“Look here,” said Bill suddenly, “I tell you what we can do: let one of us pretend to commit suicide, and write a letter as Slushey here ses, saying as ’ow we’re gone overboard sooner than be starved to death. It ’ud scare the old man proper; and p’raps he’d let us start on the other meat without eating up this rotten stuff first!”
“How’s it to be done!” asked Simpson, staring.
“Go an’ ’ide down the fore ’old,” said Bill “There’s not much stuff down there. We’ll take off the hatch when one of us is on watch to-night, and—whoever wants to—can go and hide down there till the old man’s come to his senses. What do you think of it, mates?”
“It’s all right as an idea,” said Ned slowly, “but who’s going?”
“Tommy,” replied Bill simply.
“Blest if I ever thought of him,” said Ned admiringly, “did you, cookie?”
“Never crossed my mind,” said the cook.
“You see the best o’ Tommy’s going,” said Bill, “is that the old man ’ud only give him a flogging if he found it out. We wouldn’t split as to who put the hatch on over him. He can be there as comfortable as you please, do nothing, and sleep all day if he likes. O’ course we don’t know anything about it, we miss Tommy, and find the letter wrote on this table.”
The cook leaned forward and regarded his colleague favourably; then he pursed his lips, and nodded significantly at an upper bunk from which the face of Tommy, pale and scared, looked anxiously down.
“Halloa!” said Bill, “have you heard what we’ve been saying?”