She immediately appeared, and I handed her the clothes and also my sou'wester, which I had taken from my cabin after quitting the deck.
"What is to be the signal?" she asked.
"Three blows of my heel over your cabin. There is a spare cabin next door for you to use, as your father ought not to see you."
"I will contrive that he does not see me," she answered. "He fell asleep just now when I was talking to him. I had better not leave him, for if he should wake up and call for me, I should not like to show myself in these clothes for fear of frightening him; whereas if I stop here I can dress myself by degrees and can answer him without letting him see me."
"There is plenty of time," I said. "The bo'sun relieves the carpenter at midnight. I will join the bo'sun when the carpenter has left the deck. Here is my watch—you have no means of knowing the time without quitting your cabin."
"Is the night dark?"
"Very dark. Nothing could be better. Have no fear," I said, handing her my watch; "we shall get the bo'sun safely stowed below, and with him a crow-bar. The carpenter will find it rather harder than he imagines to scuttle the ship. He—I mean the bo'sun—is sound asleep, and snoring like a field-marshal on the eve of glory. His trumpeting is wonderfully consoling, for no man could snore like that who forbodes a dismal ending of life."
I took her hand, receiving as I did so a brave smile from her hopeful, pretty face, and left her.
Without much idea of sleeping, I lay down under a blanket, but fell asleep immediately, and slept as soundly, if not as noisily, as the boatswain, until eleven o'clock.
The vessel's motion was now easier; she did not strain, and was more on an even keel, which either meant that the wind had fallen or that it had drawn aft.