“But surely Lynch didn’t intend staying by the ship?  Why, when the Old Man found out he’d skin him alive!” I exclaimed.

“He said not, and I think not,” she said.  “He has sailed under my—­my husband for years.  He is not like Mr. Fitzgibbon, and the others.  He does not fear my husband.  I think Angus fears him.  He knows things that have happened in this ship that my—­my husband dare not have told on shore.  He refused when we urged him to come with us; he declared he would be in no danger, that he could guard himself.  I think he can.”

The lady clenched her hands, and her voice broke a little, as she disclosed the anxiety that was wrenching her soul.

“But now—­I don’t know what he will do.  If we can free Roy in time; if we can stop trouble forward!  Then I know Mr. Lynch will keep his promise; he will lock up Angus and the mate, get them out of the way somehow, until Roy and I have left the ship.  But if the men rise before we have gone—­then he will think his duty is to the ship.  He will not think of us, and my—­my husband will do what he wishes.  Do you understand?”

“Yes, ma’am.  But we have until midnight, or after, and it’s just a little past two bells, now.  Ten minutes more, ma’am, and I’ll have this hole open.”

But it took a little longer than ten minutes.  Three bells struck while I was still whittling and digging at the caulking in the seams with my sheath knife.  But the echo of the big ship’s bell forward had hardly died away when I carefully, ever so carefully, lifted up and laid back the cut-away section of the deck.  I had left the caulking at one end nearly intact, so the solid piece laid back like a trap-door.

The lady and I knelt by the side of the hole and peered down into the littered darkness.  We could make out, dimly, heaps of barrels and boxes.  A damp, chill air rushed up into our faces, carrying with it the sound of a scurrying rat, and another sound which made the lady gasp and tremble, and caused me to grind my teeth with rage.  It was a long, drawn-out sigh, the moan of a man in agony of flesh or spirit.  It was Newman’s voice.  Mingling with it, and following it, came the low, demoniac chuckle of Captain Swope.

Lying flat and craning my neck into the hole, I saw, far over on the other side of the ship, the flicker of a lantern upon boxes.  I immediately drew back, got to my feet, and extinguished the lamp in the gimbals.  Then I snatched a blanket from the steward’s bunk, and spread it across the hole.  That done, there was no danger of light or draught betraying us to the man below.

I asked orders of the lady, and discussed ways and means with her.  It was decided at once that I should go below and effect Newman’s release—­and she gave me the small key that the Chinaman had filched.  I was the stronger and more active, and could more easily make my way about in the dark, cluttered lazaret; besides, her work lay above.  Swope was evidently pleasuring himself by viewing and taunting his helpless prisoner; he must be drawn away from this amusement.