On a sudden I heard a strange noise. I had been some hours in this place when I caught the sound. It was a sort of dull tremble, regular in its pulse, with a metallic note threading it. I pricked my ears and strained them hard, and my heart then began to beat fast; no, I could not mistake! The sound was the tread of many shackled feet passing over the deck and descending the hatchway and coming into the prison, whose foremost bulkhead partitioned off the hiding-place in which I lay. The noise continued like a flowing of water. I heard no voices, not the dimmest echo of a human cry, nothing but the dim thrill of the tramp of many feet with irons. Perhaps an hour may now have passed. Suddenly the hatch was thumped as though kicked, and the cover lifted. I pulled the sail over me, leaving a corner for one eye to peep out, and lay motionless. ‘I’ll fetch it,’ cried the familiar voice of Will. ‘I saw the stuff stowed, and know where it is. Here, give us hold of the lantern and stop where you are.’ His figure descended; he then raised his arm and received a lighted lantern. I dimly discerned the shadow of another figure in the hatch, the square of which lay in a faint gray. Will stepped from under the hatch, holding the lantern, and then put the light down beside a cask, so that the shadow of the cask was upon that part where I was. He moved here and there in a seeking attitude till he had approached the sail close; then said in a whisper: ‘Where are you, Marian?’ I raised my head. ‘Hang me if you don’t roll up as though you were the sail itself,’ said he. ‘How do you like it?’ ‘It’s horribly black and lonesome, but I’m content. I’d not be elsewhere.’ ‘The convicts are aboard, and Butler’s one of them. I saw him and nodded. He looks well--I mean pretty well.’ I started up and cried: ‘Will, if you see him to speak to, don’t tell him I’m here. He loves me too much to suffer it. He’d betray me. He’d get me sent ashore.’ ‘I don’t think so. I’ll not say a word. No chance indeed; you mayn’t talk to ’em. I can’t stop. The mate sent an apprentice here for a canvas bucket. I took the job to give you the news and see how you are. Anything you want, Marian?’ ‘Nothing, Will.’ ‘I forgot to tell you there’s the handle of a scrubbing brush lying near your provisions; you’ll easily get it by feeling. You’ll need it to knock with should you want to get out. Bless you, my brave old woman!’ and so, whispering, he took a stride, picked up a bucket, handed it and the lantern up, and sprang through the hatch, which immediately afterward was closed.