Glad to escape from their cramped quarters, for the rising tide was beginning to make things far more uncomfortable than before, the two men emerged from the pantry, dragging their prize after them.
It was now quite dark. The rain had ceased, but the sky was overcast. A north-easterly breeze was ruffling the waters of the lagoon. Shorewards there was nothing to denote human occupation. The cliffs of the secret base rose gaunt and forbidding against the faint loom of the sky, with no indication to show the hive of piratical industry that flourished within the limits of those unscaleable precipices.
Very cautiously Burgoyne and his companion crept towards the davit to which had been made fast the rope pinning down the life-boat. The manila had shrunk in the wet to such an extent that the clove hitch had jammed. It was only by using the broken file as a marline spike that Alwyn succeeded in teasing out the tenacious hitch.
The result though expected was nevertheless startling. The whaler, under the buoyancy imparted by six large air-tight copper tanks, bobbed up like a cork, making a splash that might be heard on board the Malfilio and even by the pirates on shore.
"They'm thinkin' it'll be a girt shark," commented Minalto, as he slipped over the side with a bucket to bale the boat.
Burgoyne joined him, and in twenty minutes the bottom boards were figuratively "dry". The exercise also helped to restore the circulation to the cramped limbs of the two men.
There were oars in the boat. Some thoughtful person had considerately lashed them down to the thwart so that they had not floated away; but the question now arose how were the masts and sails to be procured?
"It's too risky making a double trip across the harbour," said Burgoyne. "One would have been bad enough and we've been spared that. And there's the Malfilio to be taken into account, although I don't suppose they'll be so keenly on the look-out as they were when that vessel was using her searchlight. We'll have to swim for them. They will tow easily, since they are in canvas covers."
"I'm on, sir," agreed Minalto.
Both men stripped, and wringing out their saturated clothes spread them over the thwarts of the life-boat. Burgoyne held up the revolver.