‘What care I for blackness? I know where the fore-peak is. It’s a place right forward under the forecastle. It’ll be the place for me to hide in. You’ll be able easily to contrive to help me to drop below into it.’
‘You’re never in earnest?’
‘Don’t say that! I must be with Tom. I have sworn to myself to follow him, and wouldn’t it be a sure way, the only sure way, of my being with him, of my getting to the same place he’s bound to, of my ending all risks of missing him and finding that he’d been sent to another settlement which, without friends to help me, I might never be able to hear of—wouldn’t my sailing in his ship be the only sure way for him and me to keep together?’
The young fellow grew thoughtful as he listened.
‘I don’t say,’ he exclaimed, ‘that it’s quite impossible; but look here, Marian. Suppose, if only for the sake of argument, I call over the roll of such objections as occur to me.’
‘Do so.’
‘I’ll suppose that you are dressed as a boy and that you deceive the eye.’ I nodded. ‘I’ve agreed to sneak you on board, but how am I to do it.’
‘A little thinking will show us.’
‘I succeed,’ he continued, ‘in getting you into the fore-peak unobserved. How long are you to be kept below?’
‘I’ll go on board,’ said I, ‘when the ship is alongside the hulk. I’m your friend, a visitor. You’ll be on the look-out for me. Who’ll notice us? You’ll easily walk me forward under pretence of showing me the ship. Tell me this: Where do you ship your crew?’