"What were you doing with all those bottles?" asked Raymond.
"What bottles?" demanded Little.
"We saw you take a lot of bottles from the ballast there," replied Raymond, whose party had been discussing the probable use to which they were to be applied, though they reached no satisfactory conclusion.
"Well, I'll tell you what they were for," answered Little. "We were going to have some fun, pelting them with stones, just as we used to play duck on shore, you know; but we concluded not to do so, lest the stewards in the kitchen should hear the noise, and make a row about it—that's all."
"Where are you going now?" inquired Lindsley, who was not quite satisfied with this lucid explanation—as though fellows engaged in a mutiny would care to amuse themselves pelting bottles!
"We have just made up our minds that it is not quite safe to stay down here any longer."
"Why not?"
"Suppose they should fasten us in?"
"Suppose they should? I thought you intended to stay down here," said Raymond, who concluded that the runaways were very fickle in their purposes.
"We did intend to do so; but we hadn't looked over all the ground. It has just occurred to us that the thirty lambs, who kiss the rod that smites them, would not come into the steerage to-night. It will take about the whole of them to stand watch, and if any of them go below, they will sleep on the floor of the main and after cabins, where they cannot be corrupted by such wicked fellows as you and I, Raymond. So, you see, if we can't get up any sensation by sleeping on the ballast, what's the use of making yourself uncomfortable for nothing. That's the idea. Let us go into the steerage, and turn in for the night."