“It probably leads to the officers’ quarters,” said Willing.
Joe Bray looked at the door thoughtfully.
“We can’t get out, but they can get in,” he said. “We’d better put up a barricade, or they’ll be taking us in the rear, Cliff. When I think of that poor girl–-” he said, and choked.
“Which poor girl?” asked Clifford.
For the moment he had forgotten the existence of Mabel.
They left Joan to the occupation of her little bedroom, and gathered about the table in the larger cabin. The search they had made for food had produced not so much as a ship’s biscuit, though Willing had thought that a large black box in the girl’s sleeping-room might contain emergency rations. Their efforts to open or move the chest, however, were unavailing.
Then Joe had discovered in his coat pocket a cake of chocolate, and half of this had gone to the girl.
“Usually,” said Joe plaintively, “I’ve half a dozen cakes, because naturally I’ve a sweet tooth. What I’d like now is a boiled fowl with dumplings–-“
“Oh, for goodness’ sake, shut up!” growled Willing.
They tried to play games to pass the time, but this effort at cheerfulness was a dismal failure.
Six o’clock—seven o’clock came and went. The girl had been sleeping when Clifford looked in. He had closed the door so that their voices should not disturb her. Suddenly it was pulled open and Joan appeared in the doorway with a startled expression on her white face.
“What is it?” asked Clifford, springing towards her.
She lowered her voice.
“Somebody is tapping on that door,” she said. She pointed to the bulkhead door, and Lynne kept close and listened.
Tap, tap, tap!
It was repeated again. Then he heard the soft grind of a bolt being drawn, and waited, pistol in hand.
“It’s all right,” whispered a voice. “Don’t shout or they’ll hear you.”
The door opened another inch, and then wide enough to show a black face surmounted by the soiled cap of one of the ship’s officers.
“I’m Haki, the purser,” he whispered, and his hand came round holding a small canvas bag. “If Fing-Su knows this I’m finished,” he added urgently, and immediately closed the door and pushed home the bolt.
In that brief moment of time Clifford saw that the detective’s theory had been an accurate one. He looked down a dirty alleyway from which doors opened, and he had a glimpse of an untidy cabin that opened from the passage. Carrying the bag to the outer cabin, he shook out its contents: a dozen rolls, nearly new, a large chunk of cheese, and a piece of salted beef fell on the table. Clifford broke a roll suspiciously and examined it under the light.
“We’ve got to take the risk,” he said. “I’ll eat some first, and in half an hour, if nothing happens to me, we’ll have a dinner that will beat the Ritz.”
He cut a slice of the meat, tasted the cheese and the bread, and felt a brute as he saw the famished eyes of his companions fixed on him. The half hour passed, and then he brought the girl from the cabin and with their penknives they carved a meal for her.
“We’ve one friend on board, anyway,” grunted Willing. “What nationality was that chap?”
Clifford had spent two years of his youth on the African coast.
“Kroo. They’re not bad fellows, though they’re constitutional thieves,” he said.
They put aside a portion of the meal for the morning, and at his earnest solicitation Joan lay down again and fell into a troubled sleep. She did not hear the stealthy tap at the bulkhead, but Clifford, seated near the half-closed door of her cabin, detected the signal and crept in without waking her. Again the door opened.
“Everybody on the ship’s drunk,” said the black-faced officer, in a matter-of-fact tone, as though he were describing a very ordinary part of the ship’s routine. “The skipper’s scared of them finding this door. They may try to rush you later; you’ve got to be prepared for that. If they don’t, I’ll be here at six bells, and you be ready to skip, mister.”
“What’s the idea?” asked Clifford.
The man looked back down the alleyway before he answered.
“Gun-running’s nothing, but murder’s big trouble,” he said. “The skipper thinks so too.”
“Who has been murdered?”
The man did not reply at once, but closed the door hurriedly, and it was nearly half an hour before he returned.
“I heard the officer of the watch coming down,” he said, in the same conversational tone. “These Chinks often do that—leave the bridge in the middle of the Channel, eh? He’s the limit! It seems to me about time we quit this business. It was that mad fellow that was killed. He came aboard with the young lady last night.”
“Narth?” whispered Clifford in horror.
The man nodded.
“Sure. He got fresh with Fing-Su, and the Chink handed him one with a bottle. They chucked him overboard just after I brought you your eats.”
He looked round again and then gave them a piece of vital information.
“The skipper and two of the hands are getting the lifeboat down round about six bells,” he whispered. “You’ll have to slide down a rope for it. Can the young lady make it?”
“She’ll make it all right,” said Clifford and the door closed.
What was happening, he could guess. Ever since that mad dream of empire had come to Fing-Su he had had the advantage of expert advice. Leggat in his way was clever; Spedwell in his own particular line was brilliant; both were cautious men, for whose judgment the Chinese millionaire had respect. But now Fing-Su had no master but his own whims; his judgment was governed only by his muddled philosophy.
The hours of waiting seemed interminable. They sat around in the little cabin, not daring to speak for fear they should miss the signal, or be caught by the ‘rush’ which the purser had predicted. So slowly did the hands of his watch move that Clifford once or twice thought it had stopped.
Three o’clock passed; the clang of the timing bell came faintly through the protected portholes, and then there was a tap at the door and it was swung open on its hinge. The purser, in heavy sea-boots, a revolver belt about his waist, was waiting, and he beckoned them. Clifford followed, holding the girl’s hand in his, Joe Bray bringing up the rear, a gun in each hand and a partiality for violence in his heart.
They had to pass a lighted galley, and their guide put his finger on his lips to enjoin quietness. Joan had a glimpse of the broad back of the Chinese cook stooping over a steaming pot, and came safely and unobserved to the after well deck.
Two steel doors in the ship’s side had been opened. Over the edge of the deck was a taut rope, and looking down, Clifford saw that the rope was attached to a large whale-boat in which three muffled men were sitting. He turned to the girl, his lips to her ear.
“Will you dare go down that rope hand over hand?”
As the purser passed a slender line about the girl’s waist and knotted it, he said in a low voice:
“Don’t waste time…I had a radio in the night.” He did not explain what this had to do with the escape, but addressed the girl. “You’ll have to go down hand-over-hand miss,” he whispered, and she nodded, and whilst they held the safety line she slid slowly down the rough rope that cut and scorched her fingers.
The whale-boat held to the ship’s side seemed to be racing along at an incredible speed, though it was going no faster than the steamer. Somebody reached up and caught her unceremoniously by the waist and dragged her into the boat. Joe Bray followed, and justified his claim to youth by the agility with which he went down hand-over-hand in the dark. The purser was the last to leave the ship, and scrambled over the bow of the whale-boat with incredible ease.