"We don't want a lot o' poppy-cock talk, I reckon," added Leverett. "'Tis just a secret for the seven of us--though," he added under his breath to Carberry, "I'm consarned if I like to work with a slave." Caleb Carberry was a thin, feeble-looking young man who had been cook's mate on the _Marblehead_. He glanced at Cuffee, to whom Leverett referred, and answered aside-- "Sam's all right. No smouch him. Besides, Mister Stark have had him for a servant ever since we sailed." But Leverett shook his head. "I don't trust no black man. I'm fearsome of him. He's always snooking around; and so like as not he'll end by busting on the show." Despite the carpenter's distrust, however, a secret and desperate determination henceforth actuated every member of the Seven, Sam Cuffee included. What skill, energy and intrigue could do, they meant to do. Miller and Stark had personal friends quartered upon parole at Ashburton, some fifteen miles distant, and their purpose now was to escape from Prince Town, enter into communication with these Americans, and so win to the sea-coast and to France. "Hunger will break through a stone wall," said the Commodore. "How much more may love of liberty do it!" CHAPTER II A BRACE OF FOWLS The result of their Agent's visit was manifested in various ways to the American prisoners at Prince Town. Some sank back upon despair and cursed each grey morning's light, as it awakened them from the blessed oblivion of sleep; many entered the British Service, and of these not a few were American only in name, for their birthplace was England and they had fought in the enemy's privateers, tempted thereto by handsome payment. Others, like the leaders of the Seven, to whom such surrender meant dishonour, dreamed of escape and occupied their energies with projects and plots toward liberty. But practical good ultimately accrued to the prisoners from Mr. Reuben Blazey's brief appearance on Dartmoor. That gentleman, perhaps in thanksgiving upon the discovery that he had not taken smallpox, stirred himself to some purpose after all, and not a few of the grievances that Cecil Stark had set forth were presently redressed. The Transport Board sanctioned the renewal of the market in Prison No. 4; the place was entirely divided from its fellows for the greater comfort of those who dwelt there; the French outcasts were put into durance apart, and the negroes, with sole exception of Sam Cuffee, Stark's servant, were also removed from among the Americans.