As soon as the door closed behind him, we began to plead.
“Captain,” said Milicent, “you and Mr. Holliway must go. We will not consent to anything else.”
“We should be regular deserters to do that,” said Locke contemptuously. “I think the old fellow is exaggerating. Or maybe he is pumping us. Holliway and I will walk down the street and see.”
We thought this was madness, and we were miserable from the moment they left until they were safely back. Captain Locke was, as always, at his ease, but Mr. Holliway was very pale. He knew, as Milicent and I did not, the risk we were all running, and he was more concerned perhaps for Locke’s safety than for his own. For him arrest meant prison at the worst—for Locke, a halter.
“The Dutchman is right,” he said in answer to our questions. “We stopped outside several places and heard them talking about us and our arrest. We are practically prisoners.”
He tried to speak cheerfully and as if it would be a sure and easy matter to find some way out of our predicament; but the truth was that he had been struggling all along against great depression of spirits; his health was bad, the incident of the first night of our journey had impressed him, and he had evidently felt himself under a cloud ever since our experience at the provost’s.
“That talk doesn’t amount to much,” said Captain Locke carelessly.
The room in which we were sitting was that which had been taken for Milicent’s and my bedroom. Captain Locke got up, walked to the door and locked it.
“You have needles and thread, I think, ladies?”
Milicent and I immediately produced them and slipped on our thimbles. He handed Milicent his open knife.