These preliminaries having been settled by Joe and myself, the time
was come for taking our roommates into our confidence. I did not
disguise from myself that we were staking a great deal on their
loyalty, and even more on their silence, for the slightest whisper
of the plot outside our own little company would be fatal. There
were ten of us bandsmen altogether. At first I thought of speaking
to the men individually, and thus testing their courage and
enterprise. But on reflection I decided that what was most
requisite to our success was a corporate spirit, which could be
best engendered by opening the matter to them as a body.
Accordingly, one evening, when we were assembled in the dormitory
for a practice, I took the fateful plunge.
I am not an orator, and I shall not set down here the words in
which I addressed them. Suffice it to say that they listened very
attentively, not at first perceiving the full drift of my meaning,
so careful was I to feel my way with them. They held me in some
special consideration, which I no doubt owed partly to Joe
Punchard, who had told them something of my story, and when at
length I declared plainly our intention to escape, asked them if
they would join hands with us, and impressed on them the necessity
of maintaining silence about it, they one and all promised that
never a word should pass their lips.
As to the scheme itself, when I unfolded its details, they were
somewhat dubious, and, strangely enough, the most enthusiastic in
its favor was little Runnles, the melancholy flute player, and the
most doubtful was the bosun, whose physical courage was equal to
anything, but who was daunted by what appealed more particularly to
the moral qualities of patience and endurance.
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