There seemed no other course but to seize
a vessel by force and escape, but Benyowsky again played for time. The
governor's daughter discovered his plot through her servant planning to
follow one of the exiles to sea; but instead of betraying him to her
Russian father, she promised to send him red clippings of thread as
danger signals if the governor or his chancellor got wind of the
treason.
Their one aim was to get away from Asia before fresh orders could come
overland from Yakutsk. Ice still blocked the harbor in April, but the
_St. Peter and Paul_, the armed vessel that had brought the exiles
across the sea from the mainland, lay in port and was already enlisting
a crew for the summer voyage to America. The Pole sent twelve of his
men to enlist among the crew, and nightly store provisions in the hold.
The rest of the band were set to manufacturing cartridges, and buying
or borrowing all the firearms {118} they could obtain on the pretence
of hunting. Word was secretly carried from man to man that, when a
light was hoisted on the end of a flagstaff above the Benyowsky hut,
all were to rally for the settlement across the ravine from the fort.
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