They have not started!" Uncle Prudent made a gesture of disappointment.

"We shall have to put out the match," said he.
"No," said Phil Evans, "we must escape!" "Escape ?" "Yes! down the cable! Fifty yards is nothing!" "Nothing, of course, Phil Evans, and we should be fools not to take the chance now it has come." But first they went back to the cabin and took away all they could carry, with a view to a more or less prolonged stay on the Chatham Islands.

Then they shut the door and noiselessly crept forward, intending to wake Frycollin and take him with them.
The darkness was intense.

The clouds were racing up from the southwest, and the aeronef was tugging at her anchor and thus throwing the cable more and more out of the vertical.

There would be no difficulty in slipping down it.
The colleagues made their way along the deck, stopping in the shadow of the deckhouses to listen if there was any sound.