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These were questions I could not answer; but you may be sure the knowledge that Vetch was gone acted as a whip to my determination, and I was more than ever resolved to find some way of leaving these walls behind. We had concluded, Punchard and I, that our only course must be to pierce the castle wall and let ourselves down to the moat by means of a rope.
On the night of the twenty-fourth I had the middle watch. Towards two o'clock Joe Punchard came to me, smoking a pipe, and looking more miserable than I had ever seen him. "Twill break my captain's heart if we have another day of it," he says gloomily. "He looks five years older than he did when we left Port Royal.
The instant Joe Punchard reached the deck he swung round one of the brass guns to command the roundhouse. It was already loaded, as the buccaneers knew, and Joe cried out that he would send them all to Davy Jones if they showed their noses outside the door. The shower of stones had now ceased, and the men who had gone below were swarming up to meet this unlooked-for boarding party.
Ay, please God, sir, one day we'll slip our cables, clap on all canvas, and steer for the north, though how, whereby, and by what means we can do it beats Joe Punchard." The companionship of Joe, at a time when I was weak from my sickness, mightily cheered me, and we spent much of each day together. Our longing to be free did but increase as the days passed.
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