“Yes,” Horton said; “but, in addition, there are a dozen strong screws placed round it.”

“Here is a long turn-screw which will take them out as quickly as the carpenter put them in,” James said, producing the tool; “and here,” and he opened his coat, “is a rope for lowering yourself down into the water.”

“You are very good, James,” Horton said quietly; “but it is no use.  I can’t swim.”

“I know you could not, as a boy,” James replied, “and I thought it likely enough that you have not learned since; but I think, with these, you may make a shift to get ashore,” and he produced four bladders and some strong lashing.  “If you blow these out, fasten the necks tightly, and then lash them round you, you can’t sink.  The drift of the tide will take you not very far from the point below, and, if you do your best to strike out towards the shore, I have no doubt you will be able to make it.  You must lower yourself into the water very quietly, and allow yourself to float down, till you are well astern of the vessel.”

Richard Horton stood for a minute or two, with his hand over his eyes; then he said in a broken voice: 

“God bless you, Walsham.  I will try it.  If I am shot, ’tis better than dying by my own hand.  If I escape, I will do my best to retrieve my life.  I shall never return to England again, but, under a new name, may start afresh in the colonies.  God bless you, and make you happy.”

The young men wrung each other hands, with a silent clasp, and James returned to his own cabin.

The next morning, the officer of marines reported to Captain Peters that the prisoner was missing.  The porthole was found open, and a rope hanging to the water’s edge.  The captain at once took the report to the admiral.

“A bad job,” the admiral said, with a twinkle of the eye.  “A very bad job!  How could it have happened?”

“The sentries report, sir, that they heard no noise during the night, and that the only person who visited the cabin, with the exception of the sergeant with the prisoner’s food, was Major Walsham, with your own order.”

“Yes, now I think of it, I did give him an order; but, of course, he can have had nothing to do with it.  Horton must have managed to unscrew the porthole, somehow, perhaps with a pocketknife, and he might have had a coil of rope somewhere in his cabin.  Great carelessness, you know.  However, at a time like this, we need not bother our heads about it.  He’s gone, and there’s an end of it.”

“He could not swim, sir,” the captain said.  “I heard him say so, once.”

“Then most likely he’s drowned,” the admiral remarked briskly.  “That’s the best thing that could happen.  Enter it so in the log book:  ’Lieutenant Horton fell out of his cabin window, while under arrest for misconduct; supposed to have been drowned.’  That settles the whole matter.”

Captain Peters smiled to himself, as he made the entry.  He was convinced, by the calm manner in which the admiral took it, that he more than suspected that the prisoner had escaped, and that James Walsham had had a hand in getting him off.