He laughed, but without much merriment, and said: ‘Suppose I smuggle you into the fore-peak when we’re off Woolwich. We may be a week beating down Channel, and another week before we’ve got far enough to suit you to show yourself. Head winds are head winds at sea. How are you going to feed yourself in the black hole?’
‘We’ll lay in a stock of provisions,’ said I.
‘Who’s to stow the grub?’
‘You—by degrees.’
He laughed again and said: ‘How are you going to find where the food is? You’re not to be trusted with a light down there, you know.’
‘The food must be placed where I can put my hand on it in the dark.’
‘And before we’ve been twenty-four hours under way the hatch is lifted, and down drops a huge whiskered man called a bo’sun with a lighted lantern right on top of you.’
‘No hatch can be lifted in such a hurry,’ said I, ‘but that I can find time to hide myself. But pray go on spinning these little cobwebs which you call difficulties.’
‘I’ve knocked up a regular barricade already,’ said he; ‘something bigger than you’re going to climb, Marian.’
‘Do you think so?’ I said, smiling. ‘Well, I’ll heighten your barricade for you, and still you shall help me to scale it. I’m a boy stowaway; I must carry nothing to sea but the clothes I stand in. But you’ll ship a large crew, and you’ll have a big slop-chest, so there’ll be the materials for a rig-out when I want one. I emerge when the proper time comes and am walked aft to the captain. Now, what will he do with me? He may put me on the articles as an ordinary seaman. That must certainly end in my helping the cook or doing cabin-work. But then, there’s my sex to fall back upon in case of impracticable duties. I declare myself a woman—let them invent a motive for my being on board; they’ll find me dumb in that. Some of the guard are sure to be married, the wives will be on board, and there’ll be female quarters for me if I own my sex. But it will be a strong forcing of my hand to bring me to it. Once a boy, Will, I’m a boy till I step ashore.’