CHAPTER X.EIGHT BELLS.
At seven o'clock there had been also a commotion in the prison.

The news of the fever had awoke in the convicts all that love of liberty which had but slumbered during the monotony of the earlier part of the voyage.
Now that death menaced them, they longed fiercely for the chance of escape which seemed permitted to freemen.

"Let us get out!" they said, each man speaking to his particular friend.

"We are locked up here to die like sheep." Gloomy faces and desponding looks met the gaze of each, and sometimes across this gloom shot a fierce glance that lighted up its blackness, as a lightning-flash renders luridly luminous the indigo dullness of a thunder-cloud.

By and by, in some inexplicable way, it came to be understood that there was a conspiracy afloat, that they were to be released from their shambles, that some amongst them had been plotting for freedom.