"No doubt," said their youthful leader. "But pipe down and attend to me. Second, the noise of the musket will alarm all the other guards, and there are at least ten in this prison. Beamish wouldn't have got the guard's trousers on before they'd be rushing up here. And third, there's the main door of this prison to pass afterwards, with an armed man always on duty there."
No one spoke in reply to this unanswerable argument.
"Our aim, of course," continued Septimus, "would be to get to the quays and steal a boat. But even if we got outside the prison, with Beamish escorting us in his French uniform, we'd have little chance of getting to the shipping without being stopped and questioned. And none of us--least of all Beamish--can act the Frenchman well enough to deceive any native of this town."
There was a pause. The attitudes of the seamen showed their disappointment.
"What'll we do, then, sir?" growled Dobbs at last. "Ain't we to make a try at all?"
"We'll try, Dobbs--but we need to think out two more things yet. We want a way of dealing with the two men silently, and we want a disguise of some kind. For, as you know, the door of this room is too solid to break through and it's never opened during hours of darkness."
He was sorry to pour cold water on their enthusiasm, but he had learned that British seamen, though brave as lions when they had fighting to do, were no good at strategy. He turned to look out of the window again, conscious that the men were discouraged. His eye fell on the gaudy poster advertising the visit of Enrico's "Troupe", and it gave him an idea. He swung round with a smile.
"One thing we've to do, men," he cried, "is to keep ourselves in trim for when the chance comes. Physical exercises! Stand by, all-we'll show the Frogs a prison doesn't worry us. Leap-frog! Come on, Beamish-lead the line!"
He bent down, hands clasping ankles to "make a back". Beamish, looking far from enthusiastic, trotted up and vaulted over him.
"Look lively, there!" he growled at the others, and they followed with obvious reluctance.
It chanced that the little Cockney, Eccles, was next in line, and it was only natural that he should get stuck in trying to leap-frog over the huge Beamish. His yells and protests as the massive seaman shook him off like a bothersome fly started a laugh. And next moment, instead of behaving like a parcel of sulky infants, the men were shouting and skylarking in the highest spirits.
Leap-frog was quickly dropped in favour of feats of strength and balance. O'Neill displayed an astonishing expertness in turning "cartwheels" and the solemn Frith unexpectedly walked twice round the room on his hands. Beamish seized the struggling Eccles and, placing his ham-like hand in the small of the little seaman's back, raised him at arm's length above his head and kept him there for some minutes. Dobbs and Wallace, not to be outdone, clutched each other round the waist and executed a wild dance, to the danger of the other performers in the confined space of their prison.
Septimus had no tricks of this kind, though he had once been able to juggle with three balls. He stood aside and laughed until his ribs ached at the antics of the seamen. At the height of the fun there came a thunderous knock on the door, and it flew open to reveal the prison guard with his musket levelled-the escort of their supper. The Frenchman's jaw dropped and he drew back a pace as he saw his prisoners apparently gone mad.
"Entrez, mon ami," said Septimus encouragingly. "This is the English way of cultivating an appetite."
The guard scowled and watched them narrowly as his comrade brought in the tray with their soup and bread and set it on the floor inside the door. Then the door closed again and its massive iron lock clashed.
After their supper had been eaten the seamen seemed to lose their cheerfulness again. Sunset was past, their cell was darkening, and it was difficult to avoid thinking of their fate. For years they would be prisoners, for though "exchanges" were frequently arranged for officers, captured French officers being released in exchange for British officers of equivalent rank, there was no such hope for a common seaman. They sat despondently on the straw or lay trying to sleep, while Septimus, watching the last light fade above Marseilles from his post by the window, cudgelled his brains for some plan of escape that would not be entirely hopeless. He could see none.
Their prison room was on the first floor of the building, and (as he remembered from their arrival) a short passage led from the door to the head of some stairs. That door had been thoroughly investigated by the prisoners. It was of solid oak five inches thick, with a new lock. Even Beamish's strength had no earthly chance of bursting it open, and they had no weapons or tools of any sort except the spoons of pliable metal which were used for eating their soup. The stairs led down into a stone-flagged hall where a sentry sat night and day close to the main entrance door of the building. Outside was a ten-foot-wide space all round the prison, beyond which was a wall twelve feet high topped by an iron fence of spikes. The big prison gate was in the front of this wall, facing the Rue de la Ferronnerie, and a sentry was on duty there.
The outer wall was certainly unclimbable for one unaided man, Septimus reflected. But for two-or seven-men, one of whom was a giant like Tod Beamish, the passage of that barrier was not impossible. That was the only part of their escape route that seemed to offer any hope. To reach the wall, they had to overpower two guards, in silence; to deal with the sentry at the main door and unlock it with his keys; and to elude or overpower the sentry on the gate. And even if they did all this and got over the prison wall, they were seven Englishman in naval rig in the midst of a great port crowded with their enemies. It all looked completely hopeless.
To fend off the despair that was creeping upon him he began to consider carefully each stage of the journey of escape. He found that he was unable to remember the position of the sentry at the prison gate, and called Beamish to him.
"Why, sir," replied Beamish to his question, "there's the sentrybox on the starboard hand as we came in through the gate-belay that, though. It was outside the gate, sir."
That was something, Septimus told himself. Once in the courtyard within the wall, there was a good chance that the sentry on the other side of the massive oaken gate would not hear their further movements. That was one of their three obstacles gone.
"Still thinking of getting clear, sir?" said Beamish, who had been watching him eagerly. "We're all with you, sir, no matter how desperate it seems."
"Any plan I propose, Beamish, will have a fair chance of success," returned the midshipman severely. "It is our duty to rejoin our ship, not to indulge in desperate measures."
"Aye aye, sir," said Beamish, smothering a grin; he knew Septimus by this time. "But-d'you think there's a bit of hope, sir?"
"Our only hope is in something occurring to help us, I'm afraid. We can do nothing at present, except turn in. There'll be no visitors for us tonight."
But there Mr. Quinn was mistaken. Half-an-hour later the door was flung open and two guards armed with muskets entered, followed by a third with a lantern. As the prisoners sat up blinking at the light a small elderly man dressed in black, with the tricolour scarf of the Republic across his breast, came in carrying a large book, an inkhorn, and a pen.
"I am Jacques Rebuffat, clerk to the Governor," he announced in excellent English. "I require the full name of each prisoner. Those who can write will write them in this book themselves."
The process of name-taking began. Septimus was left until last. When the clerk presented the open book for him to write in he saw that the man's forefinger was holding to the page a slip of paper bearing two sentences in small handwriting. He read them quickly.