When he at last remembered to take the hatches off the children, they were half dead with suffocation. It was hot enough, stuffy enough anyhow down there, only the square opening above for ventilation; but with the hatches even loosely in place it was a Black Hole. Emily had at last dropped asleep, and slept late, through a chain of nightmares: when she did wake in the closed hold, she sat up, then fainted immediately, and fell back, her breath coming in loud snores. Before she came to again she was already sobbing miserably. At that the little ones began to cry too: which sound it was that reminded Jonsen, rather late, to take the hatches off.
He was quite alarmed when he saw them. It was not till they had been out in the morning freshness of the deck for some time that they even summoned up interest in the strange metamorphosis of the schooner that was in progress.
Jonsen looked at them with a troubled eye. They had not indeed the appearance of well-cared-for children: though he had not noticed this before. They were dirty to a fault: their clothes torn, and mended, if at all, with twine. Their hair was not only uncombed—there was tar in it. They were mostly thin, and a yellowy-brown colour. Only Rachel remained obstinately plump and pink. The scar on Emily’s leg was still a blushing purple: and they all were blotched with insect bites.
Jonsen called José off his painting job: gave him a bucket of fresh water: the mate’s (the only) comb: and a pair of scissors. José wondered innocently: they did not look to him particularly dirty. But he did his duty, while they were still too sorry for themselves to object actively, to do anything more than sob weakly when he hurt them. Even when he had finished their toilet, of course, he had not reached the point at which a nursemaid usually begins.
It was noon before the Lizzie Green looked herself—whoever that might be: and a little after noon she was still heading for “Philadelphia” when, hull down on the horizon, two sail were sighted, many miles apart, at about the same minute. Captain Jonsen considered them carefully; made his choice, and altered his course so as to fall in with her as soon as might be.
Meanwhile, the crew had no more doubt than Otto had of Jonsen’s intention: and the sound of the whetstone floated merrily aft, till each man’s knife had an edge that did its master’s heart good. I have said that the murder of the Dutch captain had affected the whole character of their piracy. The yeast was working.
Presently the smoke of a large steamer cropped up over the horizon as well. Otto sniffed the breeze. It might hold, or it might not. They were still far from home, and these seas crowded. The whole enterprise looked to him pretty desperate.
Jonsen was at his usual shuffle-shuffle, nervously biting his nails. Suddenly he turned on Otto and called him below. He was plainly very agitated; his cheeks red, his eye wild. He began by plotting himself meticulously on the chart. Then he growled over his shoulder:
“Those children, they must go.”
“Aye,” said Otto. Then, as Jonsen said no more, he added: “You’ll land them at Santa, I take it?”
“No! They must go now. We may never get to Santa.”
Otto took a deep breath.
Jonsen turned on him, blustering:
“If we get taken with them, where’ll we be, eh?”
Otto went white, then red, before he answered.
“You’ll have to risk that,” he said slowly. “You can’t land them no other place.”
“Who said I was going to land them?”
“There’s nothing else you can do,” said Otto stubbornly.
A light of comprehension dawned suddenly in Jonsen’s worried face.
“We could sew them up in little bags,” he said with a genial smile, “and put them over the side.”
Otto gave him one quick glance; what he saw was enough to relieve him.
“What are you going to do?” he asked.
“Sew them up in little bags! Sew them up in little bags!” Jonsen affirmed, rubbing his hands together and chuckling, all the latent sentimentality of the man getting the better of him. Then he pushed past Otto and went on deck.
The big brigantine, which he had aimed for at first, was proving a bit too far up the wind for him: so now he took the helm and let the schooner’s head down a couple of points, to intercept the steamer instead.
Otto whistled. At last an inkling of what the captain was at had dawned on him.
III
As they drew nearer, the children were all immensely interested: they had never before seen anything like this big, miraculous tub. The Dutch steamer, an old-fashioned craft, had not differed very materially from a sailing-vessel: but this, in form, was already more like the steamers of our own day. Its funnel was still tall and narrow, with a kind of artichoke on top, it is true: but otherwise it was much the same as you and I are used to.
Jonsen spoke her urgently: and presently her engines stopped. The Lizzie Green slipped round under her lee. Jonsen had a boat lowered: then embarked in it himself. The children and the schooner’s crew stood at the rail in tense excitement: watched a little ladder lowered from her towering iron side: watched Jonsen, alone, in his dark Sunday suit and the peaked cap of his rank, climb on board. He had timed it nicely: in another hour it would be dark.
He had no easy task. First he had his premeditated fiction to establish, his explanation
