I made her drink a cup of rum from a wicker-bound jar that stood on the floor and took a dram myself. It was wicked stuff, raw and almost proof, but I felt a great deal the better for it. I also pocketed some cold meat and bread. Famished as I was, I would not stop to eat; but I meant us to make a meal at the first opportunity.
Suddenly, from somewhere quite close at hand, voices reached my ear. Swiftly I drew the galley door towards me and peeped through the crack. Silhouetted against the firelight two figures were striding rapidly towards the hut. One of them, a great black shape, went with a limp.
In a flash, without a noise, I pulled the door to and flattening my palm on the candle, extinguished it, plunging the galley into darkness.
"We must get out by the back," I whispered to Marjorie at my side.
"There is no way!" she replied. "There is not even a window in the back room!"
"Then stay here behind the door!" I told her. "And, whatever happens.... whatever happens, do you understand?.... don't make a sound but leave things to me. And when I say 'Run,' run!...."
In a bound I was at the mulatto's side and had dragged him by the feet into the inner room. It was a fetid, black hole. I felt the outline of a truckle bed against the farther wall. I flung the cook down on it and spread a blanket over him. I was back in the galley at Marjorie's side just as a heavy footstep rang on the hard earth without.
Then the hut door was violently flung open.
"Pizarro!" called a thick voice in Spanish. "Pizarro! Nombre de Dios! Is the man deaf?"
We pressed ourselves flat against the wall as the door swung inwards. A white gleam of light pierced the darkness of the room and showed up clearly the rough panels of the door at the other end.