Again Archie once more found it impossible to take the adventure seriously. He began to laugh. It was far too much like the romances 167 he had read to be real. It was play, it seemed––just like a game of smugglers and pirates, played on a summer’s afternoon.
“Is it you, Archie?” the skipper whispered again.
Archie chuckled aloud.
“Is the wind in the west?” the skipper asked.
“Ay,” Archie replied; “and blowing a smart sailing breeze.”
“Haste, then, lad!” said the skipper. “’Tis time t’ be off for Ruddy Cove.”
The window was low. With his crowbar Archie wrenched a bar from its socket. It came with a great clatter. It made the boy’s blood run cold to hear the noise. He pried the second and it yielded. Down fell a block of stone with a crash. While he was feeling for a purchase on the third bar Skipper Bill caught his wrist.
“Hist, lad!”
It was a footfall in the corridor. Skipper Bill slipped into the darkness by the door––vanished like a shadow. Archie dropped to the ground. By what unhappy chance had Deschamps come upon this visitation? Could it have been the silence of Skipper Bill? Archie 168 heard the cover of the grating drawn away from the peep-hole in the door.
“He’s gone!”