We moved forward a little way to get well into the shelter of the awning and out of hearing of the fellow at the wheel. The bottle had been half full. We emptied it and threw it and the broken tumbler overboard, and talked whilst we watched the motions of the convicts on the main-deck and listened to the choruses of the brutal revellers in the cuddy. Some of the mutinous sailors went aloft with tackles on the main and fore-yards; meanwhile a number of the convicts cleared away the long-boat, a large, squab fabric which lay stowed forward of the galley. Tom said she was big enough to safely carry forty souls. ‘I wish you and I and Will there were in her,’ said he, out of sight of this ship. ‘But she’ll provide us with the opportunity we want,’ he added, with a sideway motion of his head towards the gig over the stern. ‘What are your plans after we leave the ship?’ said I. ‘The gig’s a little boat for this vast sea.’ ‘My plans,’ he answered, making as if he would take my hand, and arresting the gesture with a fierce glance at the helmsman, ‘are first of all to get away. The rest must be our fortune. Anyhow, we’ll endeavour to keep afloat till we’re picked up.’ ‘It might run into weeks before we fall in with a ship just here,’ said Will, ‘and what’s to happen then? It’s very well for Marian and me--what’s to become of you, sir?’ ‘What’s to become of Tom?’ cried I. ‘If you mean that, you must ask what’s to become of me too.’ Tom stood up and said: ‘The convicts mustn’t see us always together, and particularly will it not do for them to see us talking earnestly. They’re felons, with the suspicions and passions of felons. I’m going to the captain’s cabin.’ He walked briskly to the companion-way, at which he paused to look steadily round the sea, and then disappeared. ‘Why do you take me up so sharply, Marian?’ said Will. ‘Call me Marlowe. Suppose you should be overheard? Sharply? Why do you ask what’s to become of Tom? It never could be right with me if it’s to be wrong with him. And yet you say it’ll be all right for you and me if we’re picked up.’ ‘If we’re picked up he may be carried to England. What then?’ ‘We’ll not allow ourselves to be picked up by a ship going to England.’ ‘We may be nearly dead with thirst and without provisions. Look what a sea it is! Do you know where we are? This is the junction of the two Atlantics. If you are dying of thirst you’ll be glad to be picked up, though the ship we should fall in with were bound to--to----’ And my cousin, with an expressive face, pointed downward. ‘Don’t talk to me. Leave it all to Tom. He is an old sailor, and will he risk the liberty he has got this day? I would sink and drown in his arms sooner than stay in this detestable ship, or not be by his side wherever he goes!’