“Ay, as soon as night shall have come,” Seth Hartley said gravely; “but you must go over in your mind once more all the dangers. Suppose we leave here to find the sloop, an’ fail in so doin’, or come to grief through Tory, or English soldier, then have we doomed Abel Grant to death, for he will make the attempt on the chances that nothin’ goes wrong with our end of the business. Then again, we may come upon the Swiftsure without trouble, only to be brought up with a sharp turn by one of the king’s ships, in which case your friend will swim on and on without meetin’ help, and then, exhausted, sink to death. We shall be strivin’ to perform the impossible, and if one cog of the wheel fails to fit exactly with another, the whole machine goes to pieces.” “Abel was ready to take the chances?” I asked. “Ay, so Barney says.” “An’ you believe your mate will do all in his power?” “Barney won’t willingly fail us, though who can say that when the time comes he may not be ordered to other duty, an’ you lads are left in the lower bay waitin’ for him who is not able to come.” “That doesn’t count,” I replied impatiently. “To my mind the most important question is as to whether we can do our part on time, and for that Abel Grant trusts us.” “Then we will set off as soon after nightfall as seems safest,” Seth said as if the conversation was at an end, and indeed it was for a time, because neither Sam nor I could find words for speculation while our brains were awhirl with the general idea. Seth Hartley set about breaking his fast with the flint-like biscuits, while we lads sat on the frail platform silent and motionless, our thoughts going out to this new venture which was as wild and desperate as man could devise. After a time, however, when we were grown accustomed to the idea, so to speak, we talked of the possibilities of how we might best accomplish our portion of the task, or of what could be done in case the sloop had been captured by the enemy, and thus it was that this last portion of our sojourn in the swamp passed as swiftly as the earlier part had gone slowly. I was actually surprised when the shadows began to lengthen, to find that the day was nearly done, and, believing that we would set off early, I made ready for the journey by eating heartily of the hard biscuits, Sam following my example. As on the previous night, one by one the boats returned to the ship, carrying the liberty men and the sailors until it was as if we alone remained on the island. “I’m allowin’ that we’d better hang on here till it’s reasonable to believe that those inland, who live on our line of march, have turned in for the night,” Seth Hartley said when he saw Sam and I moving about as if to make the start. “It’s better to wait an hour too long, than set off to find ourselves prisoners through bein’ too impatient.”