Miss Milly seemed to really enjoy her secret knowledge of the stowaway’s presence, and before the Success reached port she several times called him to the bulkhead, ostensibly for the purpose of finding out if he was all right, and was not going hungry. She supplied him with water, too, these last two or three days, and he no longer had to leave the hold on midnight foraging expeditions.
“We shall be in this evening—perhaps before dark—so father told me last night,” she whispered to him one morning, and Brandon’s heart leaped for joy at the information.
Slowly, indeed, did that day pass.
The Success was beating up toward Savannah against a light head wind, which gave promise of becoming an off shore gale before it was through with. Fortunately, the brig escaped it, taking a tug about the middle of the afternoon, and pulling into her dock about dark.
“Thank Heaven!” was Brandon’s mental ejaculation, when this information was whispered through the crack in the bulkhead door to him, and he was indeed devoutly grateful.
His life in the hold from the time of departure from New York, had been a continual fever of impatience and doubt, and now that the real danger of attempting to escape was at hand, he was rejoiced. In a short time he would know whether he was to be free, or in Jim Leroyd’s power.
Milly had informed him that Captain Frank was exceedingly hard on all stowaways (as sea captains usually are, in fact), and he had no doubt but that he would be placed in a very uncomfortable, if not dangerous, position if the doughty captain should discover him.
Leroyd, of course, would step forward at once and declare that he (Brandon) was wanted in New York for robbery, and that fact could be proved by telegraphing, should the Savannah officers desire to do so. Then, if the whaleback steamer was not in, he should be absolutely friendless, and at the mercy of the vindictive sailor.
He lay close up against the door of the bulkhead all through the early evening. Some of the crew, he judged by what he heard, were allowed to go ashore for a few hours, and a part of the officers went with them—which officers, however, he could not tell.
There was both a first and second mate on the Success.