However, this Sunday afternoon, whilst I stood near her, talking in a low voice, her father sitting in a chair that I had brought from the cuddy, full in the sun, whose light seemed to put new life into him--I said to her with a smile-- "If to-night is dark enough, the boatswain must be drowned." "Yes," she answered, "I know. It will not be too soon, you think?" "No. I shall not be easy until I get him stowed away in the hold." "You will see," she exclaimed, "that the poor fellow takes plenty to eat and drink with him?" "A good deal more than he wants is already there," I answered. "For the last three days he has been dropping odds and ends of food down the fore hatch. Let the worst come to the worst, he had smuggled in enough, he tells me, to last him for a fortnight. Besides, the water-casks are there." "And how will he manage to sleep?" "Oh, he'll coil up and snug himself away anyhow. Sailors are never pushed for a bedstead: anything and everything serves. The only part of the job that will be rather difficult is the drowning him. I don't know anything that will make a louder splash and sink quickly too, than a box of nails. The trouble is to heave it overboard without the man at the wheel seeing me do it; and I must contrive to let him think that the boatswain is aft, before I raise the splash, because if this matter is not ship-shape and carried out cleverly, the man, whoever he may be that takes the wheel, will be set thinking and then get on to talking. Now, not the shadow of a suspicion must attend this." "May I tell you how I think the man who is steering can be deceived?" "By all means." She fixed her eyes on the sea and said-- "I must ask some questions first. When you come on deck, will it be the boatswain's or the carpenter's turn to go downstairs?" "The carpenter's. He must be turned in before I move." "And will the same man be at the wheel who steered the ship during the carpenter's watch?" "No. He will be relieved by a man out of the port watch." "Now I understand. What I think is that the man who comes to take the other one's place at the wheel ought to see the boatswain as he passes along the deck. The boatswain should stand talking with you in full sight of this man, that is, near the wheel, if the night is dark, so that he can hear his voice, if he cannot distinguish his face; and when all is quiet in the fore part of the ship, then you and he should walk away and stand yonder," pointing, as she spoke, to the creak of the poop. I listened to her with interest and curiosity.