"No. I shall not be easy until I get him stowed away in the hold."
"You will see," she exclaimed, "that the poor fellow takes plenty to eat and drink with him?"
"A good deal more than he wants is already there," I answered. "For the last three days he has been dropping odds and ends of food down the fore hatch. Let the worst come to the worst, he had smuggled in enough, he tells me, to last him for a fortnight. Besides, the water-casks are there."
"And how will he manage to sleep?"
"Oh, he'll coil up and snug himself away anyhow. Sailors are never pushed for a bedstead: anything and everything serves. The only part of the job that will be rather difficult is the drowning him. I don't know anything that will make a louder splash and sink quickly too, than a box of nails. The trouble is to heave it overboard without the man at the wheel seeing me do it; and I must contrive to let him think that the boatswain is aft, before I raise the splash, because if this matter is not ship-shape and carried out cleverly, the man, whoever he may be that takes the wheel, will be set thinking and then get on to talking. Now, not the shadow of a suspicion must attend this."
"May I tell you how I think the man who is steering can be deceived?"
"By all means."
She fixed her eyes on the sea and said—
"I must ask some questions first. When you come on deck, will it be the boatswain's or the carpenter's turn to go downstairs?"
"The carpenter's. He must be turned in before I move."