s to
work at all the meanest tasks, and even when they laboured hardest,
flogged and reviled them, till more and more John Rawlins became
resolved to recover his liberty and surprise the ship. So he provided
ropes with broad spikes of iron, and all the iron crows, with which he
could, with the help of the others, fasten up the scuttles, gratings,
and cabins, and even shut up the captain himself with his companions;
and so he intended to work the enterprise, that, at a certain watchword,
the English being masters of the gunner-room and the powder, would
either be ready to blow the Turks into the air, or kill them as they
came out one by one, if by any chance they forced open the cabins.

Then, very cautiously, he told the four free Dutchmen of his plot, and
last of all the Dutch renegades, who were also in the gunner-room; and
all these consented readily to so daring an enterprise. So he fixed the
time for the venture in the captain's morning watch.

But you must understand that where the English slaves were there always
hung four or five iron crows, just under the gun carriages, and when the
time came it was very dark, so that John Rawlins, in taking out his iron
dropped it on the side of the gun, making such a noise that the
soldiers, hearing it, waked the Turks and told them to come down. At
this the boatswain of the Turks descended with a candle, and searched
everywhere, making a great deal of stir, but finding neither hatchet nor
hammer, nor anything else suspicious, only the iron which lay slipped
down under the gun-carriages, he went quietly up again and told the
captain what had happened, who thought that it was no remarkable thing
to have an iron slip from its place. But through this John Rawlins was
forced to wait for another opportunity.

When they had sailed further northward there happened another suspicious
accident, for Rawlins had told his scheme to the renegade gunner, who
promised secrecy by everything that could induce one to believe in him.
But immediately after he left Rawlins, and was absent about a quarter of
an hour, when he returned and sat down again by him. Presently, as they
were talking, in came a furious Turk, with his sword drawn, who
threatened Rawlins as if he would certainly kill him. This made Rawlins
suspect that the renegade gunner had betrayed him; and he stepped back
and drew out his knife, also taking the gunner's out of its sheath; so
that the Turk, seeing him with _two_ knives,