I guess not," confessed the little girl.

"Then it can't be morning," Sammy declared, for what better time-keeper
can there be than a child's stomach?

"But aren't they going to let us out--not ever, Sammy?" wailed the
little girl.

"Pshaw! Of course they will. Some time they'll want to load up this old
boat. And then they'll have to open the door up there in the deck. So
we'll get out."

"But--but suppose it should be a long, long time?" breathed Dot,
thrilled with the awfulness of the thought.

"We got plenty to eat," Sammy said stoutly.

"Not now we haven't, Sammy," Dot reminded him. "We ate a lot."

"But there's all the potatoes--"

"I wouldn't like 'em raw," put in Dot, with decision. "And you can't
catch any fish as you were going to with your hook and line, Sammy. I
heard that girl that's with the other pirates," she added, "tell their
dog that he couldn't even catch rabbits along the canal. And what do you
think, Sammy Pinkney!"

"What?" he asked, drearily enough.

"Why, Sadie Goronofsky said last spring that she had an uncle that was a
rabbit. What do you think of that? I never heard of such a thing, did
you?"

"He was a rabbit, Dot?" gasped Sammy, brought to life by this strange
statement.

"That's just what she said. She said he was a rabbit, and he wore a
round black cap and had long whiskers--like our goat, I guess. And he
prayed--"

"Je-ru-sa-_lem_!" ejaculated Sammy.

"And the rabbit, Sadie's uncle, prayed," went on Dot, uninfluenced by
Sammy's ejaculation. "Now what do you think of that?"

Master Sammy was as ignorant of the Jewish ritual and synagogue officers
as was Dot Kenway. He burst out with disgust:

"I think Sadie Goronofsky was telling a fib, that's what _I_ think!"

"I'm afraid so," Dot concluded with a sigh. "But I don't like to think
so. I meant to ask Ruthie about it," and she shook her head again, still
much puzzled over Sadie's uncle who was a rabbi.

The day waned, and still the two little stowaways heard nothing from
above--not even the snuffing of the old hound about the hatch-cover.
They were buried it seemed out of the ken of other human beings. It made
them both feel very despondent. Sammy stuck to his guns and would not
cry; but after a while Dot sobbed herself to sleep again--with a great
luscious peach from Ruthie's basket of fruit, clutched in her hand and
staining the frock of the Alice-doll.

The _Nancy Hanks_ was finally brought to a mooring just acro