I stayed about twenty minutes in the pantry, in which time I heard no kind of noise saving a dim creak now and again from the hold of the wreck. Extinguishing the candle I entered the cabin and stood debating with myself on the course I should follow. Water I must have: should I fill a jar and carry it stealthily to the boat and be off and take my chance of managing the business unheard? Yes, I would do that, and if I aroused the sleepers, why, seeing that I was willing to go they might not refuse me a supply of drink.... I was musing thus when there was the sound of a yawn on deck. At that moment I remembered the array of cutlasses that embellished the cabin ceiling. It was the noise the fellow made, the perception that one of the three at all events was awake with his mates somewhere at hand to swiftly alarm, which put the thought of those cutlasses into my head, or it is fifty to one if in the blackness of that interior I should have recollected them. I sprang upon the table and in a moment was gripping a blade. The very feel of it, the mere sense of being armed, sent the blood rushing through my veins as though to some tonic of miraculous potency. “Now,” thought I, setting my teeth, “let the ruffians fall upon me if they will. If my life is to be taken it shall not be for the want of an English arm to defend it.” I jumped on to the deck, went stealthily to the foot of the steps and listened. The man yawned again, and I heard the tread of his foot as he moved, whence I suspected him to be the yellow boatswain, the others being unshod, though to be sure there were shoes enough in the ’tween decks for them had they a mind to help themselves. As I sent a look up through the lifted corner of tarpaulin over the hatch I spied the delicate, illusive gray of daybreak in the air, and so speedy was the coming of the dawn that it lay broad with the sun close under the rim of the horizon ere I could form a resolution whilst listening to make sure that he who was on deck continued alone. Then hearing him yawn again and no sound of the others reaching my ears, I mounted the steps and gained the deck.