Notwithstanding their misfortune, Owen and his companions managed to discuss the viands placed before them with tolerable appetites, the two seamen and Pompey especially doing their part. At length Owen threw himself into his cot, and endeavoured to forget his sorrows in sleep. His followers, having secured the trap-door, imitated his example.
The next day passed without a visit from O’Harrall. Pompey alone went below to obtain food, Owen thinking it prudent to follow the pirate’s advice. He spent the time walking up and down the room, occasionally trying to calm his mind by reading; so that he found the hours pass away more rapidly than did Dan or Tim, who were ignorant of the art. It occurred to him at last that he might amuse them as well as himself, and as several of his books were of an interesting character, he read aloud to them, greatly to their delight.
“Faix, captin, I niver knew there was sich beautiful things in books,” exclaimed Dan, who had not in his life been read to before; “and I’ll jist make bould to axe you to tache Tim and meself, and you’ll find us apt scholars, if you don’t think us too simple to learn.”
“With all my heart,” answered Owen; and thenceforth he devoted several hours during the day to the instruction of Dan and the lad, who, giving their minds to the task, rapidly learnt to read.
One day passed very much like another. A month went by without O’Harrall’s making his appearance, so that Owen concluded that he had again sailed. Pompey could obtain no information. Mammy, he said, had made him promise not to go outside the door, and had threatened him with fearful punishment if he ventured to do so. There were windows to the room, but they were high up and strongly barred. Dan and Tim climbed up to them, but a grove of trees intervened between the house and the harbour, so that nothing could be seen of the vessels, while on the other side was a wide extent of sandy country, with the blue ocean in the distance.
Owen was naturally getting very weary of his captivity. What the pirate’s object was in keeping him a prisoner, it was difficult to understand. He could scarcely intend to keep him a captive for life; but when would he give him his liberty was the question. Owen determined to ask him as soon as he returned. He naturally often thought over some plan for making his escape, but, unacquainted as he was with the surrounding country, and without means of gaining any knowledge of it, it was impossible to decide what to do. Dan and Tim often talked over the subject with Pompey, who, however, declared that they were so narrowly watched by the old woman that it would be impossible to succeed.
“Mammy always sleep wid one eye open and ear wide-awake,” he observed. “Suppose we get out and she not raise a hullabaloo, where we go to? Wait a bit, and den we see what we do.”
Pompey, in truth, was no more able than the rest of the party to devise any feasible plan for getting away.
Imprisonment is galling to all men, but it was especially so to Owen, who had hoped to make a successful voyage, and to marry his beloved Norah at the end of it. He had no means of communicating with her, and she, naturally supposing him to be lost, would be plunged in grief. He felt that he could better bear his hard fate if he could but let her know that he was alive. He might some day regain his liberty. He had no doubts about her constancy; he was sure that she would be faithful to him; and although her friends might try to induce her to marry, he felt confident that she would not do that.
At length, one evening when Pompey was sitting with his shipmates in the loft, voices were heard below.