When the last guard departed and the outer door clanged shut, all the forty beaten, disappointed men began to talk and ask questions.

But, almost immediately, roaring like a bull in order to be heard, Skysail Jack, a giant sailor of a lifer, ordered silence while a census could be taken.
The dungeons were full, and dungeon by dungeon, in order of dungeons, shouted out its quota to the roll-call.

Thus, every dungeon was accounted for as occupied by trusted convicts, so that there was no opportunity for a stool to be hidden away and listening.
Of me, only, were the convicts dubious, for I was the one man who had not been in the plot.

They put me through a searching examination.

I could but tell them how I had just emerged from dungeon and jacket in the morning, and without rhyme or reason, so far as I could discover, had been put back in the dungeon after being out only several hours.