Only fools were honest, only cowards kissed the rod, and failed to meditate revenge on that world of respectability which had wronged them.

Each new-comer was one more recruit to the ranks of ruffianism, and not a man penned in that reeking den of infamy but became a sworn hater of law, order, and "free-men." What he might have been before mattered not.

He was now a prisoner, and--thrust into a suffocating barracoon, herded with the foulest of mankind, with all imaginable depths of blasphemy and indecency sounded hourly in his sight and hearing--he lost his self-respect, and became what his gaolers took him to be--a wild beast to be locked under bolts and bars, lest he should break out and tear them.
The conversation ran upon the sudden departure of the four.

What could they want with them at that hour?
"I tell you there's something up on deck," says one to the group nearest him.

"Don't you hear all that rumbling and rolling ?" "What did they lower boats for?
I heard the dip o' the oars." "Don't know, mate.