sper into the darkness:

"Are you there, Chevalier?"

There was a slight movement beneath, as if he drew closer to where I
was.

"Yes, it is all right," he returned, his voice so modulated as to be
barely audible. "But I discover nothing in this darkness to aid in
reaching the deck. Know you where a rope can be secured?"

"Ay; lie quiet until I return."

It was a bit ticklish, yet required doing. A trip to the foremast put
in my possession quite a section of line sliced from off the rope's end
previously left dangling from the upper yard. Incidentally as I passed
back and forth I revisited Father Cassati, still resting easily in his
bonds, but now peacefully sleeping off his earlier potations
undiscovered upon the hard deck. Returning with my treasure, I payed
it out into the intense blackness of the cuddy hole, and anxiously
awaited developments below.

Nor had I long to wait--there came a touch on the line followed by a
firmer pull, as if the party below tested its strength. For a moment
the cord wiggled about as if the man was working with his end to some
purpose, then there followed three sharp jerks which I interpreted to
mean to hoist away. I promptly put my full strength to it, bracing
both feet firmly against a heavy cross-piece of timber, evidently
nailed there for that very purpose. The rope ran over a small roller
set close against the coaming, which I had failed to observe in my
hasty search, so I found the strain less than expected, although a
heavy weight was evidently attached to the other end. But I uplifted
this, for I was vain of my strength in those days, and the distance was
not so great but that shortly his hands managed to grip hold upon the
deck planks, and a moment later he stood beside me, complacent and
debonair as ever, in the dense shadows of the galley.

"_Sacre_! 'tis a most scurvy trick we are playing on the Dons, friend
Benteen," he murmured smiling easily, while peering about him in the
darkness. "And now, what is the next act in this midnight melodrama,
most cautious youth?"

"The keeping of a still tongue until we are both overboard," I replied
somewhat roughly. "Follow me closely, and keep quiet about it, if you
retain the slightest care for your life."

It was not much of a trick, the rest of it, and within five minutes we
were silently floating down the great river, through the darkness,
seeking after some quiet landing-place below the fleet.

CHAPTER I