This was better than the slow agony of waiting in silence, but Joe spoiled it by turning lovelorn and Jack bemourned fair Dorothy Stuart of Charles Town whom he would never greet again, and they sang very softly together a verse of "The Maid's Lamentation" which went like this:
"There shall be no Scarf go on my Head,
No Comb into my Hair,
No Fire burn, no Candle light
To shew my Beauty fair,
For never will I married be
Until the Day I die,
Since the Seas and the Winds
Has parted my Love and me."
This left them really in worse spirits than before, and they drowsed off to sleep, and no wonder, after such a night as they had passed. Accustomed to broken watches, Joe Hawkridge slept uneasily with one ear open. Once or twice he sat up, heard Jack's steady snores, and lay down again. It was the ship's bell which finally brought him to, and he counted the strokes.
"Five bells, but what watch is it?" he muttered anxiously. "How long was I napping? Lost track o' the time, so I have, and can't say if it's night or day."
He sat blinking into the darkness and then had an inspiration. So staunch and well-kept was the brig that the deck seams were tight and no light filtered through. Joe left his hiding-place and groped along to where he thought the main hatch ought to be. Gazing upward he saw a gleam like a silvered line between the coaming and the edge of the canvas cover which was battened with iron bars. This persuaded him that the day had not yet faded, and he concluded that he had heard the bell strike either in the afternoon watch or the second dog watch of early evening.
This he imparted to Jack, after prodding him awake. They mulled it over and agreed that Captain Bonnet must have found the Revenge unready to weigh anchor or he would have engaged the brig ere this. Perhaps there was not breeze enough for either vessel to move. Another hour of this stressful tedium and they heard a sound of sharp significance. It was the lap-lap of water against the vessel's side. No more than the thickness of the planking was between them and this tinkling sea, and Joe exclaimed, in an agitated whisper:
"A breeze o' wind! Gentle it draws, but steady, like it comes off the land at sundown."
"The same as it did when we were blown offshore on the little raft, after we quitted the Plymouth Adventure," replied Jack.
"Blackbeard will take advantage of it to make for the open sea. There be three things offered us, Master Cockrell, to starve or go mad in this blighted hold, to sally on deck and beg mercy, which means a short shift, or to climb out softly in the night and try to swim for it."
"Swim to what, Joe?"