on the floor, and put the key into this second door.
Meanwhile the boats had come in, been hauled up on the beach, and the goods were being landed. The men worked with a will. They wore sea-boots and waded through the water with the bales on their shoulders. Much jabbering was carried on, for some of the sailors were foreigners; but all spoke in covert tones. No one could be near enough to hear them, by land or by sea; they felt well assured of that; but it was always best to be prudent. The sailors were working as they worked on board ship, open and undisguised; Commodore Teague was undisguised; but the other three men--for there were three others--wore capes and had huge caps tied on over their ears and brows; and in the uncertain light their best friends might not have known them. Two of these, it is as well to say it, were Tom Dance and his son; the other was a tall, slender, fine-figured young man, who seemed to look on, rather than to work, and who had not the heavy sea-boots on. But there was no sign of the Master of Greylands. The bales were carried up and put down in the dry, close to the walls of the Keep. When all the goods that were to come out of the ship should be landed, then the sailors would help to carry them through the passage to the cellars of the Hutt, before finally returning on board.
"Where you lay de pistols?" asked a sailor in imperfect English, as he slung down a huge bale from his shoulder.
"Down there as usual, Jansen," replied another, pointing to some raised stone-work projecting from the walls of the Keep. "And the cutlasses too. Where should they be!"
"What do Jansen ask that for, Bill?" questioned one, of the last speaker.
"I get a bad dream last night," said Jansen, answering for himself. "I dream we all fighting, head, tail, wi' dem skulking coastguard. 'Jack,' he says to me in dream, 'where de knives, where de pistols?'--and we search about and we not find no knives, no pistols, and dey overpower us, and I call out, an' den I wake."
"I don't like them dreams," cried one of the ship's crew. "Dreams be hanged; there's nothing in 'em," struck in Tom Dance. "I dreamed one night, years ago, as my old mother was lying dead afore me: stead o' that, she told me next day she'd get married again if I didn't behave myself."
"Bear a hand here, Dance," said the Commodore.
At this moment, there was heard the sounds of a boat, clashing up through the waters.