he initiated while unlikely to arouse the suspicions of
the rest.

A long conference ensued, at the close of which Dickinson quietly
returned to his hammock with a greatly relieved mind. The others also
retired, but not to sleep. They felt that the decisive moment was at
hand, the moment upon the right use of which depended their liberty, if
not their lives, for they were fully persuaded that if their first
attempt failed they would never be allowed to have another--and, though
still anxious, their recent talk with Dickinson had made them more
hopeful of success than they had ever felt before. Hitherto they had
always been haunted by a lurking doubt; but now they began for the first
time to think that there really _was_ a fair prospect of succeeding if
they faced the dangers and difficulties of the attempt with boldness and
resolution. Their chief anxiety now was how to free their two comrades;
and to this they were as yet quite unable to see their way. Their
anxiety and distress were greatly increased on the following day by
finding that Ralli had given orders that his two prisoners, the skipper
and Lance, were henceforth to be kept in close confinement altogether,
with a double guard fully armed at the door, instead of being released
during the day to work with the others at the shipyard. To be confined
at all in the noisome "Black Hole" was bad enough, and their fortnight's
incarceration had already told visibly on the health of the prisoners,
even when they had had the opportunity of breathing a pure atmosphere
during the day; but now that they were doomed to remain in the place
both day and night their friends became seriously alarmed; they felt
that the sentence was tantamount to one of a slow but certain death.
And the most trying part of it was that there seemed no possibility of
affording any succour to the doomed men; no attempt to help or relieve
them could be devised except such as must necessarily bring the party
into immediate collision with Ralli and his myrmidons.

The Greek had now entirely laid aside all pretence of treating his
prisoners with any show of consideration. They had served his purpose;
he had made them his tools as long as their assistance had been
necessary to the advancement of his ambitious schemes; but now their
help was no longer necessary to him, and he felt free to gratify,
without stint, the malignant and vindictive feeling with which he had
from the first regarded them. O