CHAPTER XIII.
A VISIT TO NOTRE-DAME-DE-LA-GARDE.
THE noise made by the Captain in shaking the door aroused Harry, and he sprang up, looking very much frightened.
“It’s not six o’clock yet, is it, sir?” he asked; “I must have fallen asleep just a minute ago.”
“Yes, you are a very valuable man on watch,” the Captain answered. “The fire burned out in that minute while you were asleep, I suppose? And it must have been in the same minute that some one came along and fastened the door and locked us all in here, no doubt.”
“Locked us in, sir!” Harry exclaimed. “Why, there is no one on the island to lock us in. I shut the door some time ago because it was growing colder. But no one could have locked it.”
He went up to the door and shook it, but of course could not open it.
“The bolt must have slipped when I shut it, sir,” he said. “The wind was blowing in so hard.”
“No matter what fastened it,” the Captain replied; “it is enough for us to know that it is fastened. It is much more important to know why you were asleep when I put you on watch. Don’t you know that that is one of the most serious offences you could commit? But I shall have something to say to you about that later on. Start up the fire, and put the remainder of the coffee on to warm.”
It was in no very pleasant frame of mind that Harry set to work at building the fire. There was something in the Captain’s manner that looked ominous. Though it was plain that he was greatly displeased at such a breach of discipline, and the results that had followed it, he was cool and quiet, and that promised worse things for the offender than if he had stormed and blustered. And even in his own mind, Harry could not excuse himself. He had been left on watch and had gone to sleep, and while he slept they had been locked in. He could not help thinking of the death chamber below, and the prisoners called from sleep to be guillotined. He felt, he imagined, very much as they must have felt while walking down the stone steps, chained and guarded, to enter the gloomy chamber.
The noise soon awakened Kit and the chief and Haines, and they could not believe at first that they were really prisoners. But very little experimenting with the door convinced each in turn that it was only too true.