This thought depressed us a good deal, and presently the sun sank and the light began to fade, and a seagull that settled outside on the roof uttered a melancholy and doleful squawk.
Of course, we were far from despairing yet, and Cornwallis made a cheerful remark, and reminded me that if we had eaten our last meal on earth, at any rate it was a jolly good one.
"There may be food concealed here, for that matter. We’d better have a good hunt, and look into every hole and corner before it is dark."
This we did without success. There were many strange things there, including pieces of wreckage, a bit of an old ship’s steering-wheel, and a brass bell with a ship’s name on it; but there was nothing eatable excepting some fish to bait a lobster-pot; and the fish hadn’t been caught yesterday, and we had by no means reached the stage of exhaustion in which we could regard it as food.
"As a matter of fact, our great enemy will be thirst. I am frightfully thirsty already, for that matter."
As the light died away, we held a sort of a council, and tried to decide what exactly was our duty--to England firstly, and to ourselves secondly. We talked a good deal, until our voices grew queer to ourselves, and it all came back to the same simple fact--our duty was to get out, and we couldn’t.
Then I had the best idea that had yet come to us.
"As we can’t get out, we must try and get somebody in the outer world to let us out. The only question is, shall we attract anybody but the spy if we raise an alarm?"
Cornwallis said of course that was the question; but it didn’t matter, because we couldn’t raise an alarm.
"If we howl steadily together once every sixty seconds by your watch, like a minute-gun at sea, somebody is bound to hear sooner or later."
"Far from it, Towler. We shall only tire ourselves out, and get hungry, as well as thirsty, for no good. Our voices wouldn’t go any distance through these solid walls, and, even if they did, we are evidently in a frightfully lonely and secluded place, miles and miles from civilization, else the spy wouldn’t have chosen it for his operations."
I admitted this, but we did try a yell or two. The result was feeble, and I myself said that if any belated traveller heard it, he would only murmur a prayer and cross himself, and hurry on, like they do in books. Then Cornwallis decided to break the window. He didn’t know why exactly, but he felt he wanted to be up and doing in a sort of way. Besides, it was beastly fuggy in the spy’s den; so we broke the window with a boat-hook, and I got on the shoulders of Cornwallis and had a good yell through it; but no answer came.