"Then it looks as if some one had got an amazingly good idee of what we would do, and from what part of the town we'd set off," Hiram said thoughtfully. "Those fellows couldn't have set about their work better if we'd told them in advance that we'd leave the ship-yard and try to go to Cambridge." Like a flash came into my mind the thought that Seth Jepson might have succeeded in doing us this mischief, if mischief had really been done; but I dismissed it on the instant, saying to myself that surely the lad could not have known what we were likely to do, even were it probable he had had opportunity of speaking to those we had stumbled against. "It is neither more nor less than blind chance," I said in reply to my companion's words. "Because we headed for the ship-yard they supposed we had a boat nearby, and because our people were gathering at Cambridge they would naturally say it was our purpose to go there." "Whichever way you put it, it's going to be mighty tough on us, for unless those fellows get tired of pulling that heavy boat 'twixt now and sunrise, we are like to be held here until to-morrow night." CHAPTER IV THE PRISONER Whether it was that those who were the same as holding us prisoners on the island had an inkling we were somewhere in the vicinity, or if it was by pure chance that they happened to patrol that particular part of the harbor just then, I am unable to say; but certain it was that they remained continually on the move throughout the entire night, never going so far away that we had half an opportunity of slipping out unobserved, and now and then coming so near that it was possible for us to hear their conversation. As the moments passed and it became almost certain we must remain in hiding during the coming day, I fell into a perfect fever of impatience. Now blaming myself most bitterly for having attempted to warn Silas of what we were to do, and again saying that I was showing myself a coward by thus leaving Archie to his fate, although what I might have done just then in his behalf I could not have said. As a matter of course we had brought with us neither food nor water, thinking the voyage to Cambridge would be accomplished in a few hours at the most, and therefore it was that Hiram and I faced hunger and thirst, knowing that both must be endured by us before the sun had set again. "It's a case of bearing whatever comes, and looking pleasant," my companion said when the grey light of a new day appeared in the eastern sky. "I allow that the hours will seem precious long before we dare poke our noses out of this clump of bushes again, but what can't be cured must be endured, and seein's how we haven't had any sleep, I'm proposing to bottle up as much as I may while those blooming lobster backs hold us here like rats in a trap."