"We have all made up our minds that what happens to you happens to all of us. We have sailed together in this ship the Good Venture for the last seventeen or eighteen years, and we means to swim or sink together. No disrespect to you, captain; but that is the fixed intention of all of us. It would be a nice thing for us to sail back to the port of London and say as we stood by and saw our captain and his son carried off to be hung or burnt or what not by the Spaniards, and then sailed home to tell the tale. We don't mean no disrespect, captain, I says again; but in this 'ere business we take our orders from Mr. Peters, seeing that you being consarned as it were in the affair ain't to be considered as having, so to speak, a right judgment upon it." "Well, well, we shall see if there is a chance of making a successful fight," Captain Martin said, unable to resist a smile at the sailor's way of putting it. The night was dark, and the two or three oil lamps that hung suspended from some of the houses facing the port threw no ray of light which extended to the shipping. It was difficult to make out against the sky the outline of the masts of the French vessel lying some twenty yards away; but presently Ned's attention was called towards her by a slight splash of her cable. Then he heard the low rumble as the ropes ran out through the hawse holes, and saw that the masts were slowly moving. In two or three minutes they had disappeared from his sight. He went into the cabin. "The Frenchman has gone, father; and so noiselessly that I could hardly hear her. If we can get out as quietly there is little fear of our being noticed." "We cannot be as quiet as that, Ned. She has only to slack away her cables and drift with the tide that turned half an hour ago, we have got to tow out and set sail. However, the night is dark, the wind is off shore, and everything is in our favour. Do you see if there be anyone about on the decks of the ships above and below us." Ned went first on to the stern, and then to the bow. He could hear the voices of men talking and singing in the forecastles, but could hear no movement on the deck of either ship. He went down and reported to his father. "Then, I think, we may as well start at once, Ned. There are still sounds and noises in the town, and any noise we may make is therefore less likely to be noticed than if we waited until everything was perfectly still." The sailors were all ready. All were barefooted so as to move as noiselessly as possible. The four small cannon that the Good Venture carried had been loaded to the muzzle with bullets and pieces of iron. A search had been made below and several heavy lumps of stone, a part of the ballast carried on some former occasion, brought up and placed at intervals along the bulwarks. The pikes had been fastened by a loose lashing to the mast, and the axes leaned in readiness against the cannon.