'Prithee be quiet,' they returned, 'and do not think of impossibilities, though, if indeed you could open some way of escape, so that we should not be condemned as madmen for trying as it were to pull the sun out of the heavens, then we would risk our lives; and you may be sure of silence.' After this the slavery continued, and the Turks set their captives to work at all the meanest tasks, and even when they laboured hardest, flogged and reviled them, till more and more John Rawlins became resolved to recover his liberty and surprise the ship. So he provided ropes with broad spikes of iron, and all the iron crows, with which he could, with the help of the others, fasten up the scuttles, gratings, and cabins, and even shut up the captain himself with his companions; and so he intended to work the enterprise, that, at a certain watchword, the English being masters of the gunner-room and the powder, would either be ready to blow the Turks into the air, or kill them as they came out one by one, if by any chance they forced open the cabins. Then, very cautiously, he told the four free Dutchmen of his plot, and last of all the Dutch renegades, who were also in the gunner-room; and all these consented readily to so daring an enterprise. So he fixed the time for the venture in the captain's morning watch. But you must understand that where the English slaves were there always hung four or five iron crows, just under the gun carriages, and when the time came it was very dark, so that John Rawlins, in taking out his iron dropped it on the side of the gun, making such a noise that the soldiers, hearing it, waked the Turks and told them to come down. At this the boatswain of the Turks descended with a candle, and searched everywhere, making a great deal of stir, but finding neither hatchet nor hammer, nor anything else suspicious, only the iron which lay slipped down under the gun-carriages, he went quietly up again and told the captain what had happened, who thought that it was no remarkable thing to have an iron slip from its place. But through this John Rawlins was forced to wait for another opportunity.