ON BOARD THE VIXEN
"Give it up, Phil. You couldn't make it in a hundred years."
"Never say die, Andy. I shall keep right on trying."
"Wasting time. We'll never get out of this hole except through the door
that let us in."
"Then it's the door I'll try next," declared Phil dauntlessly. "I've
managed to dig out all the lead that these window bars are sunk in.
Give me a two-foot bar of iron or a stout oak cudgel, and I'd open the
way to liberty in ten minutes."
"And what then, Phil? A drop into nobody knows how many fathoms of
water, a shot from the ship if we're seen, a two mile swim. No," and
Andy shook his head decidedly. "We're in a bad box, and we've got to
make the best of it."
While Phil Warrington talked, he was working with the blade of a big
jackknife at the wooden casing of a barred window at the rear of the
hold of the British man-o'-war, _Vixen_. Andy lay stretched on a
mattress on the floor, watching his companion.
It was over two weeks since the young captives had found themselves
afloat. It had taken old Dobbin and Peters and Swithins all of one day
to reach the coast. The two British spies had signaled a ship in the
distance. A yawl put ashore, the old horse was turned loose, and after
a brief row over the fast-darkening waters, Phil and Andy were hoisted
aboard the _Vixen_. They were immediately conveyed to their present
prison place and locked in.
The little strong room in the rear hold was an apartment having a heavy
door set in a strong partition and two barred windows about eight feet
above the water mark. Here the boys had remained close captives. An
old mattress comprised their bed. Twice a day a gruff old fellow in a
semi-naval uniform brought them their meals, which consisted of the
ordinary ship fare. The man never addressed them, and they asked him no
questions.
The lads had seen nothing of either Peters or Swithins until that
morning. The former had been let into the prison room by their jailer
and the door locked behind him. He looked surly and ill at ease, and
Phil decided that he acted like a man who had met with some hitch in
his plans.
"See here, Warrington," observed Peters, "I don't fancy you care about
taking a trip to England."
"I don't exactly ask to go," responded the Boston boy.
"It wouldn't be on request," growled Peters. "There will be a good many
traitors sent over the water before long."
"Why, what for?" queried Andy, with an innocent expression of face.
"King George will answer that when they come to trial," said Peters, in
a tone meant to be very impressive. "They're not likely to come back
again,--that is, if the supply of English gallows trees doesn't give
out. You can grin, you impudent young jackanapes," the man continued
to the undismayed Andy, "but you'll laugh the other side of your mouth
before this affair is done with, I can tell you. Once aboard the
traitor's ship, it means that you took a man's chances in acting the
spy on his majesty's loyal subjects, and you'll have to take a man's
punishment."
"Like a man, exactly," nodded Andy, quite buoyantly. "All right,
governor--bring along your traitor ship, we aren't afraid, only you've
got something else up your sleeve. You aren't the kind to come
consoling us or scaring us without a purpose."
"I'm not talking to you," snarled Peters wrathfully, turning his back
on the imperturbable Andy. "See here, Warrington, your folks are a good
deal worried over your absence."
"I'm sorry," said Phil, "but you don't seem disposed to mend the
situation."
"Yes, I am," declared Peters quite eagerly. "That's what I've come for."
"Yes, that's what he came for. I told you so," piped Andy airily. "Out
with it, governor."
"See here, you fellows are pretty young. I've got sons of my own, and
know how it is with boys. My evidence settles your case, so I've been
thinking."
"He's been thinking!" mimicked Andy. "A penny for your thoughts,
governor."
"You write a note to your father," plunged on Peters, more rapidly.
"I'll dictate it. You are to say about the awful fix you're in, and all
that. He's to pay a bill for your keep I shall present to him. Well,
say a hundred pounds. Then I'll see that you and your mate here get
home safe. Understand?"
"No, I don't understand," replied Phil simply. "In other words, you
want to exact a ransom from my father. He is in business trouble, he
has no money to waste on such a villainous proposition as you name. He
wouldn't treat with you on principle. I will write no letter to him nor
have anything to do with the affair, on such a basis."
"You won't, eh?" shouted Peters, fairly wild with chagrin and
disappointment. "Then I'll find a way to make you sweat for it--you see
if I don't!" And with that the Tory flounced out of the room.
"You see, we are not going to get out of this except by our own
exertions," said Phil, and forthwith set at work on the barred window.
The _Vixen_ lay at anchor most of the time. She was quite a distance
north of Boston, Phil calculated, and about two miles from the shore.
Twice she had run down the coast in the night and had sent the small
boats ashore, but on each occasion had returned to her present
anchorage.
Properly speaking, the _Vixen_ did not appear to be a regular war
vessel, but from what they had seen when first brought aboard of
the vessel, the captives decided that she was on armed duty of some
sort. There were several small cannon on the deck, and a drill was in
progress over their heads for an hour each morning.
Phil found the bars of the hold window sunk through a frame of oak and
imbedded in lead. He managed to dig out all of the lead that anchored
three of the steel bars. This loosened the bars, but he could not force
them out. It was towards late afternoon when he boasted to his less
industrious comrade of how easily they might escape, if they had some
instrument to bend the bars or force them out of place.
Both boys hurried each to one of the windows in their prison room, as
some unusual commotion on the deck was followed by shouts echoing from
a distance across the waters.
"Hello!" cried Andy, peering. "Some kind of a big sailboat is coming to
this vessel. There, she's veered out of range. Wonder what's up, Phil?"
The shouts grew nearer. The listening boys could trace the apparent
arrival at the side of the ship of the craft they had momentarily
viewed. There were turbulent greetings on the deck. A moment later the
same sailboat fell astern. It was paid out at the end of a rope about a
cable's length, so as to be free of collision with the ship, the rope
was secured somewhere on the deck, and the new arrival floated up and
down at anchorage.
It was a very large sailboat, and had good breadth of beam and a
sort of storage pit, which seemed to be heavily loaded, and which was
covered by a sheet of canvas battened down at the sides.
"Wonder what the craft is, anyhow," spoke Andy speculatively.
"Yes, and what is its load?" supplemented Phil. "I say, Andy, I have an
idea."
"Speak it out, Phil," directed Andy.
"You know those men, Peters and Swithins, talked a good deal about a
load they were to order delivered at Storm Cove."
"I remember," nodded Andy.
"This may be that load," suggested Phil. "Powder to blow up some town?
Arms for some of the traitorous mob in the settlements? Wish I had a
chance to investigate."
The mysterious craft gave the boys a scheme for speculation for a long
time. There was considerable uproar overhead. About an hour after the
sailboat had arrived, a small yawl put out from the side of the larger
craft, past the rear hold windows. It contained a man and a boy. The
latter was rowing. His back was to the two interested onlookers.
When they arrived at the sailboat, the boy held the yawl steady, while
his companion clambered aboard. He lifted the canvas, secured a small
keg, and placed it in the sailboat.
"Spirits, I'll bet," said Andy. "They'll have a high time on board
here, I suspect. Oh, my!"
Andy's whole body gave an excited jerk, his eyes bulged, and he pressed
his eager face close to the bars of the window.
"Look, Phil," he added, staring at the yawl, now coming back to the
_Vixen_. "Sure as you live, that boy is our old friend, Burt Noble!"