As good luck would have it, the cave was empty. The Arrow must have come in after I had crossed the lough that evening. And the French skipper and his mate had evidently left their crew to anchor and clear the vessel in the roads while they reconnoitred the house.
I could see very little of the ship through the darkness, and, indeed, was too busy making myself scarce to heed her.
Nor had I much time to spare. For almost before I had got round the ledge and clambered partly up the cliff at the top of the cave mouth, I heard a boat putting off and voices making for the little harbour.
After that, fatigue and hunger did their work with me, and despite the peril of my position I fell asleep, and never woke till the sun was high and hot in the heavens.
Then, when I looked out, I saw as pretty a little schooner as I had ever set eyes on lying in the roads. I used to think it hard to beat the Cigale for looks, but the Arrow was her superior in every way. She was a bigger vessel, and armed at every port. Her lines were both light and strong, and by the cut of her rigging I could fancy she had the speed of a greyhound.
The sight of her set all my old sea-longing aflame. Pirate as she was, it would be good, I thought, to be on her and face the open sea, far away from my persecutors and enemies—away from Knockowen, and Kilgorman, and—
Here I stopped short. Knockowen, next to the Cigale where Tim was, held what counted most to me of this world’s good. Kilgorman held the spirit of my dead mother, waiting to be relieved of its trouble. How could I desert the one or the other and call myself a brave man?
What I could not decide, fate decided for me. The cave below me was guarded by the pirate’s men, who clattered their muskets on the stones and kept a keen look-out on all sides for any chance intruder. To quit my present perch would be certain death. So I lay and watched the boat as she plied backwards and forwards with the guns, and wondered how soon the task of loading would be done.
It went on all the day, and every hour I felt myself grow fainter and more sick with hunger. For nearly two days, except last night’s crust, I had tasted nothing; and before that, sea-weed had been the chief article of my diet. The scene presently seemed to swim before me, and at last, what with the heat and famine, I fairly swooned away.
When I came to, two curious faces were bent over me, and my bed was no longer the rocky cliff side, but the hard floor of a boat as it danced over the waves.